Why I Oughta...

A couple of weeks ago, I planted eight Apple trees for a Belgian Fence espalier and chopped off six of them at 16" tall .  The two on the ends, I left tall and proud.  And today?  They are showing off some pretty pink blossoms.  On the top of this post you'll see the tree on the right (facing the fence). Below, is the tree on the left (facing the fence) that is blooming, too: Also...in an effort to shame myself, I'm now two weeks in and still haven't gotten around to installing the wire system on the fence. Why does that matter?  Because I'm seeing some TINY buds that are emerging from the trunks of the trees that I lop'd off.  Take a look (a close look) below: Both of the top buds seem to be emerging from the 'front' of the tree, so that's going to take a little work to move it around the side.

For the first time since 2018, we have some Cherry Blossoms in our yard.  And it is so nice to see them appear on our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree that was inspired by my first trip to Tokyo .  Back in the Spring of 2017, I was able to see some of the famed Cherry Blossom trees in Japan and when I came back home, I sought out a tree.  I found one at Menards in May of 2017 .  We were in the midst of building our new house, so my plan was to plant it in our new backyard.    It was flowering when I bought it and the next Spring - May of 2018 - it flowered .  Last Spring - 2019 - it seemed like it wanted to flower , but it never did.  It wasn't alone - as our Saucer Magnolia and Rhododendrons didn't flower, either last year.    I posted a photo of some Winter damage on this tree in January of this year . And today?  It is starting to show some blossoms.  Less than ten so far, but I'm hopeful for a full tree of pretty pink blossoms.  They remind me of peony flowers - Nat

This troubled tree - in our front yard - appears to finally have overcome transplant shock and a clay bowl to get back on schedule.  At least....that's my hope.  You can see the flower buds that are set to explode in the photo above.  This is the second tree in this location after the first one that was installed when we built the house died.  This one , too, would have died if I didn't intervene.  I'm pretty sure that digging out a little channel that broke up the clay bowl underneath this tree is what saved it from drowning itself. The last time I posted about this pear tree was last Summer when it was leaf'ing out .  It didn't look super healthy and robust, but was green.  I trimmed many of the dead limbs off, but left everything else that was leaf'ing.  Prior to last year, this thing was all out of cycle.  In November of 2018 - YES!  November... it flowered .  In terms of timing, this flowering pear tree is showing buds about the same size/timing as

The last time we saw blooms on our front yard Saucer Magnolia tree was back in Spring of 2018 .  Last year, we saw no flowers at all on our Saucer Magnolia.  In fact, we didn't get any flowers on any of our delicate flowering trees like the Japanese Flowering Cherry, either.  But, right now we're seeing some pink flowers begin to emerge from the fuzzy pods on the tips of the limbs. We had a particularly difficult winter in 2018/2019 that I'm pretty sure killed all the buds.  This Winter we had an easy Winter and (thankfully) that means we're getting Spring flowers. I last visited this tree when I wired up one of the errand limbs earlier this year . Last September, I documented the buds that were being set that have paid off this Spring. The other thing that I did yesterday was to try to edge the bed that this tree sits.  I used a flat shovel and went around the ring and removed some of the sod that had begun to inch up to the trunk(s).  You can see some of t

A few days ago, I shared the list of bare root trees that The Growing Place is taking pre-orders on during the month of March and included on that list was something called an American Serviceberry Autumn Brilliance.   I had not previously come across that particular variety, but due to the whole 'social distancing' dynamic going on this past week, we've done a few family walks down to the park and pond near us.  On one of those recent walks, I saw this multi-stemmed shrub (or what I figured was a shrub) and then noticed the little yellow tag on one of the branches.  I peep'd at it.  And did a double-take.  It is an American Serviceberry.  Funny, right?  Having not even heard of such a tree/shrub before this week, now I've come across it twice in five days.  (Note:  I've blurred out the house in the photo just to provide some semblance of privacy here...) This specimen on our block is heavily multi-stemmed - as you can see.  It has branching very low on t

We have a front yard Saucer Magnolia tree that was planted in the Summer of 2017 by our landscaper that has been with us since we moved into our new house.  The first time that I posted about this Saucer Magnolia was when I shared a photo of the tree in early August 2017 and talked about how I had 'limb'ed up' the tree to remove some of the lower branching and some newly emerging trunks from the base.   Our tree is multi-trunked (or multi-stemmed and/or multiple trunks) and at the time I was deciding to remove some of the stems/trunks that were shooting out sideways.   By September of 2017, it seemed that the tree had survived the Summer transplant (but...look at the lawn!  yikes!) and was showing plenty of green leaves.  The following February (2018), I did my first Winter check-in on the tree where it was showing off some buds that it had set the previous (first) Fall.  And by May of 2018, the tree put on a show:  flowers .  I didn't include photos of the tree

A couple of days ago, I posted a couple of photos of our Flowering Japanese Kwanzan Cherry Tree that had suffered a little bit of winter damage here on the blog.  Today, I'm documenting a few of our front yard trees and their buds (or lack thereof).  I wanted to capture a few of the trees and how their buds were coming along in the heart of Winter.  If you're looking for a layout of our front yard trees that is a companion of this post, you can view it here on this 'tree dreaming' post from a week ago. First up, is our small Bald Cypress.  Last I covered it here on the blog was back at the end of August of this Summer (2019) when it was showing nicely with green, lacy needles.  Today, you can see it (below) clinging to a lot of brown/orange needles on the trees small frame.   Here (below) is a closer look at one of the branches that have some thorn-like (but not thorns!) raised bark, but not what I'd consider normal 'buds'.  However, look close

I was out puttering around the yard on a mild Winter day recently doing a little bit of bud inspection to see what trees had put off when I found this break in this Japanese Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree in the backyard.  I bought this tree in May of 2017 when it was a small (maybe .75" caliper) tree from Menards after I had just come back from my first trip to Tokyo where I saw *their* Cherry Blossom trees.  The tree (in the garden center at Menards) caught my eye because it was flowering these beautiful, puffy, almost-peony-like pink flowers . At the end of June/early July of 2017, right when we were moving into our house in Downers Grove, I got around to planting the tree in the yard .  About half-way back in the yard, on the southside of the property.  Not sure, exactly why it ended up there.  Just *felt* right at the time.  Looking at the tree now, I think it is in a good spot and the placement ended up being appropriate. The first season it was in the ground - Spring

My love of columnar trees and what are often called Fastigiata form in trees is well-established.  I've posted about them many times here and have posted photos of my travels to Tokyo where they, too, seem to have been drawn to the columnar form .  I've planted a few different columnar trees in our yard including a *somewhat* columnar shaped Chanticleer Pear tree in a few spots.  But, the list of columnar or narrow trees and shrubs is pretty deep here on the blog: I  made the largest tree investment in our yard in a series of eight Columnar European Hornbeams as a screen .   I planted a hedge of small Hicks Yews - which are upright in nature - in the far back of our lot. We have a columnar Weeping White Spruce conifer near our fenceline in the back. This past Summer, we added a Dwarf Alberta Spruce to the backyard .  I planted - and lost - a Weeping Cedar tree a few years back.  After looking around for some other Columnar trees, I came across - and shared - th

I'm calling this one:  our Snow Fountains Weeping Cherry tree is dead.  Didn't make it to year two.  I planted this tree on Earth Day 2018 , so it is just outside of the one-year warranty window.    And the tree was looking good in April as it had set buds last Fall.    I wasn't ever really satisfied with the location, so having it die isn't the end of the world. Using the list from my most recent Weeping White Spruce post , this is the sixth tree that I've lost since we started planting and the first one lost this season. Other "Lost" trees include:  a Chanticleer Pear, a Dawn Redwood, a Corkscrew Willow, a Fraser Fir, a Canadian Hemlock and now this Weeping Flowering Cherry. Here's the full list of trees that we've put into the yard since we bought the property in 2016 and moved in during the Summer of 2017. 35 trees planted. 29 trees currently alive and adding to our landscape. 2017 (9 planted. 3 Died. 6 of the original annual to

I snapped this photo of the freshly burst free leaves from our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree a couple of weeks ago, so the {post-date} on this post is a little inaccurate.   So let's call this May 2nd or so in terms of usefulness in the [ garden diary ] purposes.   This photo is going up almost a week after I shared the same Kwanzan Cherry trees in bloom down in St. Louis .  That post is here .     The tree still has not bloomed, but once it does, I'll grab some photos and add them to the [garden diary] post over on HornbeamHill.com . Should be any day now based on a May 21st bloom in 2018 .   We have a few other flowering trees in our yard, but there are a few on my radar to acquire including an Eastern Redbud tree - maybe a multi-trunk variety (??) and maybe another flowering Cherry.  I think I saw a Yoshino Cherry at Home Depot on one of our trips.  Maybe it will come home with us.

About a month ago, I posted a photo of what appeared to be 'new' growth on our struggling Chanticleer Pear Tree that we had planted out front of our house.  Here's that post that shows new green leaf growth emerging on the tree in early October .    The full history of this tree is long, despite that we've only been in our house a little bit over a year.  It starts with the first tree - a 3" caliper version of this tree - being planted before we moved in our new house in June of 2017.  That tree didn't survive the year and was ripped out and replaced earlier this year .  The new tree struggled, too.  But I worked at it.  I did some radial trenching and used a post hole digger to break down thru the clay layer to allow the tree to breath a bit.  I took a very similar route with the Bald Cypress we planted this Summer - you can see the details here .  And the tree managed to survive all Summer.  I stopped watering it all together and just monitored it for

We had a large 3" caliper Chanticleer flowering Pear tree planted on the north side of our property kind of close to our garage out in front before we moved in.  It is a fairly columnar, fast-growing tree that while isn't super awesome, does give us some quick growth and a fairly mature tree relatively quickly.  Or so we thought. That tree didn't survive the first year.  It was in trouble last year and didn't come back this Spring . It was removed and replaced this Summer.  Here's the post showing off the newly planted 3" caliper replacement tree from June of this year .  Welp, *that* new tree has had a lot of trouble, too.  Unfortunately, I think that it has been caused by two factors:  1.  I watered the heck out of it. 2.  It is in a clay bowl with questionable soil. Which lead to it being overwatered and drowning while it gasps for oxygen. What lead me to this conclusion was doing a little digging and figuring out that after I had not watered

Right at the end of May, I posted about the 3" caliper Chanticleer Flowering Pear tree that we had installed right outside of our garage didn't make it through the Winter and was slated to be replaced.  Welp...as you can see in the photo above, the new tree arrived and was planted recently.  The initial tree was planted in June of 2018 before we moved in and I did a check-in post on the tree in February of this year when I speculated that the tree didn't make it based on the very few buds being set on the tree in the fall.   Here's a side-by-side comparison of the new tree and the one that they ripped out. I've made no secret about my love/hate relationship with these flowering pears.  They do a really great job of growing fast, providing screening and even a little show in the Spring.  But, I know that they're a cheap/low-cost solution that isn't all that long-lived.  That hasn't stopped me from planting three of these including t

Here is the third of three Earth Day 2018 trees, but this one, while bought on Earth Day, wasn't planted on Earth Day.  The Babe picked this one (for reasons I'll describe), but couldn't decide on the location at first.  So it sat on our patio, in the pot for a couple of weeks.  Reminder...the other two Earth Day trees from this year are a Red Maple Sun Valley tree that we planted all the way in the back and a flowering pear tree that we planted on the south fence line .  This tree is a flowering cherry, but different than our Kwanzan flowering Cherry as this one is a grafted tree that weeps.  Pretty sure that this is a tree that - if not for a nursery - wouldn't exist normally.  (Who knows...maybe no trees would??)  It is smallish and will only get between eight and twelve feet tall and about six feet of spread.  Here's the tag that shows the name Prunus x 'Snofozam' PPAF .  Also note that it says "attracts butterflies".  And that was

Spring flowers have hit our yard.  And also our flowering trees.  That includes our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry tree that is planted in our backyard.  The photo above is of some of the blooms that have emerged recently on the upper branches.  The history of this tree starts in March of 2017 when we bought it after a trip to Tokyo where I took in the Cherry Blossoms.  It lived on the driveway for a few months while we built our #newoldfarmhouse and we finally planted it at the end of June .  It survived the Winter and this Spring, buds started to open - despite the brutally long cold weather.  And now, it seems like it is on a good trajectory with new growth and seemingly happy in terms of sun/location in the yard.  Even after we added the one new bed to the south fence line, this tree is still kind of out on an island.  We laid down a ring of mulch ( but not a volcano !) around the tree and so it feels anchored, but will have to wait until next year when we add another line of beds

With the weather (suddenly) turning quite warm last week, our Saucer Magnolia in the front yard decided to say hello.  One morning, the flowers just started to shoot up and open.  This tree went in by the landscaper who installed the rest of our landscaping before we moved in and is set in a small, circular bed in between our front porch and the sidewalk.  It gets a ton of sun and as it matures is set to be a focal point.  Back in August, I posted a photo of how I 'limbed up' the tree in an attempt to get it to grow more tree-like and less shrub and I'm happy to say that I didn't kill the thing.  Even more, it appears that the clearing of some of the sucker and low limbs have helped allow the tree to provide energy to it's tips.  Just look at this beauty: I call this "Nat's tree" because it was the one thing that she specifically spec'd with the landscaper.  And when we were planting it, I didn't tell her that it was coming and int

For Earth Day last year, we planted a tree:  our Dawn Redwood .  This was while our #newoldfarmhouse was being built, but we still had access to the backyard.  This year, we planted a couple of trees on Earth Day.  This post chronicles the first one:  a Chanticleer Cleveland Select Flowering Pear tree.  I took the kids to Home Depot on Earth Day and had each of them pick out a small tree.  They were running a sale on tiny trees like the one you see above for $15 each.  This is the one that the Bird picked out and that's here in the photo showing off her new tree after she helped me plant it.  We put it on the south fence line in an open spot.  This was a nice Earth Day activity for me and the kids.  The Bird was so excited to help plant the tree.  She's my gardening buddy, so she knows how to get plants (and trees) out of their pots by beating on the pots and then she also helps rough up the roots to help them get started.  She's also in charge of helping amend the s

I'm one lucky guy.  At least when it comes to timing trips with the show that Cherry Blossom trees put on.  Last year, I was in Tokyo during the Cherry Blossom season and documented it here on the blog . And earlier this month, I found myself in our nation's capital when their own Cherry Blossom trees were on full display .   Double bucket list visits, right? I also brushed up on the reason for why the Cherry Blossom trees are even there . Each year, the National Cherry Blossom Festival commemorates the 1912 gift of 3,000 cherry trees from Mayor Yukio Ozaki of Tokyo to the city of Washington, DC. The gift and annual celebration honor the lasting friendship between the United States and Japan and the continued close relationship between the two countries. My trip to Washington D.C. was brief, but I was able to take in the trees from a few different vantage points.  (I've posted about another trip to DC all the way back in 2012 when I took this photo of the Washingt