Why I Oughta...

The way that I think about gardening is that you have to have a systemic approach to planning and planting that is paired with a secondary, supplemental approach to zhuzh'ing things during the growing season.  That systemic approach means trees and shrubs and even perennials.  (I need to do more evergreen shrubs....just a self-reminder.) But that supplemental zhuzh'ing is something that I've mostly done through division and some bulbs.   I suppose that's the difference between a landscaper and a gardener, right?  A landscape gets it all planted and is satisfied.  A gardener will work the garden all year long.  A plantsman?  That's for another post. One of the things that I've talked about over the years is how to use annuals in the landscape.  The only place that I've successfully planted them is out front in the porch beds.  In the back?  Nothing. Last year, I included the idea of using shade annuals and dark foliage .  But, I really didn't move on it. 

Over the years, we have SLOWLY added to our Hellebores collection.  This year, at the Morton Arboretum Sale, I found a new (to me) variety and brought home two nursery pots and decided to add them to the small cluster of Hellebores that already exist in our backyard.  My journey with Lenten Roses or Hellebores starts with our plan that was developed in 2017.    I first started planning for these evergreen(ish) early bloomers in 2020 with this post showing that the plan calls for 10 Hellebores .   I bought our first one - Sally's Shell - in 2020 during a drive-thru visit (curing COVID) to The Growing Place .   Then, last year at the 2022 Morton Sale, we bought three more - Ivory Prince .  Those four all came back this Spring.  When I was at the sale this year, I saw these flowers (below) and read the sign that these were outward-facing blooms.  Lovely, right? They're named MERLIN Hellebores.  Here below, is the tag that came with these:  HGC Merlin - COSEH 810.   That "HGC&

This second post featuring a new (to me) plant (in this case...a hosta) from the Morton Arboretum 2023 Plant Sale:  An Island Breeze Hosta.  The sign from the sale is below - and this one came in at $16.95...which is more than I'd normally pay for a more-common hosta.  This one is unique and one of the kids liked it, so we bought just one.  My rule of buying more than one is easy to break with hostas - because I know that with a little bit of patience, I'll be able to divide them in a couple of growing seasons.   This is the child of the child of Fire Island Hosta.  According to Walters Garden, at least : First came ‘Fire Island’ which was followed by its variegated progeny ‘Paradise Island’. Now there is ‘Island Breeze’ which is the third member of this “tropical” family and a sport of ‘Paradise Island’. The improvements in this cultivar include more impressive variegation due to its wider margins, thicker leaf substance, and a strong growth rate. More impressive variegation,

Last year, I started to think about a climbing hydrangea in our garden.   I came across one in two of the places I turn to when I want to get educated:  Hinsdale Nursery and Erin the Impatient Gardener .  I was sketching out what I wanted to do with the firepit area and included (in my thinking) one that could climb up a Hackberry tree back there.   Last fall, I found one at The Growing Place - the tag read: Hydrangea anomala petiolaris .  I've had vines like these on my mind for a few years, but haven't pulled the trigger.  Until this Spring.  Nat's Mom - who has gifted us a bunch of plants including all of our Disneyland Roses - gifted us a climbing hydrangea.   I knew it would go back by the firepit.   #15 on 2023 to-do list was to 'upgrade the firepit area' - so this goes towards helping there.  Here are a few photos showing the vine below. When it arrived, it was just starting to come out of dormancy.   I planted it and it *immediately* took off and leaf'

Another day, another post in the garden diary to note the spring foliage emergence.  This time...it is one of the Ligularia that are planted in our backyard - in a shady spot mixed in amongst hostas.  I don't seem to have posted about planting these, but I'm pretty sure that I planted three of them - from Roy Diblik's nursery in Wisconsin.  They seem to struggle, so I'm not sure if they'll be back or not and if they'll thrive.  At least one of them is going to give it a go this Spring - see below:  My experience with these is that they're pretty sensitive to water, so I'll try to stay on them.  And...maybe even give them another shot up front in the new bed. 

The *other* variety of Brunnera - Queen of Hearts - is pacing right about the same as the Jack of Diamonds.  I have three of them that have emerged early this Spring with green and white foliage that is peeking through the mulch.  See below for a few 'Early Spring' pics from the beds showing this shade-tolerant plant.   All three are back for their third growing season.  They were planted in 2021 .   In the photo below....it really hits home that I need to get my yard cleaned up this week.

I wandered around the beds for the first time in a week recently and noticed a few things have come back for the 2023 growing season and wanted to document them - and their timing - here in my garden diary.  I'll do that over a few posts in the coming days.  First up?    Three Jack of Diamonds Brunnera that are planted in the southside backyard bed .  Below, you'll see the early, curly foliage that is coming up front the hardwood mulch: I planted these three in Summer of 2021 , so this will be their third growing season in our garden.   Here, below, is a wider-angle look at the three of these shade-tolerant perennials. They're pretty hard to see in that pic...so....below is an annotated versions;

This Fall, I made a pretty big change in my fern thinking.  I've long talked about how shade gardening is where I find my joy and how hostas and ferns have emerged as my favorite plants in the garden.  And, my first love with ferns was the Ostrich Fern.   I inherited some Ostrich Ferns back in Elmhurst and -for the first time - had success with ferns.  They grew, stood up and even multiplied.  I shared them with my mother-in-law and she grew them in her shade garden successfully.  And, I fostered some of them over there, too .  I even brought some to our house in Downers Grove - including collecting some from my sister-in-laws's teardown garden .   Over the years, I've moved them around and have transplanted them in some spots - including under the tree swing tree and on the side of our house .  I've historically tried to use them *AS MUCH AS I COULD*.   But, then...the change I mentioned above happened.  I started noticing that the Ostrich Ferns weren't performing

I feel like I'm finishing the planting season of 2022 the same way that I started it:  focused on shrubs.  The number-one item on my 2022 to-do list was to prioritize shrubs by adding a series of them to our backyard .  I'm pretty happy with the results this year - as I added a series of shrubs including new Oakleaf Hydrangeas and Viburnums.  And moved a few others around.    But, I'm closing the shrub-planting season with a new (to me) shrub:  Brown's Yew.  I have a bunch of Yews in our backyard - but they're ALL one variety:  Hick's upright Yews.  I'm drawn to those because of their shape as well as the fact that they can tolerate shade - which we have plenty of around here. I came across this lone evergreen shrub - a Brown's Yew - that was on such a good sale that I couldn't pass it up.  You can see it in the photo above - sitting in a 5 gallon nursery stock container. This was the first time that I came across a Brown's Yew.  Densiformis?  Ye

We grabbed a small, quart-sized hosta from Lowes that was on a close-out sale on a total whim. Do we need more hostas? I'm not sure. Can we find a place for an interesting one? Certainly. And, that's what this one is: interesting. Named the Ben Vernooy Hosta, it just stood out on the rack of mostly plain green companions. I had never come across a Ben Vernooy sport before, but I know there are *a lot* of hostas out there. So, not being familiar with this one isn't a surprise. Thus, I did what I always do: whipped out my phone to read about it.  This listing was the one that had me put it in our cart . Here's how it was described: Ben Vernooy boasts an eye-catching colour of blue with broad bands of yellow along each leaf edge. Over time, the margins may change to creamy white, the leaves are still quite colourfast and you'll enjoy their amazing hues throughout the long growing season. Ben Vernooy presents some of the thickest, sturdiest leaves you can find on a host

The past two days, I've posted photos of plants that I picked up at the Lowes 50% off Fall sale starting with the Proven Winners Dolce Silver Heucheras .  And just yesterday I posted details of five small quart containers of Ajuga Chocolate Chip groundcover .  But, I also grabbed a few other things including a pair of these handsome hostas that have large white centers that sure made me pay attention to them mixed-in amongst other hostas.  Look at the photo below to see the why I had to buy them: The color was striking.  I pulled one of them off the rack and turned it around to figure out what the variety is named.  Below is the plant tag that shows off the Monrovia tag and the name:  Forbidden Fruit Plantain Lily.   I whipped out my phone and did a quick search to figure the story of the Forbidden Fruit hosta out and came across this listing from NH Hostas .  They called me out as one of those nursery suckers,  lol.  From their listing :  Fully tetraploid sport of 'Orange Marm

Over the weekend, we popped into Lowe's to find that their entire garden center (aside Fall things like mums and kale) has been marked down 50%.  Lowe's isn't super convenient for us, but one of the things that I've noticed over the past couple of seasons is that they do a nice job with their garden center and usually carry things that are not normally sold in the Orange Big Box store nursery.  Last year, I planted a couple of purple Heucheras that I bought at Lowes that were 50% off and they've done well in the garden .  Those Purple Palace Coral Bells/Heucheras have all managed to survive this growing season and have put on growth.  This post shows all three of them and talks about the decline of another variety - Dolce Apple Twist .   My experience with those two - the common Purple Palace doing well and the more exotic Apple Twist not so much - was front and center when I came across a couple of plants at Lowes 50% off sale.   As I was walking down the nursery

This is the third in a series of posts showing a few of the various hosta divisions that I've been doing lately in our backyard.  First was the two (new) hostas that I tucked in around the big Oak tree in our south border.   Then, the two (new) Bressingham Blue hostas that I transplanted over on the northside by the Doublefile Viburnum treeform .  Today's 'free plants' post shows off two (new) Lancifolia hostas that I took from a three-way division out by the original Autumn Ferns.   Below is a photo that shows the three Lancifolia Hostas amongst some other foliage.  The original location is in the front/center of the photo.  And the two new ones are both directly 'behind' and 'behind and to the left' of the original/mother hosta.   They look droop-y right now, but Lancifolia hostas are vigorous growers, so I'm not worried about them.  They'll show up strong come Spring. Below is the 'before' look at this area.  You can see the trio of

Yesterday, I posted a few photos of a hosta that I divided and transplanted around the large red oak tree in our backyard.  I tucked in the two new divisions into a part of the border that was bare.  I mentioned in that post that doing the seasonal gardening chore of dividing perennials was/is on my 2022 to-do list and I had planned to do a few more around the backyard.  Today, I'm showing a divided Bressingham Blue hosta that I dug up from around the side of the screened porch and split into three segments. The hosta in question was planted as a bareroot plant in 2018.  That means it has had five full growing seasons.  Here's what it looked like last Summer (2021), when I declared that this had finally reached maturity .  Today, I dug it up. First, below, you can see the current state of the hosta.  It has many stems and is a good division candidate. I split it into three segments and tucked the largest one back in the same spot.  Below, you can see the remaining Bressingham

The time has come to start dividing some perennials.  Why?  Because the temperature has dropped and I find myself with a little bit of time where I can putter in the backyard beds after work before it gets dark.  As a reminder, #12 on my 2022 to-do list was to add more 'free plants' through division - something that I've done the past few growing seasons.   My plan focuses on two different types of plants in our garden:  grasses and hostas.   Earlier this Summer, I went around and identified a few candidates to work on, but I started with a couple of hostas NOT on that list.  I was out by the large, Northern Red Oak tree in the south beds recently and noticed that a couple of hostas that are planted there have grown enough to be considered good candidates for division.  I dug up two - these are unknown cultivars - and split them.   I put one from each division in a hole kind of 'around' the oak tree trunk - in a spot of the border that is currently empty.  See belo

Just last week, I posted some details and photos of ferns that are peforming really well late in Summer and early Fall in our garden .  Those were Japanese Painted Ghost Ferns and Autumn Ferns.  I planted three Autumn Ferns - Dryopteris erythrosora - in May of 2021 and have watched them become standouts.   One of the things that I learned - by 'getting to know' these ferns is that they're semi-evergreen.  All the way until mid-December (2021) , I was able to see these ferns show up in the garden, well-past when everything else went dormant.    I liked them so much that I put the idea of adding more of these on my 2022 to-do list (#2)  and on my 2022 plant wish list .    Good news:  on a recent trip to the orange Big Box nursery, I found a set of six of these Autumn Ferns that were 50% off.  They're small to begin with (1.5 pint), so half-off made them $3 a piece.   Some photos below show these newly acquired Autumn Ferns.  First, a top-down look at the fronds.  Then, a