Why I Oughta...

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

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

Yesterday, I posted about the idea of gabion walls in our backyard  and today I'm noodling hedges.  Yeah..hedges.   I came across this photo of Bunny Williams' garden/yard on Instagram a few months back and have it filed away as something interesting to consider for the backyard.  Take a peek: View this post on Instagram In memory of Jacques Wirtz. Eight years ago a Giulian into dear fiends took a tour to see the gardens of Mr Wirtz in Belgium we were lucky to have met him And see his garden and I came home with so many ideas especially his hedges. I was inspired to create this curved hedge which as taken almost all this time to really come into its own and every time I look at it I think of him. What a gift he gave to all who love gardens A post shared by Bunny Williams (@bunnys_eye) on Aug 4, 2018 at 12:16pm PDT Those curves are something, right?  She mentions that the inspiration for her was Jacques Wirtz.  Wh

I read this story in Country Living about some garden trends that they see emerging in 2019 and one of the items on their list caught my attention:  gabion-style walls. What the what?  I had never heard of those.  A quick search around the Web and I realized that while I had not heard the term "gabion-style walls", I've come across them.  And likely, so have you.   But just didn't know that's what they were called.  From the Country Living piece : See that metal cage holding the material in/together?  That's the defining characteristic.  More... From Gardenista : Derived from an old Italian word, gabbione, meaning “big cage,” gabions are enclosures that can be filled with any sort of inorganic material: rock, brick, or concrete debris. The cages were originally wicker, but now are usually a welded mesh made of sturdy galvanized, coated, or stainless steel wire that won’t bend when filled with rocks. In landscaping, gabion walls can support an ear

I've posted about this area of our landscape before - here - and discussed a potential solution to the sightlines that exist between my house and our neighbor to the north.  I'm posting this photo here because I'd like to reference it after we *solve* this area.  I'm actually not sure what the real solve is here - besides the creation of a brick paver walk down the middle.  That's just part of the solution, but doesn't solve any of the sightlights or help give this area a real sense of place.  It currently has just some grass and a few transplanted ferns tucked into the foundation bed.  That's it.  The stones you see under the gate are there to keep Lizzie from sneaking out.  You can go back and check out the post I made about Sky Pencil Holly that I could plant and use to screen to the north, but this post is here to help stimulate my thinking over the Fall on what to do in terms of screening.  You'll note that in that post, I shared the landsca

Source image from here .  Not my photo. A few weeks back, we were at one of our neighbor's house for a get-together and we spent the entire afternoon out in their backyard where they have quite a large perennial garden.  I wanted to get a little closer look, so I wandered out there and discovered not only a native-looking perennial garden, but also a series of walking paths *in* the garden.  The image above is NOT their garden, but rather just some example image that I found online ( source here ). The garden I was walking in (with the paths) was in full sun, so it was quite different than the one you see above, but I picked that image because it is a shade garden and more of what we have to deal with on Hornbeam Hill.  Hostas and ferns and hostas and ferns. The path idea really struck me and made me think about our own landscape plan.  I've showed a bunch of cuts/selects of our landscape plan here on the blog , but none of them had a 'walking path'.  It wasn

Back in January, I posted a little snapshot of another part of our landscape plan that was of the far, southwest corner of our property .  That corner included the addition of three Canadian Hemlock trees.  In that post, I mentioned that the plan actually calls for nine of these Hemlocks and at the time, I had not planted any of them.   Here, today, is a look at another slice/section of our landscape plan.  There are multiple elements in this little image, but I want to focus on what is in green: three Canadian Hemlocks.  This is about 2/3rds of the way back between our house and the property line and as you can see they're tucked in against the northern fence line.   Those of you following along know that I've posted these in a series. The other plan sections that I've shared include: southern fence line with Hydrangeas and allium , one of our rear foundation beds outside of our kitchen , the north fence line that we put the Frans Fontaine European Hornb

Back in April, I shared a small look at the landscape plan that was specified for either side of our rear stoop .  These are the stairs that come out of our family room and lead to our patio.  That plan called for a pair of rhododendrons that flank each side of the stoop.  Earlier this Spring, I picked up the plants and got them in the ground before the mulch arrived.  After a bit of acclimating, they seem to have stabilized and have begun to throw off a series of beautiful, almost out-of-this-world blooms.  The photo above is one of them.  And you can see both of them in the image below. (pay no attention to the hose or shoes or sidewalk chalk in the photo!  We live in a perfect backyard, folks!) One other thing to note in that photo:  the pot on the stoop contains the dahlias that I planted inside earlier this Spring .  Look how big and happy they are!?!?

I've documented quite a bit of the new trees that we've planted over the past year of living in Downers, but I haven't really documented in my [ garden diary ] any of the existing trees that we inherited with the property.  I'd consider the lot we're living on to be 'wooded', so it would be a mistake - in terms of garden diary-ing -  to document only the eleven little, young ones I've planted in the past twelve months .  One of the trees we inherited is this three trunk River Birch - which according to the Missouri Botanical Garden  Plant Finder  is "generally considered to be the superior growth habit for this species."  This tree is located on the north side of our lot, about ten feet from the fence, right where the six-foot-fence section transitions down to the four-foot section.  You can see the Mason Bee House that I hung on the fence in the background and like many of the other existing trees that aren't clinging to the fence lin

Our old neighbor Greg had these really amazing (and massive) Lilac bushes back between our playground and his garage.  Nat always admired them and their quite large blooms that not only looked great, but put out a pretty good scent each season.  We planted two different varieties at our old place - both larger Lilac and a dwarf Lilac.  Each of them took, but they served different purposes - with the larger one being what Nat wanted and the dwarf version fitting into a specific spot in our beds in Elmhurst.  Despite there not being any Lilac called for on our plan design, adding these were on Nat's 'wish list', so when I came across these little "Common Lilac Purples", I grabbed them and planted them.  You can see in the photo above, that I planted them pretty close together - closer than they are supposed to be, but that's on purpose because I'd like to see them grow into a little hedge of sorts right to the left of the small flowering pear tree that

I posted about some of the various hostas that we've added to our #newoldbackyard recently including the unknown varieties of what I'm calling 'teardown' hostas that came out of a yard down the street of a home that was getting torn down and the Bressingham Blues that we bought at Costco in a bulk bag .  Above are two more varieties that I scored at Menards recently and planted in the yard:  Fantabulous and Christmas Tree. Here's a page that describes the Christmas Tree variety .  And a page that describes the Fantabulous variety - which...have really large white margins and are a favorite of the folks over at NH Hostas .  Menards was (of course) running a deal and these were the two most interesting so I added them to our cart.  Turning to our landscape plan, there are a few spots that hostas are called for, but most of them are in 'to be dug' beds.  Check out the landscape plan section below.  There are Hadspen Hostas spec'd for below the

Over the weekend, I started to plant the first few pieces of our backyard landscape plan - starting with the rear foundation plantings.  I posted the landscape plan for this area back in October of last year that shows a series of hostas, grasses and boxwoods.  The central area - right underneath our bird feeders - called for five staggered grasses.  Karl Foerster Reed Grasses to be precise.  So, when I came across them at Home Depot, I grabbed up six of them.   Six.  Yeah...because I didn't have the plan in front of me and I thought it called for six.  Turns out, the plan calls for five of them here, but five more in a different spot.   Thus, I ended up planting just one of that other set of five, but will get the other four later this Spring.  The photo you see above shows where I put them in the bed.  That green wire laying around is for our Automower.  His dock is right in front of this bed and that is the excess boundary wire and the lead wire that terminate at the doc

Look at this lovely little discovery that I found in our rear foundation landscape beds:  hostas are emerging from the mulch.  And these are the questionable ones that I dug out of the yard down the block right before they tore down the house .  It appears that all three of the clumps that I put down have emerged in various quantities.  I ended up planting them where they were called out in the landscape plan - along the west and southwest corners of the house - as outlined here in a post .    The plan called for 4 Hadspen Hostas so with the planting of these we've made some serious progress towards getting this bed in a spot that reflects the design plan.  Adding the fountain grasses below the bird feeders is the other/next step to fulfilling the vision and I'm hoping to get those in this week ahead of getting our mulch installed. 

This is the fifth chapter is a series of our landscape plan posts that show off various portions of our #newoldbackyard in the planning stages.  The other four are here: 1.  Part of the southern fence line that includes some hydrangeas, hostas, ferns, allium and Canadian Hemlocks.   2.  Part of our rear foundation planting areas , right outside our breakfast nook/kitchen windows. Grasses, boxwoods and even a peek at one of the rhododendrons that *this* post is all about.  3.  The hornbeam/privacy hedge on the north fenceline near our screened porch .   4.  Far southwest corner by the trampoline that includes some Canadian Hemlocks . This fifth chapter covers just two plants that you can see in the sketch above.  They are both PJM Rhododendrons that occupy some foundation beds on either side of our rear stoop heading to our back patio.   Here's a look at those beds that I took this past weekend: You can see the two beds are good-sized and fall on th

I came across these Sky Pencil Holly at Fast-Growing-Trees.com (that's where the photo above is from) and I found myself going down a Sky-Pencil-Holly-rabbit-hole to figure out if we could grow these in the Chicago Suburbs (Zone 5B).  The folks at Fast Growing Trees list them to be hardy down to zone 5B.  But the team at the Missouri Botanic Garden list them down to Zone 6 .  These things are super narrow and grow perfectly upright, so they have a lot of appeal to me.  But, I'm afraid that multiple sources (besides the folks who are selling them!) are concurring about Zone 6 hardiness.   Check out the video here: In particular, I was thinking about them alongside the north property line, in front of the fence where our (eventual) walkway would direct people back.  Check out this area I've circled in red on our landscape plan.  It is a tight area that would call for something very slender, yet would provide a sense of 'entrance.  These Sky Pencil Holly woul