Why I Oughta...

Martha Stewart hit me right between the eyes this morning with this quote about happiness.  She says that you can be happy for a year - if you get married.  And you can be happy for a decade - if you get a dog.  But...if you wanna be happy for the rest of your life - plant a garden.  See below. I'm adding this to the handful of pieces of garden advice/garden musings/garden quotes that I've collected here on my blog - including: It is better to plant a fifty-cent tree in a five dollar hole than a five dollar tree in a fifty-cent hole , Conifers should come first , never buy just one of anything , Audrey Hepburn's line/quote - "To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow" and... the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best? Today .  Martha's take on happiness fits right in there with these. I first came across this on TikTok in a promo for her Netflix documentary, but....on  Instagram  is where I found this (nicely laid-out four-pane...

As part of my [ garden diary ], I've been working to keep annual logs of growth on some of the trees and shrubs including my tree height inventory.  Here is the link to the 2019 tree height inventory post .   And here's the one for 2018 .  The reason I bring this up is that earlier this month, as part of doing a mid-Winter yard inventory, I posted about some Winter damage on our Flowering Cherry Tree in the backyard .  In that post , I lamented that my measurement(s) for some of the trees is becoming inaccurate because of their heights getting too tall to get a tape measure on properly.   Welp...thanks to the miracles of e-commerce shopping, I'm now the proud owner of this Digital Caliper Measurement Tool that you can see below.  This one is just $8.99 , so it isn't the most expensive or sophisticated caliper tool, but I'm thinking it will get the job done. It is pretty easy to use and came with a couple of backup batteries. As I men...

Over the past year or so, I've posted plenty of dreaming/hoping/wishing/wanting items related to our yard and garden.  With Spring right around the corner (a guy can hope, right?), I thought I would round up all of those items that I've talked about/lusted after so I can have an organized list to attack this year. Before I get to this year, I figure I should look back at some of the things that we accomplished in the Spring/Summer/Fall of 2018. Last year, I got plenty accomplished including the planting of our European Columnar Frans Fontaine Hornbeam trees that will eventually form a hedge on the northern fenceline,  added our first evergreen with a Weeping Cedar tree , planted two more Disneyland Roses , took the inaugural inventory of tree heights , added a bird nesting shelf  and a mason bee house , planted a tiny Bald Cypress and a few other trees, worked our terrible clay soil with some added pellet gypsum  and had the guys lay on a thick load of mulch...

In early January, I posted about 2019 garden trends and highlighted gabion-style walls (retaining walls made of loose stone/other items that are kind of bound by wire/mesh fence) while discussing how the style was appealing in what we're thinking about for our own backyard.  But, while on vacation in Ko' Olina in Hawaii at Disney's Aulani, I noticed that they've selected a different wall style that they use across the resort.  You can see it above and below in two different uses.  Top is a waterfall along with retaining wall.  Below the photo is just a retaining wall.  In both of these cases, they've used what I presume to be a stone/rock veneer that is all one color and irregular in shape.  Mostly round(ish) and stacked without thick mortar lines in most areas, but clean, straight lines at the top and on the corners/edges.  Kind of the best of both worlds:  natural shapes from the material, but clean lines from the edges.  There's a ...

Get this topiary frame from TopiaryTree.net .  This is their product photo , not my photo. On the way up to Twin Lakes Wisconsin, we used to drive by this garden center on Route 12 named Atrium Garden Center.  They had a beautiful nursery that seemed stocked with tons of trees, plants, shrubs and more.  We stopped a few times, but every time we drove by, I always admired one thing:  the topiaries that they displayed close to the road.  They had critters and shapes of all sizes.  Dolphins.  Guys with fishing poles.  Even a Mickey Mouse head.  You can see a bunch of their topiaries in some of these user-submitted photos on Google Maps .  Here are a few screenshots from people that have submitted them there.  (Note...these are not my photos and can be found in their original form here .) On one of our trips there, I looked more closely at the topiaries to try to figure out what they were made up of in terms of plantings. ...

Back in June, I planted two kinds of pumpkin seeds in the far reaches of our backyard from the packages you see above:  Big Moon and First Prize Hybrid.  I seem to have failed to post about the seeds or seedlings to date in the [ garden dairy ].  But, today, that changes.   For the past week or two, I've noticed A LOT of flowers and quite a bit of bee activity.  Like they were drunk on pollen after hanging out in the various yellow flowers that these vines have put out.  Turns out...they were busy bees.  (get it?!?) It seems that our pumpkin vines have started to fruit.  Here's a look at the tiniest of pumpkins that you've ever seen: I don't know which of the two varieties this one is.  But, the more pressing matter is the race against the clock.  We have just a month and a half until this thing needs to be on our front porch.  Will it get there in time?  I have these pumpkin pedestals on hand that I ho...

Last October, I posted a photo of a trug of perennials that I dug out of a lot down the block ahead of their teardown and new build.  In that post , I mentioned that I *thought* that I had grabbed a hydrangea, but it was looking pretty dried out and rough.  And wasn't sure it was going to come back.  In that same batch, I grabbed some hostas and ferns.  Here's a post that I shared of the ferns that came back .  And here's the hostas .  Now, I have the final piece of the good-news puzzle:  what you see above is a healthy, flowering hydrangea that is emerging for it's first season in our yard.  I'm posting this here so I can reference it in the [ garden diary ] in the future.  This particular hydrangea has chartreuse-colored blooms and while short in stature is doing quite well without a lot of attention being paid to it during the hot Summer.  As it continues to put down it's roots this season, I'm expecting to have it get lar...

I've posted a few times about the green-leafed Elephant Ear bulbs that I planted in a few pots on our patio this Summer.  In May, I posted a few photos of the bulbs that we picked up to try. Then, in July, I posted a progress photo that showed how the ones in one of our wine barrels had grown pretty significantly and were happy.  Today, in mid-August you can take in these leaves that are quite striking.  This is a #nofilter photo, so I didn't tweak or play around with the colors or saturation.  This is what you see with your eye, too.  Up until this point, I was pretty confident that I'd do Elephant Ear bulbs again next Spring in my containers, but seeing them change and have the two-toned green/yellow leaves begin to show up solidifies the decision:  I really like these and will do them again.  I think I'll rethink the containers and placement and likely put them in the middle or "back" of some larger containers to use their scale in a mo...

Back in May, we planted seven Frans Fontaine European Hornbeam 2.5" caliper trees along the north fenceline of our property  in an area that is right outside of our screened porch.  We selected these trees due to their narrow habit and how they will (eventually) grow into a screen in a narrow area.  Due to the investment in these trees, I've been pretty careful to baby them with water and to try to make sure they establish themselves this season.  Having been planted in May, we have the full Summer to have them put down roots to ensure they come back next Spring.  I've been using a soaker hose and watering them about once or twice per week at about an hour per watering on a low setting.  These were planted down in a low spot, so they're also the benefactor of whatever natural water that occurs on the property as it flows downhill.  On the flipside, they're sitting right on top of a drainage pipe and there's a grate right in the middle of these thi...

It is not all gardening wins for me this Summer.  Sometimes the losses are just as important. I celebrated the planting of this small Fraser Fir in our backyard just 10 weeks ago at the beginning of June.  It was in a good spot in the yard that had plenty of water and it was taking off.  There was a run of new, soft growth that came on the tree in July, then all of a sudden, it started to go brown.  From the top down.  Now, two weeks after I noticed the first bit of brown, the whole thing is gone.  Sad stuff. Not sure if it was water.  Or location.  Or something else like a disease.  It went really fast.  And the shot of new growth followed directly by the brown-out makes me wonder if it was disease-related? This was the 22nd tree that we had planted in our backyard as part of the reforestation process and the second evergreen.  We've added a Hemlock since, though.  I bought this one at Home Depot who has a 1 year wa...

This gardening season, I planted a number of Karl Foerster Reed Fountain grasses in our backyard along the rear foundation outside both the kitchen and the screened porch.  The weren't the first set of these fountain grasses that we had planted, though.  As part of our 'move-in' landscaping that our builder and landscape team completed before we moved in was the installation of three Karl Foerster Reed Grasses in a small bed that sits between our front walk/stoop and driveway.  The bed is about ten or twelve feet long by about three feet wide.  You can see all three of them in the photo above with their feather reeds showing off for the world to see.  They really look great and seem to be healthy in this spot.  I first posted about these grasses a little bit over two months ago - June of this year - when I posted this photo of the grasses just getting started for the season.  Go check out this post to see how much smaller they were (and so gr...

Raised Bed enclosure via Wayfair It has been a couple of years since we had a garden .  Sure, we've tried to grow tomatoes and basil in containers (with mixed results), but ever since we moved out of our house in Elmhurst, we have been garden-free.  Nat has mentioned that she misses it.  She misses the veggies.  But also how our kids were involved and helped both plant and harvest.  Not to mention the understand you get about health and nature and the environment when you grow your own food. Why do I bring this up?  Because a week or so ago, Nat texted me the photo that you see above of this raised ben enclosure that she came across.  This one is being sold from Wayfair , but there are a few different varieties of these things sold from various places online.  They start at about $1K and go up to $3K.  Which...if you ask me is nuts. If you've been following along on the blog here, you may remember that I've been dreaming about a r...

Back in March, I shared a photo of a set of Night Queen Dahlia tubers that I picked up and planned to put in a container this Spring.  This year, I planted two different varieties of Dahlias including these Firebird Semi Cactus Dahlias that I've shared an update on in early June.   Above you see a photo of the blooms from the Night Queen variety that I took this week.  There are about a dozen or so blooms that have sprung up - some on strong stems - others on thin stems that can't quite handle the weight of these colorful blooms. I posted this same photo earlier this week on my backyard/garden Instagram handle @HornbeamHill . Night queen Dahlia's in bloom. #containergardening A post shared by Hornbeam Hill (@hornbeamhill) on Jul 23, 2018 at 6:36am PDT Nat thinks that we need to have these dahlias in the ground, not in pots next year and that might be right, but I do like having them grace our patio with their beauty, not to mention that our patio ...

I came across this Lemon Coral Sedum from Proven Winners in this video from Garden Answer.  I really liked the way it looked in her video, so when I came across it (at the garden center at the Jewel of all places), I had to bring it home.  I put it in a few spots including this wine barrel planter that we have set on our patio.  Like a lot of other sedums, it is drought tolerant, but this one has a neat chartreuse-y color along with those pretty yellow flowers.  I planted this one and it immediately began to establish itself, stretch out and put on this show.  Tucked right in next to the Night Sky Petunia that continues to bloom all Summer long, this part of the pot is doing exactly what I was hoping for in this spot.  The only *miss* in this pot is any sort of mid-level structure/height, but it is getting close to time to rip out those Pansies and replace them with something more fit for the heat of Summer.  Opportunity, right??? This wine barre...

This is the third in the series of posts updating some plants that Nat's Mom gifted us late last fall.  Yesterday, I posted about the Tuff Stuff Red Hydrangea that is doing really well .   Today, I'm sharing the photo you see above to show the current state of the Everlasting Revolution hydrangea that isn't doing *as well*.  You can see that it is much smaller than the Tuff Stuff and the foliage is barely emerging from the mulch.  In fact, I had to kind of carve out a little hole/trench for this thing to even have a chance.  It is located about eight feet from the Tuff Stuff variety, so they're getting basically the same support - sun, water, soil.  But the difference is stark.  I've actually babied this one a bit more this late Spring and hope that it continues to establish itself a bit so we head into the Winter with a strong base/root system. I'll try to revisit this plant later this Summer/Fall to see how it has grown when the heat of the...

Back in October of last year, Nat's Mom gave us a couple of plants that I immediately stuck in the ground and then nursed through the balance of the growing season in the hope that, despite planting them so late, they would survive the winter and come back.  I recently covered how one of these plants - the Disneyland Rose - is ready to bloom this Summer here on the blog .  The other two plants included in the series were hydrangeas.  The first one I'll post here is the Tuff Stuff Red Hydrangea .  Above you'll see a happy and healthy hydrangea that is quite small (like 6" tall and 8" wide), but has more growth on it than when I put it in the ground in October.  I didn't cut it down at all this Spring and that's because, according to this Proven Winner item description , it will bloom on *both* old growth and new growth.  From PW : This re-blooming hydrangea begins blooming in early summer on old wood and continues to produce flowers on new wood throu...

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 fig...

Inside of our garage, we had a hose bib installed during construction that I intended to use to water inside the garage, on the driveway and out front of the house.  But, when we actually started to use the hose in this area, it quickly became apparent that we had to be thoughtful in terms of where/how we stored the hose.  At first, I considered something like the (highly regarded) Eley hose reel with a traditional hose.  I came across it from Laura on Garden Answer in this video .  But, in thinking about how much the kids are involved in the hose (watering the flowers, playing with the water, etc), it seemed like if I wanted the hose to end up wound up each and everytime, I was going to have to find a self-retracting hose reel.  GeekbeatTV ran a review of a retractable hose reel from Flowmaster that seemed right for us.    Our Home Depot sells the same Flowmaster reel but under the Gartenkraft name .  And after it came home with us, it sat ...

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. ...

Back in May, I posted about the first peony plant that we put in our backyard - a variety called Sarah Bernhardt .  Despite the fact that peonies are Nat's absolute favorite flower, we had gone almost a year without planting one.  (We did, however, have a foster peony at Nat's Mom's house .) I put this particular peony near the north fence line and after burying the tuber, I covered the area with mulch and marked it with a stick and then a stone ring.  We were putting together Fairy Gardens with the kids recently and I noticed that the peony shoots and broken through the mulch and we had some actual growth.  These are way, way behind what most normal, established peony plants look like by June.  This is normally the time we're cutting the blooms and bringing them indoors.  Since this was planted as a tuber this year, I was just hoping that we'd get these to emerge this year and that they'll have enough time to establish their root system before the...