Why I Oughta...

On the left, you can see the tiny Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea plant that I put in last fall.  I showed an early Summer view of this thing when it was barely poking out of the mulch .  This one has always been smaller and a bit behind the other one. That one on the right is the Tuff Stuff Red Hydrangea that went in on the same day .  I posted an early June photo of this one, too here on the blog .  You can see the difference in these two, but also, if you look back at those posts I linked above, you can get a sense for how these have grown over the past two months.  Also, in the middle of this photo is my Weeping Cedar .  I planted this tree in May and it seems to have established itself a bit and hasn't experienced any needle drop like, ahem, other trees.  I cut off the top of the tree in this photo, but you can get a sense for the limbs that it has added and how it appears to have bulked up a bit.  Back to the hydrangeas, though.  You'll note that NEITHER of

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 hope to put into place as this (and others) grow i

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 larger next season and f

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 green!).  I called them

Source image from here .  Not my photo. A few weeks back, we were at one of our neighbor's house for a get-together and we spent the entire afternoon out in their backyard where they have quite a large perennial garden.  I wanted to get a little closer look, so I wandered out there and discovered not only a native-looking perennial garden, but also a series of walking paths *in* the garden.  The image above is NOT their garden, but rather just some example image that I found online ( source here ). The garden I was walking in (with the paths) was in full sun, so it was quite different than the one you see above, but I picked that image because it is a shade garden and more of what we have to deal with on Hornbeam Hill.  Hostas and ferns and hostas and ferns. The path idea really struck me and made me think about our own landscape plan.  I've showed a bunch of cuts/selects of our landscape plan here on the blog , but none of them had a 'walking path'.  It wasn

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 raised bed project for more than

Two months ago, I posted a photo of some of our front hydrangeas and they were looking pretty small.  Today?  The Annabelle's are big and blooming.  Those two that you see above are Annabelle's and they're on the south side of our porch.  These continue to outpace in both size and blooms the Vanilla Strawberry variety that we have in front of the porch that face due East. In looking at some of our neighbors, our hydrangeas are behind where some others are at currently in terms of blooms.  Might be because ours aren't as mature as the ones next door or maybe they're some other variety.  I didn't cut these all the way back to the ground, but according to this product listing on White Flower Farm , that's what many people choose to do: Because she flowers heavily on the current season’s growth (“new wood”), most gardeners cut the stems to the ground in late winter. New shoots emerge from the base and bloom the same summer. I know that's what the

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the variety of grapevine that I planted in our container this Summer (Somerset) and mentioned that I did that just because I wanted to post a follow-up.  Today, is that follow-up.  You can see that we have been attacked by some Japanese Beetles.  They've basically skeleton-ized some of the larger leaves.  Unfortunately, they arrived when I was out of town for the better part of a week, so they got a head start.  Since then, I've tried to monitor the plants and remove the beetles everyday by hand.  I tried drowning them in soapy water with mixed results.  Turns out, the Japanese Beetle is a known grapevine.  This piece from My Grape Vine says : The Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica, also known as the jitterbug) is one of the most visible and most destructive feeders of grape vine foliage out there. The Japanese beetle attacks most green parts of the grape vine, but mostly feeds on young leaves in the upper part of the canopy. If you loo

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 ge

Back at the beginning of May, I posted about how I was trying some elephant ear bulbs in our containers this season after picking up a pack of nine of them .  Above, is one of my wine barrel containers that I have out on the back patio with - as you can see - some very happy Elephant Ears.  You can also see the wine barrel trellis that I embedded in the wine barrel with a first-year clematis vine growing up the back.  (I'll try to post about the trellis in a different post.  I have two of them that are both hosting first-year plants that, I *hope* will come on strong next year and we'll be able to use the trellises as screening material in a meaningful way.) I have to say that I *LOVE* these elephant ears and the real tropical feel they lend to our pots.  I now have them in a few - including the Black Magic variety I planted with some Dahlias - and I know that I'll do them again next year.  I believe there is likely some way to salvage and reuse the bulbs each season,

Back at the end of June, I posted a photo of the bounty that we took out of a yard in Downers Grove ahead of their teardown  that someone we're close to was undertaking.  (We didn't just glom on to the plants!  We were invited!)  Along with the hostas and peonoies and irises, I also grabbed a ratty-looking Raspberry plant.  Or at least, I was pretty sure it *was* a Raspberry plant.  I stuck it in the back of our property and promptly forgot about it.  Fast forward to this week and here's two different evening harvests.  Not a ton of berries, but after the transplant shock, I'm surprised we got any at all.  Not to mention getting scarfed up by the critters that run through our yard on a regular basis.  There are a few dozen more emerging/white-ish berries that will ripen soon, too.  So we'll be at it for a while it seems.  But, with just one plant, we'll never be in a position to fill pint after pint like some folks. Like the rest of their 'teardown&

We have a neighbor down the block that spends a lot of time and effort to tend to his yard and garden.  He's out there constantly and seems to really like to make his yard look the best it can.  On one of my walks with Lizzie, I chatted him up about the garden and we got started talking about how he was about to split up his Daylilies.  And he offered us a few of them.  Of course, I'd take them, I said.  What you see above are a few containers that we ended up with before I put them in one of the beds in the rear part of our yard.  I don't know that much about daylilies, but we had three of them in our old garden that I placed at the foot of our Ginko Tree in the backyard .  We don't have daylilies in our landscape plan, so I've been torn about where to put them.  Seems like a little bit of 'longer-term' hosting is best.  According to the donor, these seem to tolerate some shade, so I'm putting them in an area that we aren't planning on dealin

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 barrel container (for now) is on the no

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 Summer hits Do

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

Back in January, I posted a little snapshot of another part of our landscape plan that was of the far, southwest corner of our property .  That corner included the addition of three Canadian Hemlock trees.  In that post, I mentioned that the plan actually calls for nine of these Hemlocks and at the time, I had not planted any of them.   Here, today, is a look at another slice/section of our landscape plan.  There are multiple elements in this little image, but I want to focus on what is in green: three Canadian Hemlocks.  This is about 2/3rds of the way back between our house and the property line and as you can see they're tucked in against the northern fence line.   Those of you following along know that I've posted these in a series. The other plan sections that I've shared include: southern fence line with Hydrangeas and allium , one of our rear foundation beds outside of our kitchen , the north fence line that we put the Frans Fontaine European Hornb

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

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 dry/

This is a look (and post in the [ garden diary ]) of our hydrangeas in the front yard.  On the right side - under the front part of our porch are four Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangeas .  On the left, are a pair of Annabelle Hydrangeas.  There are also two Little Rocket Narrow Spiked Ligularia that are showing in the photo, too, but this post isn't about them. These hydrangea were planted at the same time and were the same size container.  I also gave both a hard pruning early this Spring/late this winter to be *about* the same size.  They were getting a bit 'leggy', so based on some guidance from fellow gardeners, I pruned them down to focus some of the growth into a more bush-like shrub.  But, look at the growth on the two varieties.  The Annabelle's are planted facing south.  The Vanilla Strawberry ones are facing east - from the building.  Meaning that as the sun moves across the day, the two on the left side stay in the sun most of the day while the four out fro