Why I Oughta...

Six years ago, I planted a tiny Bald Cypress tree .  It was a TINY tree.  I mean...tiny.  Pencil-thin trunk with a leader that was four-feet-tall or less.  If you go look at the photos from this post, you can BARELY make the trunk out.   But, that didn't last long.  This tree has grown and grown and grown.  I'd say that this is probably the BEST OUTCOME of any small tree we've planted over the years - and there's more than 100 of them.  I've chronicled this tree's growth over the years - as recent as last September when I noticed HOW BIG IT HAS GOTTEN .  Two years ago - September of 2022 - the tree was filling out and growing up.   Over the years, I have barely touched this tree.  However...when I planted it, there wasn't a driveway RIGHT NEXT TO IT.  There is one now.  So, starting this past Winter, I gave it its first dormant pruning - limbing it up just a little bit.  But, mostly just 'shortening' the bo...

We spent a little bit of family vacation last year in Southern California where we stayed in a neighborhood (thanks VBRO).  That meant that we were able to do a number of neighborhood walks - up and down the blocks - looking at the houses and landscapes.  Both Nat and I were BOTH struck by the use of Rosemary in the landscape of some Southern California home gardens.  They were big, silver masses of leaves that put off that easy-to-identify smell of Rosemary. Rosemary isn't something that will survive our Winters, so we've ONLY grown it as an annual herb in containers.   But, at both the orange and green big box stores, I spotted something new (to me) in their Spring nursery inventory:  Bog Rosemary.  The silver foliage certainly resembles that more traditional herb variety.  But, the containers that were in-stock were showing purple flower blooms.  See below for some looks at Bog Rosemary - specifically the Blue Ice variety: The use of Rosem...