Why I Oughta...

Back in May, we planted seven Frans Fontaine European Hornbeam 2.5" caliper trees along the north fenceline of our property  in an area that is right outside of our screened porch.  We selected these trees due to their narrow habit and how they will (eventually) grow into a screen in a narrow area.  Due to the investment in these trees, I've been pretty careful to baby them with water and to try to make sure they establish themselves this season.  Having been planted in May, we have the full Summer to have them put down roots to ensure they come back next Spring.  I've been using a soaker hose and watering them about once or twice per week at about an hour per watering on a low setting.  These were planted down in a low spot, so they're also the benefactor of whatever natural water that occurs on the property as it flows downhill.  On the flipside, they're sitting right on top of a drainage pipe and there's a grate right in the middle of these things that

It is not all gardening wins for me this Summer.  Sometimes the losses are just as important. I celebrated the planting of this small Fraser Fir in our backyard just 10 weeks ago at the beginning of June.  It was in a good spot in the yard that had plenty of water and it was taking off.  There was a run of new, soft growth that came on the tree in July, then all of a sudden, it started to go brown.  From the top down.  Now, two weeks after I noticed the first bit of brown, the whole thing is gone.  Sad stuff. Not sure if it was water.  Or location.  Or something else like a disease.  It went really fast.  And the shot of new growth followed directly by the brown-out makes me wonder if it was disease-related? This was the 22nd tree that we had planted in our backyard as part of the reforestation process and the second evergreen.  We've added a Hemlock since, though.  I bought this one at Home Depot who has a 1 year warranty, so I'll have to dig this thing up and bring

This gardening season, I planted a number of Karl Foerster Reed Fountain grasses in our backyard along the rear foundation outside both the kitchen and the screened porch.  The weren't the first set of these fountain grasses that we had planted, though.  As part of our 'move-in' landscaping that our builder and landscape team completed before we moved in was the installation of three Karl Foerster Reed Grasses in a small bed that sits between our front walk/stoop and driveway.  The bed is about ten or twelve feet long by about three feet wide.  You can see all three of them in the photo above with their feather reeds showing off for the world to see.  They really look great and seem to be healthy in this spot.  I first posted about these grasses a little bit over two months ago - June of this year - when I posted this photo of the grasses just getting started for the season.  Go check out this post to see how much smaller they were (and so green!).  I called them

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 at the end of May, I entered a River Birch tree in our backyard into my [ Garden Diary ].  It was a tree that we inherited, but I wanted to document it during the Summer of 2018, so I have something to revisit as it grows over time.   Today, I'm entering another tree:  a mighty Oak tree that is the inherited tree that is closest to our patio.  You can see it above in a photo that I took recently as the canopy continues to leaf out. This is one of two really large Oaks that we have inside the fence line.  The other is the 'tree house' candidate that I posted about earlier this Spring . This Oak (above) is the tree that we have hung our tree swing on and you can see the ropes coming down from it in the photo. This tree was one of a few that were in a row when we bought the property, but due to the drainage requirements - we had to build an underground pit out back and swale our land towards it - we had to remove a few of the other trees.  None of them were th

Late last Summer/early last Fall, Nat's Mom gifted us three plants: an Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea , a Tuff Stuff Red Hydrangea  and a Disneyland Rose .  I planted the two Hydrangeas along the south fence line where the plan called for them, but I stuck the rose in the rear foundation beds outside of our kitchen windows .  It is located right in between where I planted the teardown Hostas  last Fall and the Karl Foerster Grasses that I planted this Spring . What you see in the photo above is the Disneyland Rose - that has not only survived the winter, but is about to burst with it's first flowers.  What good news to see this thing flourishing in our first Summer here.  Those pointy buds are really quite cool, aren't they? Those of you who aren't familiar with the Disneyland Rose, check out this post I wrote when we acquired the plant .  Nat has expressed an interest in more roses, but our plan is really light on them, so we'll have to figure out how to

Inside of our garage, we had a hose bib installed during construction that I intended to use to water inside the garage, on the driveway and out front of the house.  But, when we actually started to use the hose in this area, it quickly became apparent that we had to be thoughtful in terms of where/how we stored the hose.  At first, I considered something like the (highly regarded) Eley hose reel with a traditional hose.  I came across it from Laura on Garden Answer in this video .  But, in thinking about how much the kids are involved in the hose (watering the flowers, playing with the water, etc), it seemed like if I wanted the hose to end up wound up each and everytime, I was going to have to find a self-retracting hose reel.  GeekbeatTV ran a review of a retractable hose reel from Flowmaster that seemed right for us.    Our Home Depot sells the same Flowmaster reel but under the Gartenkraft name .  And after it came home with us, it sat in the garage for a month.  Then I figu

Back in May, I posted a photo update on what I have been calling our 'teardown hostas' that came out of a yard down the block .  They've subsequently grown quite a bit and have leaf'd out to be nice sized hostas that are really in their first year of growth in our yard.  I mean... I put them in the ground in October , so there was really very little opportunity for them to grow/put down roots before they died off for the Winter. In that same post back in October of 2017, I mentioned that I grabbed a fern or two as well from the tear down lot.  I planted them right amongst the hostas and guess what?  They, too, came back.  I took the photo above at the beginning of the month - and that's one of my favorite stages for these Ostrich Ferns - when they begin to unfurl.  But, because I'm just getting around to posting about these ferns, I went back and took another photo to show the progress/growth.  Look at how tall and proud it is standing now.  (and speaking

This is a look (and post in the [ garden diary ]) of our hydrangeas in the front yard.  On the right side - under the front part of our porch are four Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangeas .  On the left, are a pair of Annabelle Hydrangeas.  There are also two Little Rocket Narrow Spiked Ligularia that are showing in the photo, too, but this post isn't about them. These hydrangea were planted at the same time and were the same size container.  I also gave both a hard pruning early this Spring/late this winter to be *about* the same size.  They were getting a bit 'leggy', so based on some guidance from fellow gardeners, I pruned them down to focus some of the growth into a more bush-like shrub.  But, look at the growth on the two varieties.  The Annabelle's are planted facing south.  The Vanilla Strawberry ones are facing east - from the building.  Meaning that as the sun moves across the day, the two on the left side stay in the sun most of the day while the four out fro

At our old place in Elmhurst, we had a big, beautiful, sprawling Anemone plant that was a gift from Nat's Mom.  Turns out, Natalie had Anemone in her wedding bouquet and they were attempting to recreate it some time after our wedding and that involved the purchase of Anemone plants to take some cuttings from.  Nat's Mom ended up with a couple of these plants and gave us one - which I stuck in the sideyard of our house - right to the south of our front porch.  And it thrived!  Like, really thrived.   After a couple of years that is.  It started small, came back in year two and I think gave us just a couple of blooms.  But in year three and four and beyond?  It was big and wonderful.  Take a look at it blooming in 2013 here .  Just like the peony that the kids gave Nat for Mother's Day this year, they also picked out a set of Anemone bulbs - these St. Brigid Blend.  Which, I believe aren't the same plant that we had before.  Why?  Because this product listing says th

A couple of days ago, I shared the photo and details of the Fraser Fir that I planted in the back .  In that post, I included a tape measure image that showed the current height.  I figured that taking a tool around the yard of Hornbeam Hill to document some of the other trees current heights which can serve as a benchmark in the years ahead.   Here's a few of the trees that I was able to document.   First up is our Saucer Magnolia in the front yard.  It is standing at 81" tall currently.  One of our flowering pears - on the north fence line is 112" tall currently. I measured the end Frans Fontaine Hornbeam trees and it came in (as best as I could tell) at 156" inches (13'). The Red Maple Sun Valley tree that we planted for Earth Day is 96" tall currently. The weeping Cherry that we planted for Earth Day this year is currently 74" tall. The Crimson King is currently 112" tall currently. The Weeping Cedar

These three Karl Forester Reed Grasses were planted by the landscaper by the builder before we moved in.  They're placed in a small bed that is sandwiched between the front stairs on our porch and front walk and our driveway.  I didn't document them last season here on the blog, but due to their location, they didn't have an easy time.  (I *did* document other things in the front like our Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangeas .)  Based on where our hose bib in front is located, our hose ended up living in this area a lot last year and as such these things were trampled/smashed pretty regularly.  That meant that come late Summer/early Fall, they were looking shabby.  I wasn't sure what the Winter would hold, but I crossed my fingers.  Earlier this Spring, I cut back all the winter show and now look at them!  They're doing quite well and have tons of growth.  The same can't be said about the grasses we bought from Costco last fall .  They didn't come back at all,

Welp, it is official:  Our Chanticleer Flowering Pear tree out front by our garage is gone.  I n February of this year, I posted a photo and an update on this tree and speculated that I thought it was dead, but we wanted to wait until Spring arrived to see if it came back.  The bad news is marked with that pink spray paint on the trunk:  marked for removal.  I've had (now) maybe seven or eight of these trees over the years and this is one of three we have here in Downers Grove and this is the only one that gave us any trouble what-so-ever.  This one is a 3" caliper, so it is a more mature tree while the rest of them have been 1" or less caliper versions, so they might have had a better shot at catching on.  It is being replaced like-for-like with another of the same variety.  I'll post photos of the new tree once it goes in the ground. 

The anticipation has been killing me.  I've been waiting for six weeks for this day:  when our Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeam trees arrive.  That's the pile of eight of them after they had been delivered by the landscaper and before they were hauled into position.  These are 2.5" caliper trees and they are about 12' tall and - at their widest - about 30" wide.  Up near the top, where they will be showing over the fence, they're about 10" to 12" wide currently. I posted a bit ago showing the markings on the ground where these trees are going including the spacing - which is about 6' apart .  And here's a look from the other direction (looking from front to rear yard). The trees are just starting to leaf out, but are already capable of screening somewhat.  Look at this photo below that shows how when looking 'through' them, you can see how they screen our house.  Also, you'll note that these have limbs about two-to-three f

Here is the third of three Earth Day 2018 trees, but this one, while bought on Earth Day, wasn't planted on Earth Day.  The Babe picked this one (for reasons I'll describe), but couldn't decide on the location at first.  So it sat on our patio, in the pot for a couple of weeks.  Reminder...the other two Earth Day trees from this year are a Red Maple Sun Valley tree that we planted all the way in the back and a flowering pear tree that we planted on the south fence line .  This tree is a flowering cherry, but different than our Kwanzan flowering Cherry as this one is a grafted tree that weeps.  Pretty sure that this is a tree that - if not for a nursery - wouldn't exist normally.  (Who knows...maybe no trees would??)  It is smallish and will only get between eight and twelve feet tall and about six feet of spread.  Here's the tag that shows the name Prunus x 'Snofozam' PPAF .  Also note that it says "attracts butterflies".  And that was

Back at the beginning of April, I posted a photo of the sideyard where we've been planning on putting up a privacy hedge/screen consisting of European Columnar Hornbeam trees.  At the time, I called it a 'last look' at this area, but here we 50 days later and guess what?  Still no trees.  Still no privacy in the screened porch. But that pink paint you see above?  That's a good sign!  The trees are on their way.  Working with Chris Paul of Green Grass Landscaping (did I mention that Chris was the Consul - aka President - of my Fraternity House in College!) just marked out the locations of each of the eight trees that are being installed. The photo above is the one looking east towards the front of our house.  In the top right, you can see our screened porch. The pink x's painted on the grass are where the tree trunks are planned to go:  6 feet apart and 30 inches from the fence.  That will allow them to spread a bit and - over time - become a hedge.  Take

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

Spring flowers have hit our yard.  And also our flowering trees.  That includes our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry tree that is planted in our backyard.  The photo above is of some of the blooms that have emerged recently on the upper branches.  The history of this tree starts in March of 2017 when we bought it after a trip to Tokyo where I took in the Cherry Blossoms.  It lived on the driveway for a few months while we built our #newoldfarmhouse and we finally planted it at the end of June .  It survived the Winter and this Spring, buds started to open - despite the brutally long cold weather.  And now, it seems like it is on a good trajectory with new growth and seemingly happy in terms of sun/location in the yard.  Even after we added the one new bed to the south fence line, this tree is still kind of out on an island.  We laid down a ring of mulch ( but not a volcano !) around the tree and so it feels anchored, but will have to wait until next year when we add another line of beds

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

There's this house in Nat's parent's neighborhood that has a really well-manicured landscape out front.  And that's due to the owner (I think?) of the house that seems to be tending to the yard, plants and landscape almost constantly.  The reality of it is that we mostly go by Nat's parent's house on weekends so it might just *seem* like he's constantly in his yard because that's how he likes to spend his weekends.  Either way, he does an incredible job.  He has topiary'd evergreens (junipers, I think?) and he also has quite a bit of what appear to be tropicals outside.  But, upon closer inspection, I think A LOT of what I've thought to be tropicals are giant elephant ears.  And, so those have been on my mind and when I was at Menards earlier this Spring, I came across a couple of different varieties and - of course - snapped them up. I posted late in March the "Black Magic" bulb that I started in a pot inside .  That has moved o