Why I Oughta...

The small colony of Lucky Charm Japanese Anemone is now a, well....bigger colony.  They've filled in the space in all directions.  And, we're just at the start of the late Summer bloom season that seems to last all the way until Fall.  Here's a look at what the three plants looked like last August - one year ago .  Barely touching each other and lots of mulch showing around them.  Today - see below: They've formed a mass or drift instead of three individual plants.   And, you can see the first few blooms opening up.  

It is peony season around here.   When we were first dating, Nat was a blogger.  Her url was iheartpeonies dot com.  The very first thing that we planted in our first garden was a Sarah Bernhardt peony that was a division from Nat's mom's garden.  The story goes that the peony was her great aunt's peony that had been divided a number of times to be planted in various family member's gardens.   That peony ended up back in Nat's Mom's garden when we moved out.  I said - back in 2017 - that it was being 'fostered' .  But, it has stayed there these seven-plus years.   Our new garden didn't have any peonies.  Until 2018 when I bought a couple of tubers.  The first one was Sarah Bernhardt .  The pink peony that you think of when you think of peonies.  It has moved around a few times, but ended up IB2DWS and has grown quite a bit up there.  Last year (2023), I declared was our first REAL 'Peony Season' .  It w...

In our old house in Elmhurst, our neighbor to the South had a massive hedge of mature Lilac shrubs.  They provided plenty of screening, but they also threw off a profusion of blooms each Spring.  When we moved, having Lilacs were on Nat's wish list.  Over the years, I've ended up planting four (two 'common' and two 'Nocture' ) and transplanting them, too.   The Common ones went in the ground in 2018 .  The Nocturne variety went in the ground in Summer of 2019 - a year later .    They never bloomed.  Too much shade, I suspected.  In the Spring of 2022, I opted to replace them with something that can tolerate the shade a bit more - and is evergreen .   That meant that I dug-up and moved all four Lilac across the yard to an area that gets more sun.   Their first year (in their new location), the Common Lilacs threw off blooms .  Surprisingly.  That was 2022.  Last year, I don't seem to have posted about th...

I was feeling pretty good about my prescribed burning of tiny piles of leaves and some perennial litter from last season.  I posted the details of it yesterday .  Over the weekend, I went out and did a little bit more burning.  I used my small hand rake to pull together a pile of (mostly) oak leaves - creating a little burn break from other leaf litter - and use my small propane torch to light-it-up.   But, I think I got a little too cocky.  Burning and burning and burning.  And feeling good about returning the carbon to the soil via little ash piles.  All the while...cleaning up the beds a bit.  I was puttering around the beds making little piles and burning them.  They light up, then expire on their own when they exhaust all the material.  A little smoldering for a minute or two, then the piles of ash go dark.  And leave behind some white, burned out material.   I found myself back by the compost bins, where I recen...

There are a few plants in our garden that are there because I was drawn to them.  There are a few that were simply impulse-bought.  There are others that I was influenced by others like Roy Diblik , Austin Eischeid or Erin the Impatient Gardener.   Then...there's this other set:  They are the ones that exist in our yard and garden because of Nat.     That list of Nat-influenced plants includes the Saucer Magnolia and any/all of our Allium.  Another one of those that Nat-influenced plantings are anemones.  I've likely written this story before, but the connection with Anemone flowers comes back to our wedding day.  We've had them (now) in both of our houses (not in Equation Boy/Man and Vic's house that we lived in for two years) since last year when I planted three from Northwind Perennial Farm. Here's a post from more than ten years ago (eeek!  ten years!) of the plant that Nat's Mom gifted us for our garden back in Elmhurst ....

One year ago tomorrow, I planted a trio of Anemone Lucky Charm that we brought home from Northwind Perennial Fam in Wisconsin, tucking them into our backyard .  That first year...they were temperamental.  They wilted at the slightest dry period.  I baby'd them all Summer and Fall - hand-watering them - to keep them happy.  They seemed to go dormant in normal fashion.   This year, they emerged again and seem to have established themselves quite a bit MORE.  They no longer require attention and are now putting on some size.  See below for the current state of these three: These have special meaning to me - and I'm really excited to see these put out some blooms that I can bring in to Nat this Summer - they bloom in September and October. 

It has taken six growing seasons, but we *finally* have enough peonies to make a bouquet.  Just one bouquet.   But, it is still a bouquet.  That's a major victory for me.  We had a major set of Peony tubers in our first house in Elmhurst.  We also had a full sun backyard.  In Downers Grove we have had peonies that have grown, but never really flowered.  And, mostly shade. So, over the years, I've moved the plants around.  And, it seems that I've found a few spots that work for peonies.  We have (this year) three flowering peony plants.  First, a darker, purple-ish single blom: That opened up to look like this: We had one white peony that bloomed - a Duchesse de Nemours white peony that is also in our backyard.  See below for that bloom after I cut it and brought it in: And, finally...the largest of the peony plants:  Sarah Bernhardt pink peonies .  This peony plant is out front, IB2DWS and this is what it looked like...

When I was just starting to garden, one of the first things that I was able to document in my garden diary was the annual emergence of peonies.  Nat's Mom planted them for us in our house.  And, those red tips were one of my earliest lessons in the garden.  I've documented the Peonies being 'back' almost every year. Here's the 'back' post from 2021 .   And 2023 is no different.  Below are a few photos of the early, red growth from these tuber-based flowers that are planted near our kitchen windows.   I moved most of our peonies HERE because it is just about the *most* sunny spot in our yard.  Besides next to the patio (hey!  That gives me an idea).   I'm not CERTAIN how many are here - at one point there were four including a white one .  These photos are from a week ago (April 6) and I see two so far:

Nat and I don't exchange a ton of Christmas gifts during the gifting season.  But, we *do* exchange some gifts.  I typically will give her a vintage book, a Wash U shirt and starting last year...a Tiki Bar item.  When we finished our basement, we talked about putting in a Tiki Bar down there.  We did all the rough-in's for a bar - light openings in the ceiling, water and plumbing in the wall, counter-height outlets for a bar and under-counter fridges.  But, we didn't put in said Tiki Bar.  Just left the space open for the kids to use as part of the rumpus room.   But, that doesn't mean that she isn't still dreaming of that - in the future - Tiki Bar.  I even went ahead and gave this dreamed-up Tiki Bar a name:  Natalie's Hideaway.  Last year, I commissioned Tiki Tony the artist to create a sign for the place, too.   So, when I came across 1 a big tiki bar-themed bowl with ladies in bikinis, palm trees, hula dancers and a ...

There's a flowering perennial that I've been thinking about and chasing ever since we moved out of our house in Elmhurst.  Actually, there are a bunch of them.  But, one that I think about often:  Anemones.  Nat had them in her wedding day bouquet and her Mom bought us a plant back in 2010 and I just stuck it in the front yard garden.  It bloomed and grew .  And then we moved out. I've admired an Anemone in one of our neighborhood gardens and always thought that I needed to plant some in our backyard garden.  The moment finally arrived when I was looking at the nursery tables at North Wind Perennial Farm up in Wisconsin recently.  That's when I came across the sign you see above.  For Anemone 'Lucky Charm'. The description reads - in part:  "Here's an anemone that welcomes the beginning of Spring with beautiful, dark purple foliage and ends the season with engaging dark pink flowers, touched with gold.  And, during the middle...

My reasons for keeping my own [garden diary] are the usual ones:  get smarter (make better choices) and to document changes over time (appreciate wins/losses).  I've taken that same approach to some of our indoor house plants .  I'm interested in understanding what they look like during different seasons - seeing if they're growing, if they're in trouble, etc.  That's covered my Staghorn Fern , my Standing Mickey Topiary and even one of our umbrella plants . Just this past week, I documented my re-soil'ing of my Maidenhair Fern .  But, I haven't tracked - via my [ container diary ] the largest houseplant we have:  Nat's Fiddlehead Fig Tree.  I don't exactly know how long we've had it, but I know it was introduced in our new house - at some point.  It sits in a room that has southern exposure and has just grown and grown.  This isn't a plant that I tend to - at all.  This one is all Nat.  She waters it.  Feeds it.  Cleans ...

Nat has a couple of house plants around the house that she tends to with feeding and watering and general upkeep. One of those is a ZZ plant that lives in our bathroom upstairs. It doesn't get a lot of light, but for the past few years, it seemed to just truck on and put up shoots. Until recently. When it seemed to be in decline. There was a bunch of yellowing and not a lot of new growth. Here, below, is what it looked like when I decided to take action: It looks really crowded, doesn't it?  I figured it just needed to repotted, but I also researched if it could be divided.  Sure enough, there's plenty of posts about dividing a ZZ plant.  So, that was the path I took:  divide and repot to create two plants. First things first, though:  to remove the plant form the current container.  Turns out, it was inside a little nursery pot inside that larger container.  When I dug it out, the roots were curled out from under the nursery container and were w...