Why I Oughta...

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/extend ex

For the past few years, I've been a 'stick to the plan' gardener.  That plan was a layout/design, but it was also a plan in terms of sticking to plants that I know and understand how they'd perform.  It also was VERY limited on flowers.  I've talked about foliage gardening and thanks to our deep shade yard, I've mostly had foliage plants over the years. But, this #FallPlanting season, I felt a little moved to step out of my comfort zone and decided to buy a couple of things at the various end-of-season sales including a number of new (to me) flowering perennials.  The first one that I put in my cart was 'Midnight Masquerade' Penstemom or Beardtongue.  That's the 1# container at the top of this post.   It is a Proven Winner and here's what Walters Garden has to say : This Penstemon will help fill the gap in your lineup for a taller, attractive foliage option. 'Midnight Masquerade' produces a sturdy clump of deep burgundy purple leaves. The

As I've posted about numerous times over the years, we have a couple of mature Oak trees in our backyard that we've worked at keeping alive - and happy - through treatments and fertilizer.  This is the third season that we've had a Two-Lined Chestnut application applied to them in the Fall as a preventive measure against a (potentially) invasive border . Here, below, is the Davey truck when it arrived to treat our Oaks: Here, below, is the paperwork from Davey: Here's a post from the City of Lake Forest up on the North Shore that talks about why they recommend treatment .  Knowing that one of our oaks has been troubled, it was recommended that we treat it to inoculate the tree against an infestation.   I have NO idea if this stuff works, but I think I'll keep applying it in the coming years. 

Well, woulda look at that.  We have seedlings emerging in the blank spaces of our backyard lawn.  Specifically, we have seedlings taking off that were spread around our backyard a week or so ago after undergoing a pre-germination process of soaking them for five days .  I threw down 30# of seed (mix of KBG and Tall Fescue) and hand-spread some of it in some bare spots in the far back.  Below is a photo of one of those blank spots.  Have a look to see the grass seedlings coming up and filling in the space: A few things to note about this photo:  I spread a combination of Tall Fescue and Kentucky Bluegrass seeds back here, so I'm not totally sure what I'm seeing here, but based on germination time estimates, I'd say that this is more likely than not to be Tall Fescue.  You'll also note that there is a bunch of white blades in the photo.  That is a nice sight to see as that is Nimblewill that has been treated with Tenacity and is (hopefully) damaged enough so it will NOT b

I collected a couple handfuls of Oak tree acorns (pretty sure they are from a Red Oak) as a project to see if I could work into seedlings next Spring.  There's a lot of info out there about how to plant Oak trees from acorns, but this YouTube video was the most helpful for me .  It isn't super fast-moving, but if you have the time, it is a nice overview.  The steps of growing your own trees start with collecting acorns.  From there, you have to test them for viability - using the 'float test'.   After cleaning them up (removing their tops), you dump them in a bucket of water.  The ones that float aren't viable.  The ones that sink...usually ARE viable.  (the video recommends doing a couple of float tests to be sure...) So, after collecting these acorns, I dumped them into a bucket.  And...not ONE of them appears to be viable.  All floaters. I noticed that most of them have these little in holes on the sides of the acorn.  See the photo below: Well...I learned someth

This is the first season that I've really paid a lot of attention to the lawn in any sort of meaningful way.  I've posted about it all year, but normally, I just dealt with the length of the grass and that's about it.  Weeds?  Sure.  Fertilizer?  If I remembered.  But, this year, I've upped my cutting and feeding game.  And also, for the first time used some herbicides to tackle the weeds. In the far back of the yards, I had a pretty serious Creeping Charlie issue that is a result of the lawn being untouched since before we moved in our house.  I posted in late May about how I started to use a Blue Spray Pattern Indicator in the sprayer to know where I was putting down the treatment .  I had both Wild Violet and Creeping Charlie running through the yard and the herbicide worked well.  In my mind, the blue pattern indicator additive was part of the reason for the efficacy because I was able to tell both how much and where I was putting it down. This Fall (the past

Almost one year ago - in early October of 2017 - I posted some photos of the locations of the Allium Purple Sensation bulbs that I put in the ground in the backyard.  I ended up putting them around the base of a big Oak Tree about half-way back from the house .  I don't think that all five of them came up and I know that we had at least one of them get dug out and taken by a critter, so I'm thinking that we likely have three left. When I came across the fall bulb section recently, I'm naturally drawn to Alliums.  Since 2011, I've posted about the various Allium bulbs that I've planted, starting with a surprise gift to Natalie that first year .  I also covered the bulbs that went into the ground in the Fall of 2017 in a post in April of this year when they emerged .  This year, I have five bulbs to put down of the same variety as last year:  Purple Sensation. In thinking about the 'path' concept I have in my head for the backyard , I'm wonde

Just a few days back, I posted a link to these DIY firewood rack brackets that Menards was carrying on their site .  I ordered five sets and got busy working with three of them.  Here, above, is a work-in-progress show that shows the position of one of the racks that I'm building.  This one is the one right outside of the family room door and I've built the rack in a vertical orientation.  I ended up using some rough sawn cedar that was left over from my fence installation, but that move caused some issues.  Turns out, rough sawn cedar 2x4's aren't the same size as normal, dimensional construction lumber.  They're a bit bigger.  Not true two inches by four inches, but bigger by just a hair.  Here's the height difference.  On the left is a traditional, Home Depot bought 2x4.  On the right is a rough sawn Cedar 2x4.  And the thickness difference. I first went to Home Depot and the one by us has just an indoor lumber yard, so they have limited su