Why I Oughta...

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...

I planted a pair Spring Grove Ginkgo trees (dwarf trees) on either side of my back stoop last Summer - in May 2023 .   All Summer-long, I protected them from the sun with a shade cloth as they were drooping everytime we'd have a run of hot days.  They seemed to make it thru the season just fine and by September of 2023, they were showing some new, tender growth .   Both of the trees came back this Spring and I don't seem to have documented their growth in 2024.  This year, I did NOT put up any shade cloth and only watered them when I was watering my annuals.  It appears that they're *mostly* established by this point and are filling out. Below are their current looks.  On the left (below) is the tree on the southside.  On the right (below), is the one on the north - in between the stoop and the screened porch door. At this point, I've done ZERO pruning on them and I don't intend to touch them - until they start to creep in/onto the stoop or d...

Planted in the Fall of 2021, we have a small Ginkgo tree planted IB2DWs - closer to the sidewalk than our house.  This marks the third full growing season and the tree is starting to become something.  It was TINY when it went in.  Not much more than a pencil-thin trunk .  This year, it put on some top growth - so much so that it toppled the support post I had in place.  I subsequently replaced it and wired up the leader to get some top-growth.   Below - you can see the current state of the tree.  About six-feet-tall and getting a few limbs.  All of this without much irrigation.  

Earlier this year (May), I planted a pair of dwarf Ginkgo trees - Spring Grove Ginkgos - on either side of our back stoop .  I was planning on planting *something new* here, but I didn't plan on these - rather, I just came across them and decided to go this route.    I posted about them one-month-post-planting and they seemed to be doing well and getting established .  But...I knew the hard, hot, dry part of the Summer was coming and I wanted to be sure these dwarf trees were set up to succeed.  We were gone for a large part of the Summer, so I decided to set up a some timed irrigation and then covered these in shade cloth.  Yeah...I covered them for months at a time to keep them from drying out and burning.  I recently took the shade cloths off - thinking the heat of the Summer is behind us.  What happened under the shade cloth was quite A LOT of new growth.  But, that new growth was *very* tender because it was being protected from the sun...

Last Spring, I put in a TINY Saratoga Ginkgo tree in amongst the Little Henry Sweetspire out front .  The height of the Ginkgo was *below* the height of the shrub, so I thought the tree would be allowed to sort-of grow-up in the shadow of the shrub.  The Saratoga is a unique Ginkgo that has longer leaves that most normal/traditional Ginkgo trees.  I didn't pay this tree too much attention over the last year, but it was watered with the sprinkler out front that was hitting the front porch beds, so I think it was watered enough to survive.  But, how does it look like one year later?  It has put on about six inches of new height.  See below for a photo showing the current state of the Saratoga Ginkgo tree.  It is now emerged above the full height of the Little Henry Sweetspire - by about eight-to-ten inches.    The American Conifer Society suggests that this tree will get to between 12-to-24-feet tall in ten years.  Lets suggest this is t...

Yesterday, I posted about the removal and transplant process for a pair of mature(ish) PJM Rhododendrons from the two small beds on either side of our back stoop to the far reaches of our yard.  Back in late April, I posted about this new (to me) Witches' Broom dwarf Ginkgo tree called Spring Grove Ginkgo .  Spring Grove is a small, upright that has those fan-shaped Ginkgo leaves that turn bright yellow before they fall in Autumn.   They something that I haven't seen before, so I thought they'd be a great fit for the back stoop beds - as Rhododendron replacements.  The new Ginkgo's are NOT evergreens, but the uniqueness of them feels like a good trade-off.   I bought a pair of Spring Grove Ginkgos that were in 10# nursery containers and planted one in each of the stoop beds.  Below is the north bed - a few things to note:  The Spring Grove Ginkgo is much smaller than the Rhododendron that was there.  Second, the Angelina Sedum has cont...