Why I Oughta...

Two days ago, I posted some photos showing the first step in the 'lazy bed extension' around our island bed in the front yard .  This was one of my priority projects for the year - #3.  I started with laying down cardboard to smother out the grass along the driveway.  That section went about twelve feet by three-feet wide.   For step two in this process, I went with filling-in the stretch of grass between the sidewalk back to the (current) island bed.  This section is about five-feet deep by twelve feet long.  I laid down two layers of cardboard with a slight overlap (both overlapped between the two of them and overlapped with the first layer on the driveway side).  I wet it down with the hose.  Then, topped with municipal biosolids.  And, finally...a layer of other organic yard material (leaves, grass clippings, etc) on top.  I mixed those together and used my hose again to wet it all together.   Below are a couple of sho...

Yesterday, I shared the overview of my third priority for 2025 - expanding the front yard island bed .  These first three ( Pizza Oven MVP , Renovation of the bluestone chips gravel path and this island bed) were pulled from my initial 'early look' list .   We caught a little bit of a run of decent weather this past weekend, so I opted to start the island bed expansion/extension.   Remember....I talked about one of the most critical components to this project:  time.  I need time to smother out the turf grass.  And time for the biosolids to 'mellow' out a little bit.   This bed started back in Summer last year when I dug up and created a kidney-bean-shaped island bed with a Korean Maple tree (Northern Glow) and a dwarf (Spring Grove) Ginkgo tree .   In the post yesterday, I showed the size (12x12) of the extensions and looked at some potential plantings.  This bed, when complete (at more than 150ish square feet) will be ...

My list of potential projects is now posted and includes a couple that I've already posted about and one this one - that I'm going to call number three for the year.   My 'early look' list is here.  Priority 1 - the renovation of the bluestone chip gravel garden path is here .  And, Priority 2 - the minimum viable product on the pizza oven project is here .   My third project is in the front yard - the island bed.   I created this bed in mid-Summer 2024 when I planted the Korean Maple (Northern Glow) and cut out a kidney-bean-shaped bed in the 'front-ish' of our front yard.  Kind-of in the corner between our sidewalk and driveway.  I added a Spring Grove dwarf Ginkgo tree next to the Korean Maple a couple days later.  I also planted some Inferno coleus as an annual  and an October Daphne sedum (that the rabbits ate up all Summer...).  In the Fall, I added even more to this bed - three dwarf Seslarias (John Greenlee) , ...

It is about to be the second week in March.  Spring is coming.  Fast.   For me, that means I need to focus on organizing my yard and garden priorities and draft my 2025 to-do list.    Last year, I posted a short list that I called "an early look at some potential priority projects for 2024" .   That was a pretty helpful exercise - writing to understand (per Paul Graham ). A list of potential projects can be used as the foundation for that larger 2025 to-do list.   In 2024 , I categorized some of the potential projects to front vs. back vs. side yards and ended up with sixteen ideas.  Did I move on all of them?  No.  But, a bunch of them (pizza oven, hosta replacement, groundcover, front yard conifers) made the list and I was able to pull them off (mostly).   Ahead of this post, I've already posted about one of my (potential) priorities - a renovation project: That first, potential 2025 "priority" project was post...

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the small Skylands Spruce in our front yard island bed.  Today, is a photo showing its companion:  the Spring Grove (dwarf) Ginkgo tree that was planted this season, too.  Unlike the Skylands Spruce, the Spring Grove Ginkgo tree is naked right now; it dropped all its leaves earlier this Fall.   And that's revealed a STRIKING structure.  Pointy and sharp.  The branching provides a bit of 'Winter interest' with a handful of main branches and dozens of short, straight secondary branches emanating like spikes.  See below:

The small Skylands Spruce tree that went into the 'island bed' in our front yard has a number of cones clinging to the tips of some of the upper branches that have sort-of 'unfurled' and grown the past few weeks.  The cones - once tightly wound - are now a little bit more 'open'.  See below for a photo of one of the cones.  Note the chicken wire ring to keep the (dang!) rabbits from gnawing away the tips of this tiny tree: 

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...

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...

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...

Last Fall, I took the pair of Serendipity Alliums and divided them into five 'clumps' that I transplanted into two spots IB2DWs .  I started with three, but one didn't make it.  So, I put three back in the original location and put the other two further down IB2DWs (extended).  I've noted how I really LOVE Serendipity - it gives me everything I like in Summer Beauty - but more.  Longer bloom time.  Later bloom time.  Just all-around better performers.  So, why not divide them and get *more* of Serendipity.   I've had a lot of luck dividing Summer Beauty, but there's no sense in spending time dividing those right now when I'm looking to upgrade them with Serendipity.   As part of Fall Planting, I decided to divide one of them into three clumps (+2 free plants) to get our garden a few more of these.   Below is a look at the 'before' bed - with the Serendipity Allium that I was planning on dividing on the right - you can see ...

Back in the Summer of 2022, I picked up and planted three VERY SMALL Green Velvet Boxwoods around the base of a flowering pear tree IB2DWs.  These were right at the break in the bed where our gravel (Bluestone chips) runs from our driveway back to the yard.   When I say 'very small', I mean it:  they were in 1# nursery pots.  I've planted a number of 1# boxwoods over the years and I've been ok with the fact that they take time to mature.   That's the case with these three.  They're not fast-growers, but they sure have grown up.   This post tracks 28-months of growth.  That's 2.5 growing seasons (1/2 of 2022, all of 2023 and 2024).   They grown from about six-inches tall and four-inches around.  To, what you see here, below.  These are now more than a foot tall and close to a foot in diameter.  The first photo shows two of them.  Then second photo shows the third one.  Note all the suckers coming o...

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...

Last year, I bought and planted a number of (what I thought at the time) were Sesleria Autumnalis - Autumn Moor Grasses - across the front of our front porch beds.  I say 'at the time' because I've learned in the time since that ONE of the plants is not like the other.  The Autumn Moor Grasses put on a show the past two Falls and have thin, yellow-ish blades come October.  The other grass is blue-green and doesn't have the fireworks explosion that the others have each Fall. See below for a look at this one mystery blue-green grass in between a volunteer Dusty Miller and an Autumn Moor Grass: The Autumn Moor Grasses are THRIVING, so I figured...why not transplant this mis-label'd 'mystery' grass and replace it with a divided Autumn Moor Grass.  That's what I did - I dug it up and moved it.  Not before dividing it into two good-sized clumps and one HOPEFUL strand.  I put them right against the sidewalk in the hard-to-grow area IB2Dws.  I filled the hole...