Why I Oughta...

Most all of our other grasses have woken up already.  But, up until the last few days, I was worried that we had lost the one Prairie Winds Totem Pole Switchgrass that we have planted in our front yard.  It is kind of 'behind' the Norway Maple.  I bought it from the Morton Arboretum Plant Sale last Spring .   By early August, it was putting on some growth, but certainly didn't live up to its billing:  super tall .   Later in the month, it was able to withstand the heat of August and be in fine shape .   But, all Spring, there was NO Activity.  Not a single blade.  And then...we had a heat wave.  Last week, the temperatures were in the 90's all week.  And guess what?  That pushed everything along.  Including this Totem Pole Switchgrass.  See below for how it looks in mid-May: Oh...and see that Lemon Coral Sedum?  It is back for another season.  Groundcover is on my 2022 list , so I should think about more of this, right?

When I did the series of posts showing off the various plant materials that I brought home from the annual Morton Arboretum Arbor Day Plant Sale, I forgot to include a couple of plants that I bought.  I showed the Little Honey Hydrangeas , Ruby Slippers Oakleaf Hydrangeas and the three Ivory Prince Hellebores .  But, I also brought home two grasses:  Prairie dropseed - Sporobolus heterolepis.  Here (below) is a look at the two grasses: And, here below, is the sign from the Morton Arboretum Plant Sale where they describe Prairie Dropseed - Sporobolus heterolepis as "Prairie native grasss that is extremely tough. Makes a great natural addition to the home landscape with beautiful, dense and arching clumps of fine textured leaves.  Flowers have a unique fragrance." The University of Wisconsin Horticulture Extension Office has a page on Prairie Dropseed that provides a few more details : It was was named a Plant of Merit by the Missouri Botanical Garden in 2005 and was selected

This Spring, the backyard bed (under the tree swing) is showing eight All Gold Japanese Forest Grasses that have emerged from the mulch.  These are notorious slow-starters (for me), so I'm happy to see that all eight (from last Fall) have come back.  Here's last year's Fall look .   That's down one from Spring when I had nine in this bed.    You can see this area in the photo below with the grasses near the border of the curve in the bed: There's a lot going on in that photo.  Tulips glowing up in the background and more.  So....Below is an annotated version of the same photo showing the eight All Gold Japanese Forest Grasses.  In the back (in the blue circles) are three Miscanthus sinesis 'Adagio' that I planted last Fall .  In the orange circle is the lone  Green Mountain Boxwood from 2021  that is a pyramidal form.  For some of these, this will be the third growing season, while for others this will be the second - which I'm hoping means they're

I've posted a series of times about the Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses that we have in our landscape and how I've been digging them up, dividing them and transplanting them to various spots of our beds to provide that notion of a cohesive design with repeating patterns of specific plants.  I started doing this last Fall and then did even more this Spring after realizing that the ones I divided last Fall were just fine.   Last week, I showed how I made eight new divisions in the backyard and planted them in various places in the backyard.  The final Karl Foerster grass that I needed to dig up and divide was this large one in between our driveway and front walk stoop.  It was left there as a hedge - but is suffering from some center rot.  It needed to be divided.  See below for the 'before'.  The two further back were divisions from last Fall and are showing some new green tips this Spring: After digging that one out and dividing it up, I put one of the segments back

Last week, I posted some photos and details of the Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses that I divided last Fall and transplanted around the yard with (so far...) success.  At that time, I mentioned that I had a few more grasses that I left in place as a sort-of hedge against the division killing all of the grasses.  This past weekend, I got around to digging up the remaining grasses and dividing them into new clumps ready for transplant.  Starting with the little bed outside our kitchen window, we had (as of this Spring) three large clumps.  Now, we're back to five smaller grasses - three in the back, two in the front.  See that below: The other grass that was ready to divide was one outside our screened porch.  I dug it up and divided it and put one of the divisions back in place - you can see it below.  The newly divided grass is on the right along with three other grasses that were planted in subsequent years.  Now there are four grasses in this little bed.  I'm thinking tha

Last Fall, I went around and started to divide up a bunch of Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses that were either suffering from some 'center rot' or simply just large enough clumps to warrant division.  There were two sets: one in between our driveway and front stoop that had three and another set out of our kitchen window that had five. As I look around the yard today, I have good news:  All of the divisions were successful and the grasses have come back for Spring.  For now.  First, let's start with the kitchen window grasses.  I hedged a little bit and decided to dig up and divide just TWO of the five.  I left the back three in place.  Below, you can see those three remaining and in front of them a couple of divots where the other two came out. Where did I put them?  I divided both of them into three new grass clumps.  I put the first three on the corner of our patio - you can see below.  These three are happy and green. The other one that was divided up into thirds was

I've been giving the " in between two driveways " strip some thinking lately - how to edge it ( boulders ), how to extend the beds to have them make more sense, looking at what worked/didn't work there since last year and what a color palette for this area could/should be. Frankly....I don't have a TON of flowers in any of my beds - as I've been MOSTLY a foliage gardener up there up to this point.    It is #4 on my 2022 to-do list:  "Enhance the IB2DWs Strip" .    I already have some purples with the Serendipity Allium and the five BIG Pinball Wizard bulbs that I planted last year .  And, taking what I've learned from Amy at Pretty Purple Door about color combinations, one path forward is what she calls an 'analogous color scheme' - that includes three adjacent colors on the color wheel.  In this case, it would be using the three colors of:  purple, violet and blue in those front beds.  And, maybe beyond - like under the Norway Maple -

There are signs of life emerging EVERYWHERE around our garden.  Here's a few photos of things that are bringing me a little bit of Spring joy in beds around our garden.  First, the IB2DW bed - which has (now) five Pinball Wizard Allium bulbs that were planted last year .  Below, you can see the red-ish tips of the foliage emerging from the mulch.   On the south side of the house is an Iris that my Sister Vic gave to me from her Indiana Street (Elmhurst) neighbor.  I call this "Wes' Iris" .  It is coming alive as I type: Under the troubled (in Decline) Norway Maple out front are some *new* (to me) tulips that have arrived for the first time (below).  I planted these last year .  They're DIFFERENT in that the foliage is variegated and has a pink(ish) stripe down the edge.  And, here below, are a BUNCH more tulips that I planted down near the sidewalk in that troublesome spot.  Should note (to myself) where these are and how to augment them this Fall. Below is a peek

In the flurry of late-season planting in the backyard, I managed to sneak in a trio of dwarf ornamental grasses - Miscanthus sinesis 'Adagio ' - in an area underneath the tree swing Northern Red Oak.  They're tucked in behind a colony of Japanese Forest Grasses and in front of the Belgian Fence Apple tree espalier.  One of the noteworthy characteristics of this cultivar is that the flower panicles grow up and out into these gently curving/arching feather heads that provide a lot of Winter interest.  This is the first season we've had these and I'm happy to see the initial view we're getting after these being in the ground for just a short period of time this year.  See below for a look at the feathers at the top: I can already imagine what these will look like in the coming years as they fill in and thicken-up.  I've historically left ALL of my grasses in place over winter and these seem to be no different.  If you're looking for an inexpensive, zone 5

Yesterday I posted a photo of a new bed on the corner of our back patio that is now home to three transplanted Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses .  These were divided from another grass, so....they're the best kind of plants:  free plants.  Today, I'm posting a photo of some other free plants:  another trio of Karl Foerster grasses.   This is the third in the series of dividing these grasses with the first being back i in September.  In that post , I showed how I added just ONE grass underneath our Norway Maple tree in front.   This time, I took another of the driveway grasses (the middle one) and divided it into four pieces.  This one was suffering from Center Rot , so it was due to be divided.  I left the largest piece in place (you can see it in the photo below) and took the other three over by the Maple. I took the other three divisions and planted them in an array in front of the Norway Maple - along with the first one I put there last week.  Now, there's four of the

The Fall ornamental grass dividing season continues with a few more Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses.  I started dividing these grasses the last few weeks by taking some of the larger ones in front and back and dividing them up and transplanting .  Of the five larger ones in our backyard, I had already divided one of them and transplanted near our hops vine .  So, it was natural to take another one of the larger ones from this same area - in front of our kitchen window - and divide it up again.  One of the things that I've been thinking about for a while is how we add some 'corner beds' to our patio and I've mused about using boxwoods.  But, in thinking about how I could use these feather reed grasses in a series of plantings to bring some cohesion to the garden, it seemed right to try a trio of grasses on one of the corners of the patio.   I dug out a small bed on the southwest corner of the patio, removed the Automower wire and then divided a Karl Foerster Grass in

Last month, I created a new bed , down by the sidewalk that has historically been turf that has ALWAYS gone dormant in a big way during the Summer.  Currently, it is small - like about 24" wide and spans the space between our driveway and the large Hackberry tree in the corner of our property.  I knew that I had to think about some drought-resistant plantings down there due to the history of the site and upon excavation, I now know why:  there was a half-inch or so of topsoil standing on top of gravel.   My plan started by transplanting some of the Lemon Coral Sedum that we had in our front porch bed down there in late September .  Doing so, checked a big part of the box for #3 on my 2021 to-do list to work the 'in between two driveways' section.   I also wanted to add something else to the bed before things went dormant for the year, so on one of my trips to the Home Depot, I came across an ornamental grass that sounded interesting.  At 50% off, this Panicum Shenandoah R