Why I Oughta...

In 2024, I planted six Sun King Japanese Aralias as part of a 'garden edit' in what I call the 'nook' garden behind the Weeping Nootka Cypress tree.  I was concerned that they didn't survive their first year, because they went dormant early.  But, they came back last Spring - for their first Spring .  Because of that, I bought three more at the Morton Arboretum Arbor Day Plant Sale last Spring and planted them on the opposite side of the garden .   And they did well in their first year.  Here's mid-Summer look of that B-R-I-G-H-T foliage contrasting in the shade garden .   This Spring, I'm seeing some good news:  these are coming back (as expected) for their first Spring.  See below for a photo showing the trio of crowns emerging from the mulch on the southside bed: The Morton annual plant sale is coming up in the next few days and I'm thinking that even more of these should be near the top of my shopping list.  

There I was, wandering the parking log aisles of the big box store seasonal nursery where I see the usual suspects:  lots of arborvitae.  Green Giant Thujas.  Some pine trees.  The normal stuff they have every year.   But, if you look hard-enough, you can also find some interesting, far-less-common things that arrive at the beginning of the season.   One of the 'I haven't seen that before' things was on a pallet in the evergreen section.  See it below: What is this thing?  It is a lollipop.  Or...'on standard'.  Something grafted on a trunk.  And, it looks like a mop-head of evergreen needles.  I grabbed the tag and it is labeled as "Thuja Arb Whipcord STD 7 gallon".   A search for [Whipcord Arborvitae] turns up a bunch of listings  Iseli Nursery has this listing page up for the Whipcord Western Red Cedar (on Standard) along with their POS sign.  If they're selling it, that tells me something....

Last month, I shared that I made my first (ever) order from Farmer Bailey (Garden Club Plants) for a few sets of plant plugs .   I ordered six sets of eight (8) plugs each - 48 total.  One set of six (6) of each of: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue , Phlox Cherry Caramel , Plectranthus Silver Shield , Gomphrena Audray White , Eucalyptus Silver Dollar and Didiscus Lacy Blue . When you order from Garden Club, you get to select your delivery date.  With this being my first time doing this, I likely made a mistake:  I ordered for delivery too soon. I don't recall (now) if some of the later (late April, early May) dates were already sold out or if I just selected mid-April because I thought that was appropriate, but either way...my plugs arrived in mid-April.  They came in these cute little green plastic 'greenhouses': All 48 plugs look good and had leaf'd out.  The only one of the set that I had grown before was eucalyptus, so I knew what *that* foli...

Just a few days, I posted a ' musings' post on starting my dahlia tubers and talked about the  when/how/what/where of starting the flower farming season here in the garden.  Last year, I potted up the stored tubers right at the beginning of May and this year, I talked about trying to get it done a little bit earlier.  Today marks a few days shy of two weeks earlier.  That's pretty good, right?   The 10-day forecast shows ZERO days below freezing, but I'm not holding out hope that the last freezing temperature is behind us.  The State Climatologist Office for Illinois has a last/first frost table up on their site that I tend to use more than the Old Farmer's Almanac version.   On the Illinois version, they have a map up showing the "earliest" last Frost date (for us, it was April 9th ).  And the latest (May 28th).  The map showing the median lists April 28th for DuPage County .  And, that's just ten days away.   So,...

I went and picked up more dahlia tubers.  These would be (I think) 25 + 7 + 2 = 33rd and 34th new tuber for the season .    Here is my initial order from Bonny Blooms .  Then, a few more from Longfield Gardens .    Then, I bought some more from Longfield from Costco .  And, most recently these seven from Menards .   I also wrote this post showing some of the other tubers Menards carries and mentioned a few that jumped out to me.  The first one in that post is named Blue Wish.  And... I said : "This is one that I will buy if I go back." Bad news for dahlia haters.  I went back. And bought a package of two Blue Wish Tubers. They are waterlily dahlias.  That stay under 36" tall.   I'll find a home for them, I'm sure.   Here's what Breck's says about it : An elegant, colour-changing, water lily-type dahlia. A true spectacle in the garden, this dahlia's 4½" blooms transform from delicate white petals ...

After a few years of lackluster peony growth, last Spring I finally saw some positive improvement in the flower output of the two colonies that are dotted around our garden.  I've moved the peonies into those two colonies based on sun conditions.  The first one is in the IB2DWs bed where I have a couple of plants.  And the second is in the "kitchen curved bed" in the back where I have three more.   Below are some photos showing the red tips emerging from the mulch.  These photos are from April 6th.   I've done similar "Peonies are Back" posts over the years.  Here is that post from April 2025 - one year ago .   Last year, I cut and preserved the blooms at the "marshmallow stage" and had peony flowers for Nat's birthday in July .  I'll do that again this year.  

The small colony of the lovely Spring ephemeral Sanguinaria canadensis - or commonly called Bloodroot is in bloom in early April.  This post is going up on April 14th, but I took this photo on April 6th.    My neighbor to the south dug-up and gave me a clump of this pretty cool perennial in Spring of 2023 and it has come back and bloomed every Spring since.  Here's the post from last year showing both this Bloodroot and the neighboring Virginia Bluebells .  You can see the Bluebells in the photo below on the left.   These are seemingly slow to expand, but I'm happy this initial colony is thriving with even more blooms this year than in the past.  

The pizza oven beds that I created last year are sitting on top of one of our large drywells.  The natural soil in this area was dug up, a huge pit of gravel was installed and then the builder backfilled the top with what appears to be a lot of clay soil.  That means that the area isn't great for gardening.  Starting last year, I have begun to amend the soil in an attempt to grow more things in this area.  Last week, I posted about how I was burning some leaf litter in-place in this bed .  My thinking was that adding this ash to the bed can amend the clay as it works its way down through the layers.   This year, ahead of planting this bed up, I went and grabbed some municipal biosolids and dumped about 20 gallons on both sides of the pizza oven bed.  Below are some photos showing the biosolids on top of the existing mulch.  You can see the darker color in contrast to what was there in-place.  My plan is to use the west-side to plant pere...

Last Spring, I planted two new Disneyland Roses, bringing the total number of these Floribunda roses in the sideyard to five .    The two new ones outperformed the established ones and were highly productive all the way up to Thanksgiving last Fall.   One of the decisions I made last Fall was to take a relaxed approach to overwintering these roses - which is different than what I've done in the past.  In some years, I've created rings of Chicken Wire and stuffed them with leaf litter to create an insulation layer on top of the canes.  Other years, I've used municipal biosolids + leaf litter to mound up around the crowns.   This year, I let nature take its course and have whatever leaf litter that collected around the canes to provide that insulation layer.   And....either due to a not-so-bad Winter...or....the reality that these appear to living in a small microclimate on the southside of our house, tucked in against the foundation...ha...

A box of dahlia tubers just arrived via UPS from Longfield Gardens a few days ago.   In this box are Great Silence, Jowey Winnie, Burlesca, Creme de Cognac, Kelsey Annie Joy .  I ordered from a few other dahlia farms, but those tubers haven't arrived just yet.  But, I'm expecting them soon.   That box showing up has now FORCED me to start thinking about the timing and process for the tubers this year.  When? What? How? Where?   Eeek.  The time has come to sort things out.  And, there's no better way I know how to sort out the order-of-operations for something like this than just writing out my musings.  What is rattling around in my head on this project.  By going thru the when/what/how/wheres.   Let's start with: "When?"  When do I bring them in from the garage?  Does that help 'wake them up'?  Do I plant them directly from the saran wrap packages in the garage into nursery pots?  When do I p...

The flowering tree in our front yard - a Saucer Magnolia that was planted in Summer 2017 - is in bloom this week.  It is always a nice treat to see the pink blooms that are ephemeral, show up this time of year.  The form of the tree continues to grow (mostly) upright with some branching out of the tips which is creating a ball-shape standing on top of the multi-trunk base.  I haven't pruned this tree much, but it might be time to think about a 'limb'ing up' of some of the edges after it finishes this year's bloom cycle.   Below is a photo showing the tree (and the Chamber of Commerce day) in Downers:  Last year, the tree appears to have had MORE blooms than this year.  Here's the post (and photo) from a week later in the year that shows a more vibrant tree (at least to my eye).   This tree has now had nine growing seasons ('17, '18, '19, '20, '21, '22, '23, '24, '25) and sure has grown quite a bit from what it looked like whe...

This post is going up in mid-April, but I laid down this bed extension at the end of March.   This is the third bed that I've put down extensions this Spring - the most-recent one is the small Saratoga Ginkgo bed by the driveway .   Over the years, I've extended this bed out from right in front of the boxwoods to where it stands now.  In Fall of 2024, I added to the edge the first time using this same (lazy) method .  Last year, I planted 64 annual vinca as bedding plants and I'll do much the same this year .  But, with this newly extended area, that total will have to go up. Below is a photo showing the new extensions on each edge of the bed.  The southside bump-out is the largest part, where I added about a foot.  In the middle, I didn't add anything.  But, on the northside, down near the front steps, I've now connected this bed to the Saratoga Ginkgo bed.   Here are some in-process photos where I used a mix of cardboards and...

Two days ago, I posted the first part of a bed extension (lazy method) project in the front yard around the tiny Saratoga Ginkgo tree that is in an island between our driveway and front walk.  I started with the rough shape I wanted and mentioned that I usually expand these beds over multiple days due to having just enough material (Cardboard + municipal biosolids + composted manure) on hand to do a section-at-a-time.   Today, I'm sharing a few more updated photos showing the final shape of this newly, expanded bed.  With proper curves.  I wanted to add some true 'swooping' curves (curvilinear shape) and expanded out the bed by twelve inches in most of the bed and closer to two-feet at the main curve.   Note:  This post is going up in early April, but I laid these out on March 20th.  So, when it comes to that crucial component (time!), these will have 10 days in March, all of April and if I get to the first week of May (prior to planting), t...

I took this photo of a volunteer Crocus that has appeared in the middle of our backyard lawn a few weeks back.  This was from late March.  And, it is such a delight to see.  This lone Crocus is a volunteer as I've never planted a single Crocus bulb (or...corm if you'd prefer) in the garden.  See below for the short, purple flower: Just because I haven't planted a single Crocus, doesn't mean that I haven't thought about it.  And, for me....that's a real sign of growth as a gardener.  There was a time when I fell into the 'lawn care' world.  I was treating feeding my lawn, treating it with iron, cutting it in a specific way and I even had a "Domination Line" up front.  But, my feelings on turf grass have evolved over time and I'm even actively removing more of it from our front yard with bed extensions this Spring.   On my recently published 2026 to-do list, I included as #13:  Plant Fall Bulbs .  In the past, that has mostly bee...

Lazy bed extensions were listed as a "Fall Project" in my 2026 to-do list .  And, I need to do that.  But, I also wanted to use the time I had this Spring by knocking some of the bed extensions off my list while I could in March and April.  I've posted a few times already when I first extended and reshaped the front yard island bed .  Then, I did an initial expansion on the southside of the house in the cut flower foundation beds .   Today, I'm doing an initial expansion of the small corner bed that I call the "Saratoga Bed" because it features the tiny Saratoga Ginkgo tree along with some Little Henry Sweetspire Spirea shrubs .   By now, I've laid out the elements of my lazy bed extensions: 1.  Cardboard to smother the existing turf grass. 2.  A mix of (municipal) biosolids, leaf litter and composted manure + topsoil. 3.  Time. Here, below, is the 'before' photo.  The bed needs more breathing room by extending things outward....

I came across this garden inspiration photo of a wattle fence on Instagram and I immediately bookmarked it.  They don't call it a wattle fence, but rather a "River of Sticks" and the commenters call it a 'dead hedge'.  Whatever you call it, you surely find it interesting and appealing.  And, full of personality .    The original idea (not this post below) comes from A.Zen.Gardener.    View this post on Instagram A post shared by Emily Chua (@optimisticgardener) I've tried a tiny pilot wattle fence in the stumpery a few Winters ago , but it never took off.  Mostly...because I never followed-through.  But, there are some lessons to learn from observing these photos that I can apply to a 2026 wattle fence: 1.  Layers of wattle vs one layer.  See the pegs in the ground creating that "thick" portion?   2.  Curves and shapes.  The curves follow the border and some of them are 'triangle' shaped at...

Don't tell the Parrillos that you shouldn't compost citrus peels.  Our kitchen compost stands out against the remaining winter snow of the season.  With all the deciduous leaves in the storage bin, the weekly dose of coffee grounds are a welcome balancer that increase the greens (nitrogen) and hopefully get the mix a little bit closer to where it needs to be.   The vibrant colors from the top of the bins always contrast with the drab surroundings before Spring arrives in the far back of our garden.

Part of my DIY Spring clean-up is doing some small, controlled burns in place with the left-behind leaf litter in the beds.  I rake up some small piles that have defined edges (so the burn can't run everywhere) and use my little weed-burning torch to set the piles on fire.  They burn up the leaves, leave behind some ash and eventually exhaust themselves when they run out of material.   Here's one of the small piles I am burning under the Hornbeam trees in back:

 More Spring is emerging in the backyard, in particular the Kitchen Curved bed.  The colony (or drift) of Summer Beauty Alliums that have been planted in our garden since the very first year are emerging from the leaf litter and showing green tips in their usual clusters.  Below are a few photos showing these early-season foliage stars in between the Thujas and a little cluster of boxwoods in the Kitchen Curved bed.  These are planted a bit further back from the Amsonia that is mid-bed.   The leaf litter is going to be cleaned-up in the next few weeks - between a combination of efforts (I hope):  some by me, some by professionals.  

One of my 2026 to-do items is to 'expand the beds in Fall'.  I say 'Fall' because of how I utilize what I call the "lazy method" of smothering out the turf with cardboard.  That means that in addition to materials like cardboard and municipal biosolids, I need time.  Time for the grass to die.  Time for the cardboard to breakdown.  And time for the biosolids to MELLOW OUT.   Last year, I missed the Fall window to do some bed extensions, so I started to do them this Spring.  The first one was a few weeks ago with the Island Bed taking on new edges .  I used cardboard, municipal biosolids and composted manure to create a blend that I'll plant up (and mulch) later this Spring.  In the sideyard, I want to do the same thing:  expand the beds along the foundation to be more proud of the house.  Last year, I planted out the Dahlias in late May/early June.  I like to have about six weeks of time between laying down these bed exten...