Why I Oughta...

A few days ago, I received a new comment from a reader of my garden diary on this post all the way back in late May 2018 titled: " Frans Fontaine Hornbeam Planted - Hedgerow Spring 2018 ".  That post shows the eight columnar European Hornbeam trees that had been delivered and were being planted in our back and side yard to create (at that time, what I hoped to be) a privacy screen.  The comment - from JennyW - is here below: I've talked this before, but I write this daily online diary because I get joy out of doing it. I don't run advertisements.  I don't run sponsored content.  I also write for a pretty narrow audience - mostly myself.  I also look at the analytics data and know that there are really three audiences - in declining size order:   1.  The largest part of the audience: (mostly) one-time search readers (they search for something, click on the link and end up at my blog).   2.  Second biggest audience:  Referral.  This means that people are reading so

After close to a year of thinking and planning for the installation of a row of Frans Fontaine European Columnar Hornbeam trees along our north property line, we had eight of them installed in late May of 2018.    Now, seventeen months later, I wanted to document in the garden diary where the trees are in their growth and maturation. A little bit more than a year ago, I posted some similar photos to document their growth.  Go check them out here .  They were vibrant and green.  But, very tapered and the gaps between the trees were large at between two and three feet in spacing. I posted again as they were entering dormancy in November and began to turn yellow last Fall .   The trees and limbs were mostly the same, tapered, tight selves.  Then again a few weeks later in late November when one of the trees dropped all of its leaves.  These photos give you a sense for the gaps in between these young trees last Fall. By April of this year, the buds that had been set the previ

I first came across a Weeping White Spruce tree via Laura @ Garden Answer on Youtube .  I've embedded her video below and have set it to start at 1:03 mark in the video where she talks about how they picked this tree out.  In particular, she talks about how we're not supposed to judge an evergreen by what it looks like as a 'baby tree'.    The Weeping White Spruce is a columnar evergreen and it is a weeping tree.  By now, you guys know I love columnar varieties of trees and are drawn to those because it means that I can pack more trees into the yard as they grow.   The first weeping conifer that I bought was last year was the Weeping Himalayan Cedar Tree that I planted about a year ago .  Earlier this month, I posted my concern for the tree as it had suddenly turned brown, but the good news is that it seems it has recovered and there is new, green growth all over the place .    I also added six ( but just three of them planted so far) Canadian Hemlocks to br

A couple of weeks ago, I brought home a three Gold Cone Junipers from Menards and shared photos and details from them here .  I ended up getting two of them in the ground this week and have the third still in the cast iron urn in our front yard.  Above you'll see one in the ground and the other one is kind of staggered behind it. These are generally in the vicinity of where I planted the small Hemlock last year (that died!) and should serve as a nice multi-layered look of conifers once I get the Hemlocks in the ground.    This is an area that gets plenty of morning sun and since it is on the northside of the property, it gets some decent oblique sun throughout most of the day until about 2 or 3 pm in the afternoon. The Gold Cone Juniper is a columnar conifer that is billed - per the tag - to only be four to five feet tall, but there are a few photos on the Web that show something more on the order of eight to ten feet tall?  I'll be happy with cute little four feet tall

Four weeks ago, I posted a series of photos showing how I had pruned both of the Greenspire Linden trees that we have espaliered into a Horizontal Cordon .  We went from four levels down to three and then restrung the wire to support a new fill-in fourth Cordon.  When removing the top Cordon, I cut what is technically called the Apical Meristem in an attempt to redirect some of the growth this season to the existing Cordons with the goal of beefing them up and then thinking about how we might be able to turn the tips up into a Candelabra shape.  (Scroll down in this post to see the different espalier shapes including a Candelabra .) A few things to call out though: First, in the photo above, you can see that we have one misaligned Cordon level.  On the left, the limb is coming out about four or five inches higher than the limb on the right.  I've trained the one on the right *up*, but there is currently this misalignment.  Is it a deal-killer?  I don't think so.  Especia

One of the amazing things about being online today is that there is a community on the Web for just about any niche interest you might have.  Take...for instance Lawn Care DIYers.  There's a bunch of YouTube "Stars" (I hesitate to call them Stars, but I also am *not* going to call them Influencers because, well, that's just gross.), there are online forums and plenty of bloggers.  There are also tools that have historically been used by the Turf industry (think Golf Course Managers) that have now been set free into the world. One of them is the use of Growing Degree Day Calendars.  What are Growing Degree Days ?  From Wikipedia : Growing degree days (GDD) are a heuristic tool in phenology. GDD are a measure of heat accumulation used by horticulturists, gardeners, and farmers to predict plant and animal development rates such as the date that a flower will bloom, an insect will emerge from dormancy, or a crop will reach maturity. And it turns out, there are GDD

I recently came across this line that can be traced back to a Chinese Proverb about when the best time for all of us to consider planting a tree and it really resonated with me.  It was shared in this (below) Instagram post from Gardeners Supply : View this post on Instagram The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now. (Chinese Proverb) Proper planting is critical to ensure the tree survives and thrives. ⁣ Here are some planting tips (find more on our website's article "How to Plant a Tree or Shrub"):⁣ .⁣ Planting too deep is the top reason that trees and shrubs die.⁣ .⁣ Apply bark mulch or pine straw to a depth of 2–3" over the entire planting hole. Mulching helps conserve water and prevent weeds. Taper the mulch toward the base of the tree, but do not allow it to touch the tree trunk.⁣ .⁣ Proper moisture is critical to the survival of your young tree or shrub. The roots should

Back in the Fall of 2017 (our first fall), I planted 30 tulip bulbs along the fenceline in our backyard in between the section where our espalier system is set up and where we are growing a series of hydrangeas.  They popped up for the first time in March of 2018 and I documented that here .  And by Mid-May they had bloomed in a beautiful combination of orange and yellow .  I mentioned last year that I thought it was going to be best to relocate these bulbs, but guess what?  I never got around to moving them.  This post claims that the *best* time to transplant tulip bulbs is the late Fall - about the same time that I put these in the ground.  From the post : The best time to transplant tulips is in the late fall, according to Ron Smith, Horticulturist at the North Dakota State University Extension Service. In the fall, bulbs have completed their growing cycle and lie dormant. Moving dormant tulips doesn't interrupt the growing cycle and makes the bulbs less susceptible to

Day three of tree buds in Spring today.  First was the Dawn Redwood tree that I have high hopes for this year.  Then, yesterday, I posted a photo of the Weeping Cherry tree that is in the far part of our yard.  Today comes the Frans Fontaine European Columnar Hornbeam trees.  Welp, this photo is of just one of the trees, but if you've been following along, you likely know that there are a bunch of these trees.  And these are clearly the most handsome buds of the bunch.  Look at those beauties all wrapped up and ready to explode.  Compared to the Cherry ones - who look angry and jagged - these are perfectly positioned at the end of the branch tips and almost egg-shaped.   These trees are not quite a year old (in our yard), so I'm still holding my breath to ensure that all of them survived.  For now, I'm taking these buds as a strong sign of health heading into Spring of 2019. 

Another day, another look at a tree's buds that have set in our #newoldbackyard.  Yesterday, I posted a photo of the buds from our Dawn Redwood tree and today is a look at the Weeping Cherry in the far reaches of our yard.   I haven't posted much about this tree on the blog, but that's not because it isn't interesting.  This was one of the three trees we planted for Earth Day 2018 and is formally named the Snow Fountains Weeping Cherry .    We planted it in the rear of our property and it appeared to have some positive growth in the first year.  Looking at the buds that were set in the photo of this post, I'm thinking we'll have another bloom this year as the tree appears to have established itself.  This is the second flowering Cherry tree we have - the first is a Kwanzan Cherry Tree - that I bought after my first trip to Tokyo.  This is a grafted tree and it has a shoot from the trunk that has emerged that I haven't removed yet, that tells me tha

Last Summer, I had to replace the Dawn Redwood tree that had died in our yard.  This was the very first tree that we planted in 2017 before we moved in to our new house.   I noticed that first Fall that the tree was in trouble and posted a photo wondering if it was going to make the Winter.    It didn't. So, last year we replaced it.  And baby'd it all Summer.  It was reacting positively and we saw some new growth all the way through October - which was a good sign.  Then, I did a final check-in on the tree in November where we saw all of the needles still clinging to the branches.  Today, the limbs are covered with little buds that you can see in the photo above.  Good sign of life, right?  I also picked up a little trick that helps ascertain if a tree is healthy and alive:  you take your fingernail and scrape off a tiny bit of bark.  If you see 'green', you're in good shape.  For this Dawn Redwood after the scrape?  Green.  Could this be the Spring w

I posted a photo of some of our tulip bulbs that have emerged from the mulch beds at the end of last week. And today we have our first backyard flower at Hornbeam Hill.  This is a Snowdrop and despite this being our second Spring in our new house, I don't think I noticed this thing last year.  It is along the north side of our backyard about half way back to the rear lot line.  There's just one of these blooms and it is in the side of the yard that we haven't spent a minute working on, so I'm not totally sure how it got there but I'm glad to see it!  We have a bunch of daffodils in various spots around our backyard (quite a few of them in places where we've grown grass!), so perhaps the previous owner bought some early Spring bulb sets and this was included. 

Seems like this is the week for (finally) some action in our garden/yard that indicates Spring is actually arriving.  Yesterday, I posted a photo of what I think is a 'clump' 1 of Ostrich Ferns.  Today, let's talk about bulbs.   Last October, I planted 50 Tulip bulbs in one of our beds out in front of the porch, just underneath a giant Norway Maple .  At the time, I did my best to protect them from various critters, but as time went on, I noticed some digging in the area.  Between the skunks looking for grubs and perhaps squirrels with their eyes on the actual bulbs, somebody was pretty active shortly after I planted these bulbs.   And the soil?  I've talked about the soil we have close to our foundation.  It is terrible right now.  All clay.  If you read my Top 10 2019 Spring/Summer Gardening To-Do List , you'll remember that #1 on my list was to continue to improve the soil .  But, I've only have had one full garden season to work the soil and the

I was out back cleaning up some things and I came across this clump of plant life that was sticking out of the ground.  I was about to step on it when I noticed it amongst a bunch of leaves and what I think is leaf mold.  In looking at it, I'm pretty sure it is a clump of pre-furl'd fern fronds.  This clump is all the way in the back of the property close to where the kids climb a tree.  When climbing there, they also stomp around on plants and things, so I'm going to mark this with a stick or something to keep the kids away from it when the weather warms up. What makes me unsure if this is a fern is the location.  I planted a whole bunch of stuff that we took out of my sister-in-law's lot before she tore her house down .  One of those items was a big fern that I transplanted that seemed to take last year , but that was on the other side of the lot. I'll keep an eye on this to see if I'm correct and this is, indeed a fern clump.  This is an area of deep s

As the weather started to warm up, I was able to get out into the yard to do some late Winter pruning on a bunch of items around the yard.  I cleaned up the hydrangeas, used a new extension pruner (more on this at some point) to clip off some water spouts on trees way up in the air and even tended to this pair of Linden trees that we've espalier'd into a horizontal cordon.  Here's a post from September of 2017 where I shared photos and description of the wire setup .  The photo at the top of this post shows the state of these two trees before any pruning.  It is hard to really see all of the cordons or arms, so here's an annotated photo showing the position and lengths of the arms/limbs:  The Greenspire Linden on the left has four levels of cordons and the one on the right has what I'll call 4.5 levels.  I decided to try to prune off the top - what I found out is known as the " apical meristem " in an attempt to drive more growth into the existin

Just five days ago, I posted for all to see my top 10 to-do items for our yard and garden in 2019 .  There were some significant items on there like dealing with trees and adding another espalier, but item #10 talked about planning for the 'outer walking path'.  I posted about considering a path like that in August of last year and then also discussed the idea of what material is right:  decomposed granite .   That path would wind all the way to the back rear portion of our yard.  And that's where this post comes in.  To get my head wrapped around some items in the yard this Spring, I pulled out the landscape plan and revisited parts of it.  Our plan was drafted by our landscape designer and I've shared portions of it here on the blog.  Here's the links to the various snapshots: Our southern fence line with Hydrangeas and allium One of our rear foundation beds outside of our kitchen A look at the north fence line that we put the Frans Fontaine Europea

Back in November, I posted about how I was dreaming about a columnar conifer like this Columnar Norway Spruce that I found online .  The Tree Center is selling 1 gallon versions of this tree for $50 , but with the pot being just one gallon, you can bet that that tree is tiny. Then, just a couple of days ago, I shared my 2019 To-Do Garden List that included as #8 on the list :  do something *more* with conifers.  I mentioned this very Columnar Norway Spruce. Funny thing that I just came across a photo on Instagram from Lurvey Landscape Supply - which happens to be in Volo, Illinois and is on the way to Twin Lakes.  I've long admired their place as we drove by, but I assumed that it was a wholesale place.  Turns out, I was wrong and they not only do retail business, they encourage visits via their social handles.  (Side note:  this is a different place than I posted about in regards to their topiaries , but is ON THE SAME ROAD - as we travel to Twin Lakes.  I've noted in