Why I Oughta...

Another day, another Spring growth on evergreen post in the garden diary.  This time, it is a similar trio of Green Velvet Boxwoods, but these are planted a year earlier, in June 2022 .  These shrubs started as TINY (TINY!) evergreen shrubs planted in a cluster IB2DWs, under the flowering pear tree along the north property line.    Take a quick look here to see how small they were when they went in the ground . Now in their fifth growing season ('22, '23, '24, '25 and now '26), they've taken a more globe-shape and have nicely rounded crowns.   See below for the current view of these three: Back when I put them in, I mentioned wanting 'structure' and 'Winter interest' in this bed.  We're starting to see those dynamics come to life.  

This is another update on some shrubs that went in the ground in that epic Fall Planting cycle of October 2023.  Evergreens, like the Montrose Charm and Weeping Norway Spruce trees that I updated here in the [garden diary] the past two days.  But, this post is about evergreen shrubs.  Specifically, three Green Velvet Boxwoods that went in alongside the garage on the northside of our house .   If there is anything that I've planted in our garden that I have neglected the most, it might be these three Boxwoods.   They're now on their third growing season and I haven't once thought about them.  Other than to remove the carcass of the dead pair of dogwood tries that I tried in this spot.  Looking back at the photos showing those trees , I was on to something.  The big, blank white wall needs to be filled in some way.  (More on that in a separate post.) These three Green Velvet Boxwoods started their life as tiny, one-gallon shrubs....

Yesterday, I posted a couple of photos showing the purple (or are they red?) cones on our Weeping Norway Spruce trees that are planted in the IB2DWs bed in our front yard.  Those trees went in the ground in Fall of 2023.  But, so did a few other conifers in that same "Fall Planting" cycle.  One of those conifer trees that also went in the ground in October 2023 was a small, ball-and-burlap Montrose Charm White Spruce tree .  It was a pretty small tree in Fall of 2023.  And, a little mal-shaped.  Today, in its third full growing season, it has taken on a more traditional profile and shape as an upright, narrow conifer tree.   It has also put on some mass and height.   Below is a look at the current view of the tree - showing the full conifer from ground to tip: But, something else is happening this Spring.  Something that didn't happen in previous years.  That's the green cones have burst from the tips of this tree and are putt...

I planted a pair of small Weeping Norway Spruce trees IB2DWs in the Fall of 2023 and that experience has changed how I think about Fall Planting in general.  I've planted a ton of trees on our property, but these late-season conifers have been some of the most enjoyable to watch grow.  Not just because the Fall Planting allowed them to get established, but because of how they provide structure and four-season interest in a long, linear bed that sits between two driveways (hence the IB2DWs name).   That means that this is their third (full) growing season (2024, 2025 and now 2026).  In each of the first two Springs, we saw some red cones emerge on the trees and that has been a real treat. Here is a post from Spring 2024 showing the red (or purple?) cones .  And, here is a post from early May 2025 (a little under a year ago from today) showing those same red/purple cones.   Back in February, when there was snow-cover on the ground, I posted a phot...

Last year, I planted three new (to me) ferns from the Morton Arboretum Plant Sale: Godzilla Japanese Painted Ferns . Athyrium 'Godzilla'.  They were billed as being as large (when mature) as four-to-six-feet in span.  That's B-I-G.   Last year, mine certainly didn't get *that big*.  But, they seemed to do just fine.  Because, this Spring, all three of them have emerged from dormancy.  See below for a shot of this area.   Hard to identify the fern crowns, right?  Here, below is an annotated version showing the locations: These are 'stumpery adjacent' and if they actually grow to their full-size, will fill in this space.   Maybe more of these as part of the "hosta replacement plan" on the other side of the garden?

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....