Why I Oughta...

I'm moving onto the 'in ground' phase of my 2024 dahlia journey.    Three weeks ago, I potted-up my six Melina Fleur dahlia tubers into one-gallon nursery pots and started them indoors .  After they sprouted, I began to move them outside and did a little bit of hardening-off by putting them out in the shade for a few hours during the days and bringing them in at night.  Eventually....I just started leaving them outside overnight and they all seemed to be fine.  Here, below, is what they look like now:  about six-inches of foliage on each one: I put three of them on the southside of the house - where I get full sun.  Tucked in/out of the Disneyland Roses along the foundation bed.    Below is one in front of the gas meter, one in front of the power meter and one tucked close to the gate, between a Karl Foerster Grass and the last Disneyland Rose.   Speaking of Disneyland Roses...I now can (sadly) say that the three from 2023 all died.  Didn't come back this Spring.  Bumme

In mid-October, I transplanted a groundcover plant (Burgundy Glow Ajuga) from one of the kid's container fairy gardens into the small foundation bed outside of our screened porch door .  It has a massive set of roots that I had to man-handle to get out of the container and that likely put the plant under a lot of stress.   Then...the cold temperatures arrived and it appears that this plant didn't have much time to recover and put down any new roots in its new home.   Here's what it looks like today (below).  It did NOT handle the cold temperatures as well as some of my other Ajuga colonies. Now...a closer inspection reveals that ALL might NOT be lost.  My eye spies a small (maybe quarter or less of the plant) that appears to have healthy (although winter-damaged) foliage.  That *might* mean that it can come back as the temperatures warm up.  I'll be keeping an eye on it in the next few weeks to see if it wakes up.  I'm going to try to apply some biosolids in/around

Yesterday, I got started planting.  With the big Elephant Ears bulbs that I tucked into some containers and a trial in a bed.   Today, I'm posting about how I made my first move with the bare root perennials from Costco - planting some of the Bresshingham Blue hostas .   In that post from March, I wondered where to put all of the hostas. Here (below) are a few of the places that I mentioned back in March of places I could tuck them in.  And...called out with the red arrow - where I started my planting this year:  on the corner of the screened porch:  Our plan calls for Blue Hostas (Hadspens) paired here on the corner of the house: Here (in the photo below) are the tips of the two bareroot hostas that I tucked in around the drain pipe below.  I'll keep an eye on these to see if they mature enough this year to put on a show:

We have three rose bushes in our yard.  Two in our sideyard - with southern exposure and one planted in a rear bed outside of our kitchen.  They are all the same cultivar:  Disneyland Roses .  I don't know much about roses, but I'm learning.  It turns out, Disneyland Roses are Floribunda Roses.  There are a bunch of varieties of roses including tea, hybrid tea, Grandiflora and - what the Disneylad Roses are - Floribunda Roses. Sunnyside Nursery has a post titled "What The Heck Is The Difference Between Hybrid Tea, Grandiflora & Floribunda Roses? " that lays out the basics. Knowing I only have this one cultivar, I've begun to educate myself on the care of Floribunda roses.    According to HeirloomRoses.com , Floribunda Roses give you "Minimum upkeep with maximum color".  They detail what makes a Floribunda Rose unique here : The Floribunda Rose is a crossbred flower that is loved for its hardiness in harsh climates, minimal upkeep, and its ability to

 If you drive by the entrance to the Morton Arboretum last month, you saw a striking series of plants that include some bright colors including this ground cover that is almost highlighter yellow.   They planted a big drift of this stuff that made a carpet-like layout.   See below in all of the late Summer glory: I suspected that this was Lemon Coral Sedum - which I've planted in containers the past few years - but wasn't sure.  But, what is amazing (at least to me) is that the Morton Arboretum has something called a " Plant Clinic ".  What's a Plant Clinic?  From their site : The Morton Arboretum’s Plant Clinic helps homeowners, gardeners and landscape professionals throughout the Chicago region and the world have healthy, attractive, well-chosen plants. Trained staff and volunteers are available in person, by phone, or by e-mail to help with tree and plant selection, identifying and coping with pests and diseases, and other concerns. So, I emailed them to inqui

  The last time I posted a photo in the garden diary of these four boxwoods was 11 months ago in October of 2019 when I showed off some new growth from the season.  The photo above shows even more growth this year as they've started to fill in the gaps.  I planted these in Fall of 2017 and they were small.  I shaped them in Spring of 2019 - which was the last time they had a haircut.  And that's because I found this boxwood hedge at the entrance to Fedex's Worldwide Headquarters campus down in Memphis where they have an amazing, wavy block of boxwoods.   I don't own hedge trimmers, but Martha Stewart has been pushing these battery-operated handheld ones from Stihl.   View this post on Instagram @stihlusa @stihl makes this little super battery powerful tool for giving haircuts to overgrown soft patches like lawn edges, herbs, lettuces, even spinach and mache. And change the blade and it trims woody shrubs like boxwood and privet. Versatile. Useful

Above is a look at the four boxwoods that are planted right outside of our Kitchen windows next to the foundation.  I last posted a photo of these four shrubs back in April of this year when I was taking off the Winter Burn from them and shaping them a little bit.   They've really grown quite a bit and green'd up on their tips in a nice way. A lot of boxwoods in our neighborhood took hard hits from Winter Burn this past Winter - including a few of ours in front - but these seem to have totally recovered nicely.  The two in front are now larger than the two in back.  I was initially thinking of clipping these into nicely shaped orbs, but now that I've seen the Jacques Wirtz-inspired hedge of boxwoods outside of the Fedex World Headquarters , I'm thinking I can grow these together and make a more cloud-like shape out of all four of them.  The other thing to note in this [ Garden Diary ] post is the other plant in the photo.  No...it isn't a weed.  Well, not a

All the way back in Spring of 2018, I planted a couple of ferns on the northside of our screened porch - in a spot that is in (I think) total shade all day long.  It felt like the right spot for ferns and hostas - at least as a temporary measure until I figure out the path/pavers that will run alongside the little bed.  One of them was an Autumn Fern.  The other is this Japanese Painted Fern.  Last September - almost exactly a year ago today - I posted a photo of this fern that was trying to establish itself after a rough Summer .  It was showing just.a.little.bit of growth then, but I was hopeful that this fern was going to make it.  The photo at the top of this post is from this week - and you can see that this Japanese Painted Fern has really come back and is spreading itself out in a big way.  I had a Japanese Painted Fern back in Elmhurst - that came back for a few years (when it wasn't smothered by mulch!) - so this isn't my first one of these varieties that ha

These large stemmed hostas are what I've been calling our "Teardown Hostas" that I planted right outside our kitchen window in the backyard.  I put them in the ground in October of 2017 and they came back for the past few seasons and have filled in the space really nicely.  Here's a photo of these same Hostas emerging for the first time in Spring of 2018.   I haven't posted about these particular flowers in the past, but I did post late last Summer about some white flowering hostas that are also, kinda, teardown hostas.  This post shows some in our backyard that throw off white flowers that I pulled out of the front yard of the house we tore down before we built.   The photo you see above show a different kind of stalk coming out of the hosta plant.  Normally, I see a series of those trumpet-shaped flowers that come from a central stalk.  If you look at the photo above, you'll see that it is more like a central flower that has emerged from the t

In the photo you see above, you'll see a large "vase" (at least that what I'm calling them for now) of Ostrich Ferns and if you look at the bottom of the photo, you'll see a smaller, second Ostrich Fern in the foreground.  The one at the top is what I've been calling the "Teardown Fern".  Here's a post showing this same Ostrich Fern a year ago in June of 2018 .    The top photo in *that* post is from when it was just un-furling and the photo at the bottom of that the post is what it looked like in mid-June.  Here's the original post when I pulled them out of our neighbor's yard in October of 2017 .  Hence...the whole " Teardown Fern " moniker.  This year, you can see that it has more fronds and is larger.  But...that's not the most important part.  That's the second fern that has popped up.  This thing has multiplied.    How nice.  These things do, indeed, multiply and I'm glad that it has matured enough to

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 2017, I showed part of our landscape plant that was just outside of our kitchen window that called for a variety of perennials and some shrubs including Green Velvet Boxwoods.  You can see the plan here in this post from October 2017 .  Here's a look at that portion of the plan : The plan called for four Green Velvet Boxwood plants.  You can see in the photo at the top of this post that we indeed, planted four of them.  I ended up staggering them a little differently than the plan called for, but they're mostly in the same spot.  The reason for clustering them more closely to the window well is to fit in a spot for our grill.  This [ Garden Diary ] post can be found in the feed over on Hornbeam Hill .  This post is to talk about shaping of these boxwoods.  We have a set of these in our front yard beds directly in front of our porch that you can see in this post that we're trying to let grow a bit.  I'd like them to get larger, but the ones in back?

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

Last year, Nat's Mom gifted us a Disneyland Rose for our anniversary and this year she did the same thing, but gave us two of them.  They arrived recently in a box from Jackson & Perkins that you see above.  Here's the post showing the rose plant from 2017 and includes the description of the variety.  I revisited our Disneyland Rose in June when it came back for the year and produced some small, but spectacular blooms.  I ended up planting the first one underneath the kitchen windows amongst some hostas and grasses.  I think that ultimately, I'm going to have to transplant it next year to a different spot, but for this season, it did well. Below you can see the two new Rose plants that were shipped in the container. I ended up planting them on the south side of our house - on either side of the window well that is out there.  Again, I'm not certain that this is where they're destined to go, but it is pretty much a blank canvas out there and these t

Late last Summer/early last Fall, Nat's Mom gifted us three plants: an Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea , a Tuff Stuff Red Hydrangea  and a Disneyland Rose .  I planted the two Hydrangeas along the south fence line where the plan called for them, but I stuck the rose in the rear foundation beds outside of our kitchen windows .  It is located right in between where I planted the teardown Hostas  last Fall and the Karl Foerster Grasses that I planted this Spring . What you see in the photo above is the Disneyland Rose - that has not only survived the winter, but is about to burst with it's first flowers.  What good news to see this thing flourishing in our first Summer here.  Those pointy buds are really quite cool, aren't they? Those of you who aren't familiar with the Disneyland Rose, check out this post I wrote when we acquired the plant .  Nat has expressed an interest in more roses, but our plan is really light on them, so we'll have to figure out how to

Back in May, I posted a photo update on what I have been calling our 'teardown hostas' that came out of a yard down the block .  They've subsequently grown quite a bit and have leaf'd out to be nice sized hostas that are really in their first year of growth in our yard.  I mean... I put them in the ground in October , so there was really very little opportunity for them to grow/put down roots before they died off for the Winter. In that same post back in October of 2017, I mentioned that I grabbed a fern or two as well from the tear down lot.  I planted them right amongst the hostas and guess what?  They, too, came back.  I took the photo above at the beginning of the month - and that's one of my favorite stages for these Ostrich Ferns - when they begin to unfurl.  But, because I'm just getting around to posting about these ferns, I went back and took another photo to show the progress/growth.  Look at how tall and proud it is standing now.  (and speaking

Over the weekend, I started to plant the first few pieces of our backyard landscape plan - starting with the rear foundation plantings.  I posted the landscape plan for this area back in October of last year that shows a series of hostas, grasses and boxwoods.  The central area - right underneath our bird feeders - called for five staggered grasses.  Karl Foerster Reed Grasses to be precise.  So, when I came across them at Home Depot, I grabbed up six of them.   Six.  Yeah...because I didn't have the plan in front of me and I thought it called for six.  Turns out, the plan calls for five of them here, but five more in a different spot.   Thus, I ended up planting just one of that other set of five, but will get the other four later this Spring.  The photo you see above shows where I put them in the bed.  That green wire laying around is for our Automower.  His dock is right in front of this bed and that is the excess boundary wire and the lead wire that terminate at the doc

Look at this lovely little discovery that I found in our rear foundation landscape beds:  hostas are emerging from the mulch.  And these are the questionable ones that I dug out of the yard down the block right before they tore down the house .  It appears that all three of the clumps that I put down have emerged in various quantities.  I ended up planting them where they were called out in the landscape plan - along the west and southwest corners of the house - as outlined here in a post .    The plan called for 4 Hadspen Hostas so with the planting of these we've made some serious progress towards getting this bed in a spot that reflects the design plan.  Adding the fountain grasses below the bird feeders is the other/next step to fulfilling the vision and I'm hoping to get those in this week ahead of getting our mulch installed.