Why I Oughta...

Six years ago, I planted a tiny Bald Cypress tree .  It was a TINY tree.  I mean...tiny.  Pencil-thin trunk with a leader that was four-feet-tall or less.  If you go look at the photos from this post, you can BARELY make the trunk out.   But, that didn't last long.  This tree has grown and grown and grown.  I'd say that this is probably the BEST OUTCOME of any small tree we've planted over the years - and there's more than 100 of them.  I've chronicled this tree's growth over the years - as recent as last September when I noticed HOW BIG IT HAS GOTTEN .  Two years ago - September of 2022 - the tree was filling out and growing up.   Over the years, I have barely touched this tree.  However...when I planted it, there wasn't a driveway RIGHT NEXT TO IT.  There is one now.  So, starting this past Winter, I gave it its first dormant pruning - limbing it up just a little bit.  But, mostly just 'shortening' the bottom branches .   The time to do even more

Some of our conifers are putting on a two-toned needle show right now.  The new growth on both our Weeping White Spruce and Weeping Norway Spruce emerge in a neon-green color that contrasts with the older, darker-green needles on the main part of the trees.  The new growth brightens up the garden and makes the trees standout a little bit. Below are a couple of photos - first one of the Weeping Norway Spruce that is planted IB2DWs.  There are two of these that went in last Fall, but the one in the photo is the tree that is planted closer to the house than the sidewalk .    And, the second photo is the Weeping White Spruce that lost its leader a number of years ago and has NOT grown up at all.    Here's a post from early June 2023 that shows this same Weeping White Spruce tree with big, blue-ish swollen tips of new needles after the flush grew out.   I mentioned that this tree lost its leader and it hasn't grown at all height-wise for a few years, but now that I'm looking at

The trio of Gold Cone Junipers (that...frankly weren't the right shrubs at the right time in the right place), have been there, filling up space in the beds for four-going-on-five growing seasons .  They get a Spring flush that earns their name - with gold needles .  But, when I was out wandering around the beds, I noticed that these were putting on a different, pre-flush show:  grey-ish tips.  See below for a photo of the top of the evergreen shrub: Nice little moment - and look for these that I haven't documented in the garden diary before, but now I'll look for it come early Spring in upcoming seasons.  

I've been tracking our small (but growing) Dawn Redwood tree for a number of years - since planting it (as a replacement) in the 2018 growing season .  That means, we're in the midst of the fifth growing season ('18, '19, '20, '21, '22) and the tree continues to kind of creep-along.  It put on massive growth in 2019, but I haven't been tracking it that closely ever since - because the height is now out of reach for me. But, every year - in late Summer - I've been seeing a 'flush' of new growth.  This usually happens on the tips of the limbs with new needles emerging in late August.  See below for an example of this year's flush of needles: Here's the post showing the same growth spurt in August of 2021 .  And, here, in very early September 2020 shows the same flush .  And the first Fall - 2018 - it had a similar flush but a little later.   I'm overdue for a full caliper measurement of all the trees (including this one), but I hope

Every year, we go on a little vacation to Wisconsin or somewhere else where we find ourselves away from our house for a number of weeks in a row.  Each year, I try to set up an irrigation system that provides enough water to allow for the plants, shrubs and trees - as well as the grass - to simply survive.  In most years, we usually get a LITTLE lucky and get a rain event once or twice while we're gone and most everything survives.   Last year, we went on vacation in the middle of the Summer and weren't lucky enough to have that rain event.  Couple that with a REALLY dry Spring (Drought) and my sprinkler setup not covering EVERYTHING and we have things die out.   One of the specimens who suffered last year was the Weeping White Spruce columnar tree that is planted on the southside of our beds, near the Lindens that are espalier'd.  By mid-July last year, it was showing a bunch of needle drop - when we came back from vacation .  And by September, it had gotten worse.  Dead b