Why I Oughta...

I bought and planted a couple of Prairie Dropseeds ( Sporobolus heterolepis ) in the Spring of 2022.  They're highly sought-after from all kinds of gardeners - native folks, new perennial movement people, even more formal gardeners.   And they did...nothing.  Like..nothing. They looked like a short clump of Kentucky Blue Grass that was out of place in a garden bed.  That's how they looked in their first year (2022) and their second year (2023).   This Spring, I cut everything back to the ground and suddenly...the Prairie Dropseed is showing itself with a lot more growth and a bunch of seed heads.  Here, below is the one that I can identify - IB2DWs.  Looks lovely: I can see the appeal in these now.  Can they be divided?  I hope so.

2024 is shaping up to the year of garden edits.  A lot less additions in our backyard garden, but some edits to shift towards things meet some criteria:   1.  Work in our yard. 2.  Are appealing (to me). 3.  Have some four-season appeal. That means that changing out things that don't meet those critieria (hostas) and replace them with things that do - both plants that I have on-hand and ones that I need to bring home. My time in this garden is too short to spend time or effort on plants that I don't love.  The edits that I'm thinking about right now focus on mass plantings and repetition.   There's a garden in our neighborhood that I walk past and admire often.  It has a large property with simple, repetitive-planted beds that have hostas, groundcover and a couple of other perennials.  There's A LOT of beds, but they MOSTLY ALL planted in the same pattern - groundcover in front, hostas behind and a third perennial in the rear.  It is simple.  And repetitive.  And lo

As of last September, our little cluster of All Gold Japanese Forest Grasses in our backyard consisted of eight grasses that were planted in one of the curved beds sort-of by the tree swing tree.  Here's how they looked last year - six in front, two in the back row .  These grasses are some of the STARS of our garden, but they're slow-growing and (for me) not thrivers.  They're not in decline, but they're NOT the massive clumps that I see in other folks gardens online.  They also are, unfortunately, now located in the shadow of the soon-to-be-built pizza oven.  Two of them are tucked 'behind' the foundation that will require moving.  For now, I moved *just one* of them because it was in the direct line of construction foot-traffic.  I tucked it further back into the backyard - on the other side - near where I planted two divided ones from IB2DWs .  That cluster is now (I hope) three grasses and (I also hope) a couple of Autumn Ferns that went in last Fall.  Thos

Fall is the right time to divide Seslaria.  And, I'm going to attempt to divide and transplant first-year Seslaria Autumnalis.  Why?  Because I've been so happy with them up front this year.  I identified the three largest plants in front - like the one below - and dug up and split it in two. I wanted to improve the ring around the tree-swing tree with something more interesting - so I moved the new divisions to sit in between the Christmas Tree hostas that I moved here last year.  These are behind the Summer Beauty Allium divisions from last year, too.   Below is a look at some of the divisions and where they went in the backyard. I tucked the original plants back in, too.  Now they were just half-the-size. There's a photo above of a TINY division.  I'm not counting that, so, we're calling this a +3 free plants for Fall Dividing. I'm posting this in November 2023, but I did this dividing and transplanting in mid-October 2023.

Another day, another set of plants going in as part of my #FallPlanting sprint.  This time...featuring a set of ornamental grasses that I've seen other talk about:  Muhlenbergia reverchonii 'Undaunted' - or Ruby Muhly Grass.  At the top of this post is a look at one of the small quart-sized grasses that I brought home.  And below is a photo of the tag at The Growing Place - where they call this grass a "show stopper'.   Across Instagram, I've seen a few gardeners that I follow post photos of the plumes of these Muhly grasses - especially in the sunset.  At $5 a piece, the sale price had me trapped.   When I began to get them planted, I was struck by how dense and mature their root systems were - see below for what I'd consider a root-bound grass: I opted to put them right at the end of the current boardwalk - two in back, one out front to create a small grass colony.  See below for two photos:  one from the yard looking back at the boardwalk.  The other fro

Fall Planting 2023 will go down as a big moment in our garden.  That is...as long as everything that I'm putting in makes it through the Winter.  I'm getting to this stuff pretty late in the growing season, so I a little bit of hesitancy in proclaiming that all of these will make it.  Last year, with the huge mass of Autumn Ferns that I planted late and didn't come back have scarred me a bit .  That fear didn't stop me from adding three more new (to me) plants on the same trip to The Growing Place.  I was wandering around the grass area and came across these small quart-sized grasses you see above.  Short in nature.  Nice seed heads.  I pulled out the plant tag and see this below from Hocus Pocus Groundcovers:  Sesleria 'Greenlee Hybrid' - Greenlee's Moor Grass. Thanks to the Front Porch bed exploration from earlier this year , I was somewhat familar with some Seslerias and ended up buying and planting a number of Seslaria Autumnalis from Northwind .  They&

The original (to our garden) sedges - Everillo Sedges - have been in the ground since the Fall of 2020 .  They're bright grasses in a dark, shade garden.  But, I don't think that I've been using them in the right ways - as I've planted them in a colony together with very little matrix-planting around them/interplanted with them.   They've been mostly neglected and suffered a bit from rabbits .  Below is a look at the 'pre-dividing' planting of these sedges: A closer look at the one on the top of that photo shows that there's some 'center rot' going on and there are a number of smaller, independent sedges.  This is just like what is going on with the Elijah Blue Fescue grass IB2DWs .  Below is a look at the carex in question that I decided to divide: There's a small buckthorn seedling coming up in there that is (obviously) due for removal.  But, It is easy to see a number of sedges here.  I opted for dividing this clump into five.  Three *real

In the Spring of 2021 (two growing seasons ago), I bought a singular (broke the rule of buying multiples), large-scale ornamental grass named Prairie Winds Totem Pole - Panicum virgatum .  Planted it on the edge of the front porch bed as a vertical accent.   What caught my attention at the Morton Sale?  The height of this grass being listed as 72" tall - 6 feet tall .    It came back in May of 2022 - and is a late starter every season.  A year after planting, the grass was still small , but by the end of the growing season, it was probably four-feet-tall or so.  And had some nice Winter Interest .   But, that front porch bed has changed quite a bit in the last year - the Norway Maple is gone.  Replaced by a smaller Triumph Elm.   That has opened up this bed to more light and reduced root competition.   And the results on this ornamental grass?  The tallest it has ever been - and close to the promised 6-foot-height when you count the seed heads.  See below for current view of thi

My Hakonechloa Macra Forest Grass crush keeps growing.  It started with the All Golds that I bought at one of the Morton sales, but has morphed towards something else:  the 'straight' green versions that I find up at Northwind Perennial Farm in Wisconsin.  I planted three of them in a border last year and they've quickly outperformed the All Golds that are planted close-by .   One of the things that I observed in our backyard garden this Spring was the need to help 'hide' the dying foliage of the tulip bulbs that I have planted under the large tree-swing Oak tree.  I have some hostas and ferns in there, but they don't move fast-enough to help.  And, based on watching these Japanese Forest Grasses, I've discovered (this Spring) that the straight Green ones emerge must earlier than the All Golds.   So, on a trip up to Northwind, I put four of these in my wagon.   They look really great in the sun - see below: This area is what I'd call 'part shade'

The front porch bed continues to be a spot in our garden where I've focused some of my attention this season.  It was #3 on my 2023 to-do list - to plant out that bed after the Norway Maple tree was removed last Fall and a small Triumph Elm was planted.  In early May, I posted a 'plan' of sorts for the bed that included the planting of a short, compact grass along with some clumping Alliums in front, backed by some new Boxwoods, Disneyland Roses, grasses and some flowering shrubs.  How have I done so far this year? I worked the soil conditions - using biosolids in a vertical, deep-dug mulching exercise .  Then, I dug out and transplanted a Boxwood to the back . Once the slate was clean, I started to plant.  First, with three bareroot Disneyland roses .  Then, I planted five Green Velvet boxwoods (1 gallon small ones).   And most recently, I planted a new Fire Light Hydrangea shrub where I had previously had a Vanilla Strawberry variety.   Here's the list that I outl

Listed at number 3 on my 2023 to-do list , figuring out the newly configured front porch bed is a pretty significant planting priority for me, but one that I've done the least posting about in the garden diary.  That lack of posting on a 'plan' for the bed, doesn't mean that I haven't been busy working the bed already by moving some things around, adding some things and thinking a lot about what we want up there. The season started with some vertical mulching of biosolids to try to improve the soil overall - that was after some topdressing of biosolids last Fall around the hydrangeas.   Then, just recently, I did three things:  first... I dug-up and transplanted the Green Velvet Boxwood that was left orphaned once we planted the Triumph Elm tree.   I moved around three Karl Foerster Grasses (see below for placement) and then just this past week, I planted three bareroot Disneyland Roses in the bed where the old Norway Maple tree was situated.    The other thing t