Why I Oughta...

After taking a full year off, our back stoop rhododendrons are blooming again this year with beautiful purple flowers. Both shrubs (these are evergreen...which always amazes me) are pictured side-by-side above, and there are individual (slightly larger) individual photos below in this post. The last time these flowered was when they were planted in May of 2018 .  In 2019, like all of our flowering trees/shrubs, the buds appear to have been killed by a cold Winter. On the left (above), is the Southern one.  On the right (above), is the one to the North of the stoop.  The southern one is larger in both dimensions - taller and seemingly wider as it has some branches that are spreading out a bit more.  It has taller blooms and - at this point - more of them.  The northern one is more compact, but has what seems like deeper green foliage.    I applied Wilt-Pruf to both of these last Winter and...frankly....I'm not sure if it helps.  Seems like it is one of those things

A few days ago, I posted some sad photos of the small Canadian Hemlock trees that have been devoured by some freakin' rabbits in our backyard this Winter.  After I spotted that damage, I wanted to take a closer look at some of the other shrubs in our yard to see if there's more damage that occured between when we put the yard to bed for the Winter and now when it is starting to 'wake up'.  Unfortunately, I found more.  Both rabbit damage.  And Winter damage.  Let's start with this Hicks upright yew.  It is the one on the northern edge of the hedge.  And is the only one that has this much winter damage.  For history, I bought these Hicks Yews in July and planted them in the ground shortly thereafter.  This hedge (or...eventual hedge) is part of my 2020 " Priority Area 3 ' from my recent planning series.  This post is now part of my Winter Damage Series , I guess.  Full tag of posts here . It includes this post on our Front boxwood bronzing from

That's a wheelbarrow full of 12 2# Upright Hicks Yews that are destined for our backyard.  #5 on my 2019 Garden To-Do List was to get some Yews into our yard with a hedge and now that I've waited for these to go on sale, I'm this much closer to getting this item crossed off my list.  What's the inspiration for these?  This curvy, swooping hedge from Bunny Williams' Instagram .    I bought Yews that were originally marked for $34.99 that Home Depot discounted all the way down to $9. I bought Upright Hicks Yews - which Monrovia describes thusly : An excellent evergreen shrub for tall hedges and privacy screens. The long, upright-growing branches with dense, glossy, dark green foliage naturally form a narrow, columnar habit that works well as a foundation plant, or placed in pairs at entries or doorways.  I've talked about my love of all things columnar - and that love extends to shrubs. The spacing on the back of the card claims 8' to 12', bu

I first came across a Weeping White Spruce tree via Laura @ Garden Answer on Youtube .  I've embedded her video below and have set it to start at 1:03 mark in the video where she talks about how they picked this tree out.  In particular, she talks about how we're not supposed to judge an evergreen by what it looks like as a 'baby tree'.    The Weeping White Spruce is a columnar evergreen and it is a weeping tree.  By now, you guys know I love columnar varieties of trees and are drawn to those because it means that I can pack more trees into the yard as they grow.   The first weeping conifer that I bought was last year was the Weeping Himalayan Cedar Tree that I planted about a year ago .  Earlier this month, I posted my concern for the tree as it had suddenly turned brown, but the good news is that it seems it has recovered and there is new, green growth all over the place .    I also added six ( but just three of them planted so far) Canadian Hemlocks to br

I had a credit an an online tree nursery from a tree that we tried that died that was about to expire, so I went hunting on their site to find something useful and interesting for our yard.  To date, we've planted 26 trees ( full list here ) and have 21 of those trees that are still with us. If you read my post about my 2019 to-do list , you might remember that #8 was to 'do something with conifers'.  I started my 'conifer journey' this Spring by adding three Gold Cone Junipers to the backyard .  But those aren't technically trees as they're classified as shrubs . Taking those couple of dynamics (having a credit and wanting to do something with conifers), I decided to take a peek at our landscape plan and decided to pick out six VERY SMALL Canadian Hemlocks.  You can see the size of them in the photo at the top.  With the pot, these are about three feet tall. This post is about just three of them, though.  I'll post again when I get the other th

Number Eight on my 2019 To-Do List is to add some conifers to our yard this season and I'm getting an early start on checking the box.  I picked up three of these Gold Cone Junipers that are small sized at Menards this past weekend.  I put one of them in the cast iron pot outside of our garage just to fill the space, but I intend to put them in the ground in the backyard as soon as the soil temperature increases later this month. The tag below shows these in their Spring, golden spendor.  The back lists the size - which is the big reason I'm drawn to these:  they will get about five feet tall, but stay 1-2' wide.  Columnar.    Or something akin to an 'exclamation point' in the garden. The big question in my mind is:  are these trees? Turns out the answer is 'no'.  Can't count them as trees.  They are technically "evergreen coniferous bush".  Can't count them in the number of trees that we've planted - technically.  But should

Back in December, I posted about an experiment that I was conducting with the application of Wilt-Pruf to one of our Rhododendrons that are located on either side of our back stoop.  Wilt-Pruf is an anti-transpirant that I bought to use on our fresh-cut Christmas Trees, but I also learned can be applied to any evergreen in an attempt to help it get through difficult Winters.  Wilt-Pruf is a natural product made of pine oil and creates a clear, almost flexible coating on the leaves and needles.   I sprayed it on just one of the Rhododendrons and figured it would be useful to compare the results.   The photo you see at the top is shows both of them on top/bottom.  The plant on the top is the one that had Wilt-Pruf applied.  The plant on the bottom was left bare.   The results?  Hard for me to say if it did anything, frankly.  I think the one that was treated has less spotting on the leaves, but maybe that's just random?   Thus, I'd say the experiment is incon

Back in November, I posted about how I was dreaming about a columnar conifer like this Columnar Norway Spruce that I found online .  The Tree Center is selling 1 gallon versions of this tree for $50 , but with the pot being just one gallon, you can bet that that tree is tiny. Then, just a couple of days ago, I shared my 2019 To-Do Garden List that included as #8 on the list :  do something *more* with conifers.  I mentioned this very Columnar Norway Spruce. Funny thing that I just came across a photo on Instagram from Lurvey Landscape Supply - which happens to be in Volo, Illinois and is on the way to Twin Lakes.  I've long admired their place as we drove by, but I assumed that it was a wholesale place.  Turns out, I was wrong and they not only do retail business, they encourage visits via their social handles.  (Side note:  this is a different place than I posted about in regards to their topiaries , but is ON THE SAME ROAD - as we travel to Twin Lakes.  I've noted in

I'm posting this photo of this tiny tree to see if I can document if it is, indeed, dying before my very eyes.  This is something that we had originally planted out in one of the girl's fairy garden this Summer.  It was an expensive plant (like $12), so before the frost hit, I thought that I'd bring it inside to see if we could overwinter it.  I *think* it is getty more brown everyday, but I'm unsure.  So, this post will serve as a guidepost for me when I revisit this thing in January.  The top looks just fine, right?  But look at that bottom part.  Almost orange.  *Fingers crossed* for survival.  I've done this 'will it make it?' thing with larger trees out in yard.  Here's the same type of post from our first Dawn Redwood . 

In the photo above you can see both of our Rhododendrons that flank the stoop out the back door of our family.  In April of last year, I showed the landscape plan that specified these two plants to be placed in the beds on either side of the rear stoop and then in June, I got around to actually planting them .  And they bloomed beautifully this Summer .  They're a really interesting plant/shrub because they have an almost tropical appearance but also are winter hardy here in Zone 5B.  They keep their leaves on all winter, but that doesn't mean they can't use a little bit of help in fighting off the harsh cold and ice. And that's where something called Wilt-Pruf comes in.  Wilt-Pruf is an Anti-transpirant.  That means it helps protect plants from drying out.  We bought the concentrate version and mixed up a batch to put on some of our plants/trees.  I sprayed our Weeping Cedar in the back .  And the little boxwoods that I added near the foundation behind our kitch

Back in January, I posted a little snapshot of another part of our landscape plan that was of the far, southwest corner of our property .  That corner included the addition of three Canadian Hemlock trees.  In that post, I mentioned that the plan actually calls for nine of these Hemlocks and at the time, I had not planted any of them.   Here, today, is a look at another slice/section of our landscape plan.  There are multiple elements in this little image, but I want to focus on what is in green: three Canadian Hemlocks.  This is about 2/3rds of the way back between our house and the property line and as you can see they're tucked in against the northern fence line.   Those of you following along know that I've posted these in a series. The other plan sections that I've shared include: southern fence line with Hydrangeas and allium , one of our rear foundation beds outside of our kitchen , the north fence line that we put the Frans Fontaine European Hornb

The reforestation continues.  When we bought the lot in Downers Grove, we knew we were going to have to take down some trees due to construction.  The Village of Downers Grove forced us to invest in quite a bit of infrastructure in the name of water management and one of the outcomes of that (digging and placing a big basin, connecting it down to the sewers, etc) was that we took down eight to ten pretty mature trees. Because of that fact and the idea that we want a private, good looking property, we've undertaken quite a bit of planting of trees in what I'm calling a 'reforestation'.  In the first year (2017), we planted exclusively deciduous trees.  Nine total.  We ended up losing three of them, so that's a net of six.  This year (2018), we've planted twelve in total.  That's 21 total, but only one of them (the weeping cedar) is a conifer or evergreen. Number 22 changes that.  Above, you'll see our first traditional evergreen - a Fraser Fir.  We

Eeek!  On a total whim, I bought this seemingly scrawny tree.  You can see it in the photo above and it doesn't look like much.  But, it *is* something!  And that something is: a weeping Himalayan Cedar 'Emerald Falls' tree.  And it wasn't in the price range of my normal Menards trees.  Nope.  This one cost $69.99.  And, right now, it isn't much to look at, I know. I bought it at Home Depot in Oak Brook and here's the tag that came on it: And here's a look at it in our garage before I planted it. In the photo above, you can see that the lead was starting to outgrow it's existing bamboo pole, so if you look in the very top photo, you can see that I subsidized it with a larger, 8' bamboo pole and then proceeded to tie the lead up in various places to keep it running vertical. So, why this tree on a whim?  Welp, it isn't totally a whim.  If you've been reading along at home, you might have peep'd this post from last fal

This is the fifth chapter is a series of our landscape plan posts that show off various portions of our #newoldbackyard in the planning stages.  The other four are here: 1.  Part of the southern fence line that includes some hydrangeas, hostas, ferns, allium and Canadian Hemlocks.   2.  Part of our rear foundation planting areas , right outside our breakfast nook/kitchen windows. Grasses, boxwoods and even a peek at one of the rhododendrons that *this* post is all about.  3.  The hornbeam/privacy hedge on the north fenceline near our screened porch .   4.  Far southwest corner by the trampoline that includes some Canadian Hemlocks . This fifth chapter covers just two plants that you can see in the sketch above.  They are both PJM Rhododendrons that occupy some foundation beds on either side of our rear stoop heading to our back patio.   Here's a look at those beds that I took this past weekend: You can see the two beds are good-sized and fall on th

I came across these Hollywood Junipers on Fast Growing Trees (that's their product listing above) and then wandered down a Juniper-related wormhole into the world of topiary arts.  And, I ended up landing at this Monrovia page about their Hollywood Junipers that features a secondary photo that looks like this: Above photo via Monrovia's product listing page And I've now suddenly decided to take on a new gardening project that involves me blindly ordering trees online (yeah...online?!?) and figuring out how to either build or buy some big enough pots to keep a couple of these on our patio.  Having just visited the Flower and Garden Festival and seeing their topiaries of different styles/sizes, I've kinda fallen hard for them and think they'll both add a little interest and provide some activity for me and the kids to putter around the yard this season.  The Fast-Growing-Trees site sells 3'-4' trees , so they're not very big, but if the site

Up in Twin Lakes, there is a row of fir trees in the side/rear yard close to the property line.  Well...at least I *think* they're fir trees.  I'm no conifer expert, so they might be spruce trees?  Chime in here if you know for sure.  Anyway...they were there when we arrived and they provide a good amount of screening.  And I never thought about them too much until I was recently walking by them as I dragged a tube from the garage to the pier and notice something pretty incredible about them:  They have purple cones.   They're pretty tightly wound up cones, but they're definitely purple.  A little bit of searching says that they might be Picea purpurea or they might be Korean Fir - Abies koreana .  Either way, they're pretty great to look at up there right now.  I'll keep an eye on the cones to see if they turn from purple to brown as they dry out and drop.