Why I Oughta...

Walking out the backdoor, I found a bunch of these fan-shaped Ginkgo leaves laying on the stoop.  They're from the pair of Spring Grove Ginkgo trees (dwarf, Witches broom trees) that sit on either side of our back stoop and flank the entrance.  I originally had a pair of Rhododendrons in these spots - planted in 2018 .  But, moved them out in 2023 doing a 'garden edit '.   I caught this post on Instagram from Erin - the Impatient Gardener - where she posted some photos of her own dwarf Ginkgo - a Gnome Ginkgo - and included some info that...I sort of 'observed', but didn't know what was going on with Ginkgos. Her post, embedded below, includes this line :  "Ginkgo trees develop these scars on all their leaves simultaneously, causing them to drop all at once when triggered by a hard frost." View this post on Instagram A post shared by Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener (@impatientgardener) "Blink and you'll miss it...

In October of 2022, I planted a Brown's Yew back by the firepit, in the deep shade of our rear yard .   I bought it at an end-of-the-season sale because it was over-sized for the nursery pot and price.  I've mostly forgotten about it, have failed to deliberately water it and it has hung on through two full growing seasons.   Below is a look at this multi-stemmed evergreen shrub (Brown's Yew) as it stands in our garden in mid-November 2024: Like the Hicks Yews from yesterday, this one has put on some growth over the years - slowly.  Something to think about for 2025 planning - is it time to prune this/shape this a little bit? 

This is the third in a series of [garden diary] posts showing off some mid-November 2024 blooms.  One of them (the Disneyland Rose) is expected .  It has bloomed this late each of the past few years.  The Dahlias are a nice surprise.  Since I haven't grown them (in the ground) before, this set of late-blooms on the dahlias is a learning lesson for me .   But....this third one....this is the strange one.   See below for one of our Vanilla Strawberry Panicle Hydrangea that sits in front of our front porch that is FULL of brown, past-their-prime blooms.  And...one, random, out-of-season, small pink bloom.   The shrub is a mix of contrasts:  seemingly over with blooming and showing those dead flower heads while dropping leaves.  Along with this one, shooting-tall limb that has a green top and this pink flower. What does this mean for these shrubs?  Healthy?  Just out of sync?  A weird seasonal anomaly?  Who...

In terms of flowers, I'd like to say that this growing season has been a fantastic, rewarding one.  But...if I'm honest....I've seen a lot of new things with the dahlias.  But....This season has *really* been a mixed bag when I include our Disneyland Roses.   I had six Disneyland Roses at the end of 2023.  This year, I had just three - as the three bareroot ones that I planted in front didn't come back .  And the three that I DID have did NOT do well .  Between pests (sawfly larvae), fungus (rust) and drought, these things barely hung on in 2024.   The watering problem is something I attempted to fix later this season - as these kept dropping their leaves.  Starting in late August/Early September, when I was focused on the dahlias, I watered these three in every morning and they seemed to rebound just a little bit.  They still look sparse.   But....the good news - I'm seeing a couple of November blooms.  See below for...

In Fall 2021, I planted two small (2 gallon nursery container) Chicago Lustre Arrowwood Viburnum shrubs in a pair of locations that were part of our overall, master garden plan.  The plan calls for these Arrowwood Viburnum in a number of locations, but I've only planted two.  (Note for next year, I suppose...) That means they've had three full growing seasons (2022, 2023 and now 2024) to grow up and out.  These are at the very back of the border, so while I'd like to say that I've cared for them...that's just not true:  these have mostly been neglected.  After the first few Winters - where rabbits were eating these, I've watered them (on occasion) and mostly forgot about them.   Despite that, they've grown up and out.  In Fall 2021, they were about 12" tall from the ground/mulch.  Today, they're both over the top of the lower fence (4' tall fence).  Below is a look at the pair of Arrowwood Viburnum - which....are still....surprisingly.....

Last month, I posted a couple of photos and details of our new Skylands Spruce tree ( ) in our front yard island bed .  This is a tree that I've looked at for years and finally found one (a small one) that I put in our garden.   I've noted tree buds forming (and setting) on various trees in the Fall/Winter over the years, but the past few years, I've begun to observe conifers a little more closely.   Here's one that is in the middle - the Dawn Redwood - which is a deciduous conifer tree - a conifer that drops its needles.    This post looks at the buds of the Dawn Redwood .   This past August, I posted a photo of the 'buds' being set on the Weeping Norway Spruces that I planted last Fall IB2DWs and how I observed them last season turn into new sets of needles.   I'm learning more and more about the health of conifers and the types of signals they send throughout the growing season - and during dormancy.  This post from the Co...

Planted in Spring of 2021 , our Weeping Nootka Falsecypress tree is now closing out its fourth full growing season in our backyard.  This was one of the larger 'nursery pot' trees that we've put in, so judging the growth and maturation isn't as easy as it is on some other smaller trees. Has this grown?  Certainly.  Is it 'plain to the eye'?  That's a little harder to confirm.   The answer is 'yes'.  And when I go back and look at the planting post here and then flip back to this photo, I can see it.  This has not only grown taller.  The limbs have lengthened and the whole thing has put on...well...girth.   Below is a photo showing the current size and shape of this conifer tree.  I still love this tree as much as I did when we planted it.  But, this post isn't just about documenting the size and growth of the tree.  It is also to document what is happening on the 'tips' of the falsecypress tree branches:  buds b...

Recently, I posted a photo of the Butterscotch Amsonia that I described as 'electric' in its Fall colors and talked about how we have some oranges and yellows, but very few reds in our "Fall Show".  Besides the Acer Palmatums, the few red-colored foliage plants we have include some Oakleaf Hydrangea.  See below for a look at a couple of them turning red.  These are Ruby Slippers Oakleaf Hydrangea that went in the ground in 2022 .    There's also an Alice Oakleaf Hydrangea back there, too.  I lost one of those closer to the house this past Winter that I need to replace, so I might look into transplanting this one back up in the 'kitchen curved' bed.  

One of my kids has started to fly a small, consumer-grade drone around our yard and garden.  They're just getting the hang of the thing - and starting to take a few risks by flying it higher and further away from where they're standing.  And...it has been going well.  We're getting some interesting photos of our garden and yard and even some from our our neighborhood.  They were out flying the drone recently and started to snap a few photos in our front yard.  Everything was going (and looking) good - here's some photos from the drone flight out the front of our house: And then.....this happened: That's static.  The drone got stuck in a large tree in our front yard.  About thirty feet up in the air.  Oh, no.   Once I figured out where it was located, I grabbed a few footballs to try to knock it down.  After about 25 minutes and dozens of tosses (and some stuck footballs), I was able to get the drone down.  And...all the footbal...

Last week, I talked about being a "Fall Gardener" and shared a photo of the Butterscotch Amsonia that was/is popping off in our backyard right now.  The front yard has a different early November - Fall Show - star:  this combination of Saratoga Ginkgo and Little Henry Sweetspire.  You can see them contrasting each other below - with the Little Henry popping off in Fall red and the Saratoga Ginkgo's strap-y leaves turning a bright yellow.  The Saratoga Ginkgo is sort-of 'tucked in' amongst the Little Henry, but it is starting to put on some height (finally) after being planted in May of 2022 .  This is the 3rd full growing season for this tree and it (now) requires to be formally staked - something I should do this Winter.   I posted a similar photo exactly one-year-ago showing this combo .  The leader growth on the Saratoga Ginkgo is noticeable when you look back.  The Little Henry Sweetspire is FAR MORE red this year, too.   In fro...

A couple weeks ago, I posted a Fall project that I called "Lazy Garden Bed Extensions" where I first used my mower to scalp some turf followed by laying down cardboard to extend the front border of the front porch bed out a little bit.  On top of that cardboard went biosolids and compost followed by some wood mulch (from a big box store) that I had on hand.  I didn't do the full front porch bed border (then), but recently....I was able to get around and finish the entire border. I ended up extending the front porch border out by 18-inches or so out from where the French Marigolds were planted this season.  You can see the in the photo below the new edge of the bed is now stretching out a bit into the grass.  If you look closely, you can see the Marigolds (in decline) and the lone Dusty Miller (this is year 3 for that "annual"), so that gives you a sense of the new extension. I also found a couple of other spots where the bed was 'too small' for the plan...

It was just 12 days ago that I posted a Fall 2024 update on our compost bins.  In that post, I showed the decomposition and compaction that had occurred over this season with all three bins just about leveling-out.  The 'finished bin' was spilling material out and the 'hold' bin was (surprisingly) decomposing despite not being properly mixed. #14 on my 2024 to-do list was to 'keep going on compost' .  And, over the past few months, we'd *mostly* done that.  We were certainly ADDING to the bins, but when I did my September check-in on my list, I marked this one as 'incomplete' because I had NOT (yet) turned the bins over for the season .  That changed this past weekend, when I went to work on all three bins plus our tumbler.   I started by looking at the tumbler - where I found BLACK GOLD.  I've emptied this tumbler each year after getting that lovely loam-y black gold.  This year is no different.  Below are a few photos showing the outp...

I managed to plant a couple more things this weekend after finding these at The Growing Place end-of-the-season sale.  There are now two Stachys monnieri 'Hummelo' planted right at the feet of the Ginkgo tree that is growing IB2DWs.    I have a pair of these same Stachys Hummelos already in the front yard that I planted last Fall (Fall Planting, ftw).   This was their first season and they put on a nice colorful show this Summer - which reinforced why I wanted them in our garden.  As I mentioned in the original post, these are on Roy Diblik's 'appropriate plant list' , so you can't go wrong with having a few of these in your beds.   I've posted a few times about repetition and mass plantings and how I've grown to appreciate (and be drawn to) those concepts.  I've swapped out a few things in my backyard (via Garden Edits) to bring some of that repetition and mass planting to life.   One of the postings - about mass plantings - was b...

2024 has been the season for dahlias in my garden.  This isn't the first time that I've grown Dahlias from tubers, but it is the first season that I worked at getting them right.  From pre-ordering tubers to starting them indoors to moving them out after the last frost to mulching them in and keeping them watered and fed, I've worked at the dahlias this year and the results - in terms of countertop arrangements - have really paid off .   Like a lot of things in the garden, the first frost will bring most dahlia seasons to their end.   Last week, the National Weather Service was tweeting (or X'ing) about how our area was set to receive a couple of nights of 'hard frosts'.    There were a bunch of tweets said that very thing: "...resulting in an end to the growing season for much of the area."  Like this one: Widespread frost and near to sub-freezing temperatures are expected again tonight away from Chicago and the lakeshore, resulting in an e...

Nat had our two front porch containers (the long, galvanized one and the round white pottery one) done by a professional.  And they look MUCH better than they do when we do them ourselves.    Yesterday, I shared a couple of photos of our large nursery pot of Mums , but on the other side of the front door, the containers - along with a BIG white pumpkin - look like this - photo below. There are a couple of LARGE cabbages/kales in the containers and one of the things I picked up (another pro-tip) is that the professional 'tipped' the cabbages/kales forward in the planter.  They're NOT planted straight up/down in the container.  Rather, they're planted on an angle - so the head of the cabbage or kale - faces up-and-out.  Very, very, very clever.   Here, below, is a 'profile view' of the galvanized container plantings.  Note how the cabbage is tilted forward or pitched forward.

You just brought home that awesome pot of Mums from Costco (or the pumpkin patch that you went to this past weekend) and put them up by the front door along with some of your pumpkins and gourds.   You're worried about killing them by forgetting to water them - that's very valid.  But, there's another problem you're about to face:  flopping, open-crowned mums.    Some call this 'falling over' and unless you have a number of your mums tucked-in tightly together in a cluster, your mums are going to 'fall over' or flop.   How do you avoid it?  By using a piece of string or twin or wire to tie them up and keep them held together at the top.  I wrote about this pro-tip back in 2017 - when I encouraged everyone to take a piece of string around the foliage and stems of their mums and tie them together .  I've been doing it ever since. This year, we went with a monochromatic nursery container of maroon or dark red mums.  I used a piec...

Yesterday, I showed how I moved out a 'mystery' Sesleria to the IB2DWs bed down by the sidewalk.  That left a hole in the front porch bed that I wanted to fill with what was already there:  Autumn Moor Grass.  These things are THRIVING, so it was easy to pick up and divide it. I ended up dividing a clump into three pieces.  I put one back into the original hole, one in the newly created hole (via mystery sesleria transplant) and I tucked the third one into IB2DWs - next to some Serendipity Alliums.   Below are a few photos - first the two smaller divisions: far left and second from the right.  I tucked them in with a combination of compost and biosolids.   And here below is the third from the division - in the IB2DWs bed about half-way down the driveway: This gave me a +2 plants via division.   I need to total up all Fall:  +2 trees, +2 John Greelee Grasses, +6 Ajuga = +10 planted.  And...+1 red swtichgrass, +1 mystery gra...

Over the years, I've created and expanded garden beds using various methods including digging out all the turf, flipping the turf and (more recently) doing some combination of digging/flipping the turf and layering on cardboard to supress the grass.  That cardboard smothering method seems to work pretty well and it is well...easy.  At least it is FAR easier than digging out the turf.  But, the cardboard method has a big drawback - the grass is *STILL THERE*.  So, that means it is tricky to plant in the bed immediately. If you plant in the cardboard zone, you have be careful to remove the turf around any 'holes' in the cardboard that you want to plant in - otherwise you'll end up with grass peeking through around the stems/trunks of whatever you plant.  Trust me...I know.   My problem is that I don't plan ahead enough and get the beds ready BEFORE I want to plant them.  So, why shouldn't I use some of this "Fall Planting" time to build out new/exte...

Fall Planting 2024 keeps rolling right along with the planting of a six-pack of groundcover plugs.  These are something I've used WIDELY in my garden: Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip'.  #3 on my 2024 to-do list was to keep going on groundcover (or...as I want to call it "living mulch"), so these six help that cause .  I've had some 'hits and misses' with Ajuga , but have learned a little bit about it over the years.   I opted to put all six in the newly 'extended' Island bed in the front yard.  I decided to plant the Skylands Spruce tree in the back of that bed, so I had to add a good amount of mulch to extend it back.  I figured that was a good spot to put down some groundcover.   Below you can see four of the Ajuga Chocolate Chip planted on the northside of the bed - but right at the feet of the new Skylands Spruce.   I put the other two in a little bit more of a 'protected' area - under the canopy of the Northern Glow Korean Maple.  I...