Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I shared the planting of eight bareroot Bressingham Blue Hostas in a new bed in the backyard.  I had previously planted two others by the screened porch .  That's 10 of 18.  Going down my list, the next spot for the balance of these looks like back by the Yew Hedge.  From my planning post: 1.  Priority Area #2 for 2021 .  Calls for 8.  Done.  Posted yesterday . 2.  Hicks Yew Hedge corner.  Calls for 6. 3.   Screened porch corner.  Calls for 2.    This one is done already . That area calls for six Hadspens, too.  Here is showing these six (in blue) in relation to the previous eight (in green) per the plan: And, here's where they're going in - spreading to the north of the northern-most Hicks Yew. These are deep shade but likely have the BEST soil on the property.  I used wood chips last season to mulch in the yews and create the fire pit area, but this year they'll get a proper hardwood fine mulching.  Same thing, though:  Think I can beat 50% success rate on

 Back last Summer, I bought 15 Hicks Upright Yews in small 2# nursery containers when they went on sale at Home Depot and planted them in a row near the back of our rear fenceline.   I planted them in July and watered them in with a soaker hose to keep them alive.  The first Winter, a few of them were eaten by rabbits , but all of them came out of the cold alive.   By June of this year, they had put off their first full-season growth and last month, a few of them had produced their first arils (berries).   I wanted to document how they stand - going into Winter - this year.  Below, you can see a full photo showing the yews from edge of hedge to edge.   The gaps haven't filled in much (yet), but I can start to envision what they'll end up looking like and still want to think about pruning them to be kind of like this 'swooping' hedge that I captured as inspiration . 

The past few days, I've added some entries to my garden diary showing off some late Summer growth on our Dawn Redwood tree and our front-yard Bald Cypress tree .  Today, I'm adding an entry showing how our Hicks Yews in the back of our lot are showing off some 'berries' for what I think is the first time. The posted about these Yews just last month when they were looking fine .  And earlier this Spring, I posted a photo showing off their new growth  after they suffered some frost/winter (and maybe rabbit?!?) damage. I planted these last Summer , so I'm thinking that due to the transplant shock, we didn't see any berries in their first season. But...turns out, these 'berries' aren't really berries.  They're " arils ".  And they arrive mid-Summer - hence why I'm noticing them right now: Via this post on Four Season Foraging : Yew produces red arils— berry-like seed coverings. (I'll just call them "berries" f

A week or so ago, I mentioned that I threw down some pavers to form a makeshift walkway behind the tiny yews that we have at the back part of our yard.  You can see in the photo here that all of the yews have settled into a pretty dark green color after experiencing some bright-green Spring growth this year .  As of now, all of the Hicks Yews have seemingly established themselves despite having some trouble this Winter with some frost/cold damage .  There are 12 total Hicks Yews back there that I bought last Summer and planted shortly there after .  My inspiration for this hedge is this swooping one from Bunny Williams .  We're now one year in and I'm hoping that by year three, we'll see these things begin to grow closer together and close some of the current gaps.  I was thinking that I'd leave these to grow to about three feet tall before I get out the hedge clippers to start shaping them. This is part of what I've called " Priority Area #3 "

We have an easement behind our property that buffers us from the neighbors to the West.  In that easement we keep our 3-bin compost setup and left most of the rest of it to 'go natural'.  The easement runs the entire block and connects the big pond on the south of our neighborhood to territories to the north, so we've seen critters of all types using the easement to navigate. Recently, our neighbors to the West decided to clean up the easement - and it seems that the folks that they hired to clean the place up also worked our side.  They removed a lot of Buckthorn, trimmed up some of the more valuable trees (think Maples and Walnuts) and picked up a bunch of debris that has appeared over the years. They also uncovered a bunch of stones and pavers.  And, (lucky for us) stacked a whole bunch of them up right outside our fence gate.  There are flagstones of various sizes, but also five round pavers and eight square pavers.  These have 'pebbles' embedded in the

After seeing some Winter damage (and rabbit damage ) on some of our Hicks Upright yews that I planted last year, I was happy to see that the shrubs are showing off some growth this Spring.  All twelve (12) of these small yews have new, fresh Spring growth on the tips.  I planted these in mid-Summer of 2019 and baby'd them with a soaker hose. I stuck some of the Jobe's fertilizer spikes in near the northern-most shrubs in an attempt to see if they work.  If you recall, my goal is a wavy shrub like the one this post. I posted some photos of these yews in my garden walk-around earlier this Spring and gave them a heavy mulch.

A few days ago, I posted some sad photos of the small Canadian Hemlock trees that have been devoured by some freakin' rabbits in our backyard this Winter.  After I spotted that damage, I wanted to take a closer look at some of the other shrubs in our yard to see if there's more damage that occured between when we put the yard to bed for the Winter and now when it is starting to 'wake up'.  Unfortunately, I found more.  Both rabbit damage.  And Winter damage.  Let's start with this Hicks upright yew.  It is the one on the northern edge of the hedge.  And is the only one that has this much winter damage.  For history, I bought these Hicks Yews in July and planted them in the ground shortly thereafter.  This hedge (or...eventual hedge) is part of my 2020 " Priority Area 3 ' from my recent planning series.  This post is now part of my Winter Damage Series , I guess.  Full tag of posts here . It includes this post on our Front boxwood bronzing from