Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted a photo of my tallest Nicotiana Jasmine in bloom that was direct-sown in our sideyard flower garden .  I mentioned that those seeds came from Nat's Mom and that she grows Nicotiana every growing season.  That wasn't the only packet of seeds she shared:  she gave one of the kids a packet of "Evening Morning Glory" - Moonflower.  I didn't post about it, but I also direct-sowed a few of these seeds.  They're BIG.  Like cherry-pit-size.  I tucked them into the bed and forgot about them. Moonflower - or Evening Morning Glories are a vine and have big blooms.  But, they're ephemeral.   The Observant Gardener has a post up titled "Be Patient With Moonflowers" that overviews this flowering (annual vine) and the features.  Here's a couple of blurbs : One of the most exotic plants that I have ever grown is the mysterious and stunning moonflower. This is not an easy plant to germinate, but it is worth the effort.... ...A unique feat

I've been known to garbage pick.  At the curb.  Not in dumpsters and other what-have-yous.  You know the move:  people put stuff out on the curb on their garbage day (or very often...on Saturdays or Sundays when they've just done a clean-up project) and if someone doesn't grab whatever the thing is, it goes into the truck on pickup day.  I posted about an organ late last year and when we lived back in Elmhurst, they had this wonderful, annual all-city-wide amnesty day.  You could put anything you wanted on the curb and the garbage guys would take it; no stickers needed.  That was always a fun hour of driving around seeing what people were tossing.   Mostly, you find junk.  And, this time, I think that's what I found:  junk.  It is metal.  So, the most likely picker is one of those guys in the pickup trucks with wood boards that extend the height of the bed and have all sorts of metal objects tossed in there.  I call them the "metal guys".  They only focus on

Yesterday, I posted (for my own thinking) a lumber order for the building of a Versailles Orangerie Planter box and mentioned that it was one of a couple of projects I'm thinking about as part of our social distancing program.  I recently received the catalog from Gardeners Supply Company - which is a joy to read right now - and saw this large cedar obelisk.  They're asking $199.00 for what seems to be a pretty " good quality item ".  But, I know that I can beat that price if I built them myself. Here's the Gardener's Supply Company Obelisk.  This is NOT my photo - it is via their catalog here: Source via Gardener's Supply . As for the 'why' add an obelisk, well...I'm not totally sure just now, but thinking about growing something like hops.  We had Golden Hops planted in our yard back in Elmhurst and I liked having them grow up a trellis.  It took a couple of seasons to get them to grow vertically, but by the time we moved, they