Why I Oughta...

Last week, I posted about how there were a few Disneyland Roses that were still popping-off outside .  A couple days ago, I decided to cut them off and bring them inside to stick in a vase.  Who doesn't want Disneyland Roses for Thanksgiving, right?  I don't totally understand how (or why?) these are blooming, but I'm happy to take the flowers.  At the same time, I fear that these tender parts won't harden-off before *REAL* winter arrives.  But, in the end...does that really matter?  In the past, I've cut the canes down to under a foot in the Spring and the new growth comes out of those canes.   Here, below, are a couple photos of the Thanksgiving Disneyland Roses.  These are dark pink.  Darker than they are most of the growing season.   Here, below, is a look at some of the posts I've written about my experience with Disneyland Roses via this Google Search widget:

Something strange has happened on a one of our large Disneyland Rose bushes on the side of our house:  they are blooming.  At least...a couple of blooms.  And this is after some hard frosts.  This 'large' one is one of the newly planted Disneyland Roses from earlier this Spring.  Here's a post from October that tries to show off the size of these .  They're MUCH bigger than the other ones I've had in the past.    The photos below show a couple of blooms and if you look *behind* the blooms, you'll see some additional Floribunda Rose buds that are hanging around.  What the heck??  I'm attributing this to the little microclimate that exists along the side of our house.  These are tucked in against the house, with southern exposure and about fifteen-feet-away is our neighbor's house.   Disneyland Rose in Bloom After A Frost I didn't cut these off and I stopped pruning back anything on these roses since mid-October.  (I w...

The pair of Sugar Tyme Crabapple trees are currently loaded with green leaves.  But, that won't last long as they drop their leaves and reveal their structure and (hopefully) some berries that have appeared this Fall. Below are two photos showing both of them.  First, the one closer to the front of the house followed by the one located further back.   Of note, late Winter pruning and support with stakes is something I should put on my list of tasks.  The tips of the limbs are arching down due to the weight of the crabapples and foliage.  Still...these look really good and are providing a great view against the large expanse of white Hardieboard siding.

Yesterday, I posted some photos of our Disneyland Roses in bloom and mentioned that one of the Floribunda roses had gotten very big.  Below is a photo showing the largest one.  It is newly planted earlier this year.  And, the tallest sections are at least four-feet tall.  And the whole thing is wider than four-feet wide across the center.  I've had knee-high Disneyland Roses in the past and the product listing from Jackson and Perkins describes these as 3-feet-tall plants.  So, either they're happy and well-fed.  Or, there's something else going on like the root-stock pushing the plant taller.   This size poses a over-wintering challenge.  I can't do what I've done previously and top this with leaf litter.  It is too big.  This one may just have to survive winter on its own.

The newly planted (this season) Disneyland Roses are really popping off these days, too.  Blooms on top of blooms.  I was pretty good about feeding these monthly and treating them with multiple ways for pests and fungus:  systemic as well as topical spraying.  I also was deliberate in deadheading them and removing the rose nips.  The result are the largest, most productive Disneyland Roses I've ever grown.  They also have the longest stems of any Floribunda Rose that I've ever grown.   Below are a few shots showing the current state of these roses.  I'm going to stop deadheading them and hope that there won't be much new growth being put on in the final weeks before frost.

Thanks to Google Photos, I was served this image of our sideyard from 2017.  This was the day were were installing our fence and shows the state of the sideyard before we moved in.  Grass all the way around the house, no trees or plants.  And, no walkway/boardwalk/path.  See below: Compare that with the photo from this post from this past month showing the same view towards the backyard (photo posted below): Quite the change.  Eight years apart.

On one of our Melina Fleur dahlias out in the sideyard, I noticed a portion of the plant was struggling.  I've observed over the past year-or-so that some of my dahlias have adapated to handling the heat of the day by wilting.  They spring back in the evening and look fine.  I initially...thought that was what was happening here.  Part of the plant was showing some new growth and perhaps it was just wilting to survive the heat.   This dahlia had been attacked by rabbits, so I figured the new growth was a reaction to that nibbling at the base.   I recently wrapped this dahlia in chicken wire to keep the rabbit pressure down.  Below is a photo showing the entire plant in the chicken wire.  At the left is the 'wilting' part.  Second photo shows a top-down view: Do you get those giant pumpkin growers on your TikTok FYP?  The guys who set up entire rigs for growing giant pumpkins including shade covers, zip-tie'ing blossoms closed t...

The hedge of Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeam trees that are planted along the side of our house have NOW been pruned.  Just a little bit.  These are now in their eighth (8th) growing season and up until now I have NOT touched one branch.  No pruning what-so-ever.  But, that ended because of the boardwalk along the side of our house.   I'm eager to keep the idea of miegakure - or "hide and reveal" with these trees and the boardwalk that provides the pathway. That 'hide-and-reveal' is for the full backyard. After a big rain, the branches are loaded with wet leaves and the lower ones on these Frans Fontaine European Hornbeams begin to droop.  And, lean against the screened porch.    This weekend, I grabbed my small hand pruners and began to cut back some of the lower branches.  I picked spots that had foliage back behind the cut, to ensure there would be continued leaf-out.   I didn't want to hack the whole thing back, but ra...

One of the thing that's been on my mind over the past few months is the concept of 'legibility' in the garden.  I wrote up a post about it - when I first came across the concept.  I also included it in my 2025 to-do list .  Part of legibility are 'entrances'.  Entrances to garden spaces.   One of the primary entrances to our garden is along the side of house via the boardwalk.  In my 2025 to-do list, I mentioned 'planting up the boardwalk' as something I wanted to get done.   Over the past few years, I've planted a few things there - but nothing has worked.  Ferns.  Hostas.  I think it is too dry and too dark.   But, I'm trying again.  This time...with an Ajuga.  Bronze Beauty Ajuga.  Here's the six-pack of groundcover that I bought: Along the screened porch, there's a long, thin bed.  Below is the before/after of planting these six plugs: I watered them in and they looked flat that first day....

Despite posting this in mid-June, these photos of what I call the "Indiana Street Iris" or "Wes' Iris" that came via our (temporary) neighbor in Elmhurst are from mid-May.  This was in bloom all the way back on May 17th. Here's a post from May 16, 2024 (a year ago) that shows the same timing as this year .   Below are a couple of photos showing this purple-blooming perennial that seems to tolerate the more-wet conditions on this side of the house.    Based on the first photo, I think we can say that this is a "bearded iris", can't we?  This is a 'later-blog-post' - with photos about a month behind the publication date.  

Recently, we had a crew come in and clean up the garden, edge out the beds and lay down a layer of mulch.  Was it leaf mulch?  No.  And, I'm ok with that.  It was hardwood fines and it sure looks good.  I channeled my inner Stu Finer and made the most of the installation.  Mulch and those edges play a role in what is called 'garden legibility'.  That was #10 on my 2025 to-do-list:  work on legibility in the garden .   This mulch - with its dark brown color - sure *does* make the garden more legible.   Below are a few photos showing the mulch in the beds.  Starting with the front yard - where the recently expanded front porch bed is now showing how much space there is for annuals.   The island bed in front is now larger, connected to the driveway and has a better, more organic shape to it.  This was #3 on my 2025 to-do list  (part of it, at least).  Below are a couple of photos showing the island b...

I seem to have failed to post photos and details of the dormant pruning that I did earlier this year on the pair of SugarTyme Crabapple trees that are trained into horizontal cordon espalier on the south side of our house.  The last time I posted about these was in September 2024 when the trees were going ham with new growth and tons of foliage .  At that time, I talked about the need to prune back both of these this Winter and noted how the tree on the right was growing faster/stronger/bigger than the one on the right. I pruned both of them while the trees were dormant, but I seem to have only take a photo when I had pruned back *just* the tree on the left and before I started with the one on the right.  That photo is below: I ended up pruning both back, of course.  And, they're now breaking bud with early foliage.  Below is a photo from this week (mid-April) showing the first sets of leaves emerging on both trees.   The photo above shows a few detail...

We started with one Disneyland Rose back in the Fall of 2017 and grew the collection to three by 2022.  In Spring 2023, I was gifted three more bare root Disneyland Roses for my birthday and I planted them in the front porch bed under the Triumph Elm tree .  All three of those 'new' roses didn't come back in 2024 - and that's where I planted a few Dahlia tubers.   The three Disneyland Roses planted in the sideyard struggled last year.  Between pests and drought, they had limited production during the 2024 growing season .  I failed to water them enough during the early part of the season, but baby'd them later in the year.   This year, for Christmas, I was gifted two MORE Disneyland roses.  They, too, are bare root.  They arrived via UPS in a box and were well-packed.  The roots were still covered in wet paper, so they didn't dry-out during the travel.  Below is a photo showing the packing of the two Disneyland Roses from Jack...

A couple days ago, I posted the details of some of my 2025 priority projects in the garden including my initial (#1) project:  renovating the gravel path on the side of our house .  In that post , I walked through my learning journey about geotextiles and their differences - non-woven vs. woven.  And, how they have different drainage and separation impacts.  After poking around, I ended up landing on the use of a nonwoven geotextile under the gravel will stop the 'sinking gravel' that has occurred over the years.   I found this roll of nonwoven geotextile that is four-feet-wide by 100-feet long.  It is listed as "8 ounce" weight and in-hand it feels substantial.   The gravel path on the side of our house is laid down with bluestone chips, so this project isn't straight-forward.  If this was a net-new path, the job would be easier:  lay down the fabric then pour on the bluestone chips.  But in this case, I had to find a way to s...