Why I Oughta...

With the days getting longer and me itching to get outside and work in the yard and garden - but recognizing that it is *still* too early to cleanup, I've been finding tasks that I *can* do.  Now.  Like...pruning shrubs.  I posted about the hydrangeas up front that received a haircut .  Today, I'm showing the before/after of the three Disneyland Roses on the southside of our house.  First...(of course) is the 'before'.  A series of three photos are below that run from west-to-east.  The first is the smallest Disneyland Rose that is closest to our gate.  The last one is the one closest to the front yard (the one by the gas meter).  They all look the same.  Naked and alone.   In past years, I've done a light pruning of these floribunda roses.  This year?  I followed what I did with the Hydrangeas.  And went ham.  A few things to note in the photos below:  First...the leaf litter.  That's from their Winter protection.  Second...there is *some* green.  Third:  I'

Back a few years, my sister gifted me a clump of purple bearded (I think) Iris that came out of her (and...for a couple of years...MY) neighbor's garden . His name was Wes and he had a couple of rows of Irises that lined his driveway.  Wes and his wife moved away and his house was torn down for a McMansion to go up on the property.  But, before the bulldozers arrived, Vic dug up some of the Irises.  I planted them on the side of our house and they flowered that first season .   Last Spring - in early April - I posted a walkabout that showed early foliage including these Iris tips .  Looks like these are about three weeks ahead of 2022.  See below for the tips: Wes' garden might be gone.  And, we might have moved off of Indiana Street.  But, with this plant, I can say that little bit of Indiana Street (and Wes' garden) are alive and well over here in Downers. 

A few days ago, I yanked out the chicken-wire cages that held a heavy leaf blanket on top of our three Disneyland Roses.  Those leaves were there to help insulate the crown of the roses from the harsh Winter conditions.  With the warmer temperatures (and...shorter periods of sub-freezing temps) here, it was time to let the roses breath a bit.  I still have to clean up all the leaf litter (see below), but for now, these Disneyland Roses are on their course for 2023.   I removed the cages around mid-March last year , so I went about a week earlier this year.   I'll start feeding these in April and then hit them every month to keep them happy. 

I wrote about how I was seeing some Wild Onions appear and looked at the soil temperature tool to find out that the soil temp currently in my Zone 5b is higher than the historical averages.    I also showed how I was seeing the Daffodils emerge this past week, too.  Those seem normal.  Or close to their history in my garden diary. But, an Allium showing up this early? Last year (2022), I was documenting the tips of Allium bulbs emerging in early April .  This year?  See below for a look at some of them that sit on the side of the hosue at the feet of the SugarTyme Crabapple Trees: Now, these were planted in 2021, so last Spring (2022), was their first shot at growth.  Perhaps they were just delayed.   I'll have to get out and have a better look around to see if other Allium bulbs are emerging early, too. 

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to create the chicken wire ring to help protect one of our Disneyland Rose bushes (They are a Floribunda Rose) on the southside of our house.  I picked - at that time - the middle one of the three to protect.  I've done this a number of years now and I'm NOT certain that it does anything really.  But...it doesn't take much effort and I'd hate to lose these flowers, so I decided to do all three this year.   That's what you see below:  all three Disneyland Rose bushes now protected by a ring of 2' tall, 1" chicken wire.  Then, filled with leaf litter to help create (hopefully) an insulation blanket for Winter.    I still have a tiny bit of leaf collection/pickup/mulching to do, but I'm hoping these 'settle' a bit so I can put more leaves in the bins. 

Hard to believe that it is mid-November and that we're still getting roses off of our Disneyland Roses.  Here, below, is a little set of flowers and buds that I cut off yesterday morning - right as the weather around here is beginning to turn towards Winter.   This past week, we've had temperatures in the 60's and 70's during the day, but now we're facing the harsh reality:  Winter is arriving.  This Disneyland Rose bush is putting on its final show:  This past week, I took a couple of chicken wire cages off of some hostas that have gone dormant and connected them together to make a Disneyland Rose winter protection cage.  The last time I showed these roses in our sideyard was in September when I talked about prepping for Winter .   This past Winter, I protected *some* of the roses and left others unprotected.  This year...I'm going to just try to do what I can do.  I started with one - the middle one.  You can see that cage below and how I've started to fil

Posting a photo and trying to take a 'partial dubya' for a down-list item on my 2022 to-do list in the garden and yard .  This is an item that I was pretty sure I wasn't going to solve - and in fact - stated that on my late-season check-in .  But...I wanted to post here in the [garden diary] a note to show that I should take a partial victory.  Why?  I transplanted a small Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grass that was under the Norway Maple to back by the gate.  See below, for a photo of the grass next to the fence gate on the south side: #24 on the list this year read like this : Clean up the south side gate entrance area. Expand the bed forward towards the street (and fill in the gully), lay out large flagstones for walkway and add self-closing gate hardware. Think about cleaning out strawberries that have run wild there and (potentially) expand the beds under the Lindens. This grass is helpful in moving that from 'kinda' to 'yes...a little bit'.   

A year and a month ago, I planted a pair of Crabapple trees along the side of our house on the southside.  After some hemming-and-hawing about what kind of trees I should plant in this spot (knowing I wanted to espalier them), I decided to plant Sugar Tyme Crabapple trees .  Why?  Because they're on the list of species that are both suitable for our Zone AND have 'excellent' disease resistance.  In the 13 months since planting, I've shown these trees in various posts - both about the trees as well as posts showing off the Disneyland Roses.  The most recent post was just last month when I was showing off the late-season blooms on the floribunda roses .    My plan for these is to create a Palmette Verrier shape , which calls for the bottom branches to be the longest, followed up each level with a shorter horizontal branch terminating in a vertical segment.  So far, I've trained out four levels on one of the trees and three levels on the second tree.  The wall these

Our Disneyland Roses - which are Floribunda Roses - have a cyclical bud --> bloom cycle that hits a few times each growing season.  In late September, I'm seeing this cycle hit for what I think is the third time this season and what is usually the LAST of the bud--> bloom cycles.  The last time that I posted about the blooms was back in mid-June when they were looking great .   That was their first bloom cycle.  Sometime in early/mid August was cycle number two.  And, right now, we're at the beginning of cycle number three. See below for a couple of photos showing all three Disneyland Roses.  First are a pair that are closest to our backyard.  The one on the left is the OLDEST, but it was transplanted this past Spring, so it is the smallest .  You'll also note that the pair of espalier-in-training Sugar Tyme Crabapple trees behind the roses below: The third Floribunda rose is set about fifteen feet to the East - towards our front porch - on the other side of our base

This application of rose fertilizer to our three Disneyland Roses (Floribunda Roses) on the south side of our house marks the fourth seasonal application of the granular fertilizer this year.  May, June, July and now....August.  (Despite this post publishing in September, I put down this rose food in late August).    The full archive of rose fertilizer posts are here .  Below, you can see how I spread this fertlizer around the base of the rose: And, here's a look at the bag of Vigoro food that I've been using all season.  I didn't use ALL of this bag this year, but came pretty close.   The timing of the blooms of these seem to follow the application of the food.  Right now (late August), these have just finished a bloom-cycle and should be putting on the final set of buds for a September flower show soon.  

It seems that I've stumbled across a groundcover that works for me in areas of deep shade and places that I'll neglect.  That's the situation on the north side of our house - along the gravel path.  I have never watered this area.  But, I stuck a Creeping Jenny Moneywort out there after I dug it out of our Front Porch Container and it has...ummm...taken. Last October, I showed a photo of this ground cover and it was just getting started here .  What's it look like today?  See below for how it has spread out and is thriving: I like how it is spilling out onto the path.  And how it has filled in a huge section of this long, linear bed.     With this kind of growth, you have to wonder if this is an invasive, right?  University of Wisconsin says that it isn't .  But...I'm not sure.  Despite adding some ground cover being one of my 2022 to-do items, I'm not going to fly out and buy a bunch of plugs of this stuff.  At least...not yet.  But, this passage makes me w

Over the years, I've dug-up, transplanted and even divided a series of hostas of various varieties along the foundation and around the corner of our kitchen windows from the back of the fence to the Karl Foerster Grasses that are planted right below the windows .  This post from June 2020 shows how a series of hostas that were from teardowns had grown and thrived in this spot.  I ended up digging a bunch of these up, moving some and dividing others.  Leaving us with a row of three Lancifolia Hostas from the fence gate to the corner of the house.   They seemed fine.  Until this year.  Have a look at the photo below.  These are, I'm pretty sure... sun burned hostas .  Or...as some people call it:  hosta scorch .   Could I be giving these hostas more water?  Sure.  But, I'm not sure that's really the problem.  This seems like a situation where these aren't a fit.  They'll need to be moved and replaced with something that can handle more sun.   This situation has

The blooming of our floribunda roses (Disneyland Roses) has begun for the season with their first flush of pinkish-orangish blooms on all three plants that are in our sideyard.  These are in full sun, but have mostly been watered naturally (not irrigated) and have thrived in their current location. The last time I posted about these was when I applied a granular fertilizer in mid-May .  (note to self: it is time to apply again.) Below is a photo of the rear-most two Disneyland Roses with a pair of pre-espalier Sugar Tyme Crabapple trees planted between them.   And, here's the other one - located closer to the front porch - below.  I'm also including one of the divided Karl Foerster Feather Reed Grasses that I put over here last Fall in the photo (on the right).  This one is the largest one side-to-side.  Here's what they looked like last June .   If history is any guide, these will have multiple flushes of blooms all the way through the growing season.  Here's the bloo

Back in 2019, I transplanted a dark read Coral Bell perennial that I had in our urn container into the bed on the side of the garage and didn't think much about it.  It survived that first Winter and grew to a nice size.  Last Spring, I decided to divide it up into three plants.  This is an area of deep shade, so after dividing them, I didn't water them too much.  But, by Fall all three of them had survived .  Fast forward to this Spring and all three are showing new, dark red (maroon) foliage in the long, linear bed along the garage.  You can see them below: This photo - while posted in early June - was actually take in early May before I mulched the beds.  One of my 2022 to-do items (#16) was to design with dark foliage .  These certainly count as dark foliage.  Another item (#12) continue to divide plants.  These are too small (right now) to think about dividing them, but I'm thinking they'll go on a two or three-year schedule.   2019: Planted in container. Transpl

Yesterday, I showed a photo of a series of Ostrich Ferns that have worked a little and naturalized along the long, linear mulch bed that runs between our garage and the Bluestone chip gravel path that leads to our backyard.  After planting one (or maybe two) transplants, we now have eight Ostrich ferns of different sizes that have begun to fill the area in.  In that post, I mentioned that I also planted some bare root Ostrich Ferns a little further back along the garage (behind the fence gate) .  Here's what those ferns now look like clustered close to the little stoop outside our sidedoor.  Below you can see the ferns that have unfurled in this little, narrow bed: In this post in 2018, I said that I planted three bare root Ostrich Ferns here , but thanks to them spreading a little bit, we now have nine ferns of varying maturity.  See below for an annotated version of the same photo/area showing the nine now in orange circles: There's also some Creeping Jenny Moneywort on the

Over on the side of the garage - in the long, linear bed that is sandwiched between the house and the gravel path, there are a few different plants that I've tucked in here and mostly left alone.   I talked about this area earlier this Spring when I talked about (potentially) planting some trees that I can espalier against the house to kind-of 'break up' the large mass of wall .  When I posted that photo in mid-April, none of the perennials had emerged just yet, but with Spring turning to Summer around here, this spot has started to come alive.  And, what's showing up strong?  Ostrich Ferns.  See below for a photo showing some of the Ostrich Ferns that have spread and naturalized in this area: Here, below, is an annotated photo showing the location of eight Ostrich Ferns - some tiny and some more mature.  Based in the location, the larger stand of fern fronds that are just above the large rock were the ones that I originally planted and the rest have spread via rhizomes

Earlier this week, I showed off a couple of photos that featured the pair of Sugar Tyme Crabapple trees that were in (what I then called) a pre-espalier form .  These were planted last Fall along the southside of our house, in front of our gate.   Since they had already bloomed, I thought it was time to take out the pruners and remove all the non-necessary limbs to allow the trees to focus growth on the limbs that I cared most about.  I started with a top haircut - pruning off the apical meristem or leader on both.  That usually has a strong impact on the tree where it signals a bunch of NEW growth.  I used the siding boards to get them the same height.  From there, I went two siding boards down and removed all the little, starting limbs in between those two segments.  Then, again two boards down.  And so forth.   I still am not sure what form these will take, but - for now - I'm training them horizontally.  See below for what are (now) four-level horizontal cordon espaliered craba

Last Summer, we planted a pair of Sugar Tyme Crabapple trees on the side of our house - the south side that gets a lot of sun - right up against the foundation.   I watered them in a bit, but we were (mostly) past the heavy heat of the Summer (mid-September is when they went in), so I kind of let the trees just figure things out on their own.  I didn't train these very hard last Fall because of that.  I left them as is and didn't prune anything off of them.  I did, however, put a couple of limbs out horizontally with some light bamboo poles, but otherwise didn't touch them. Earlier this Spring, there was a peek at one of them (naked) in this Disneyland Rose protection post from mid-March .   What happened this Spring?   They woke up.  And put on a really nice show.  Pink buds opened up to white flowers with pink centers clustered all over both trees.  See below for a pair of pre-espalier crabapple (Sugar Tyme - Malus 'Sutyzam') trees . This post is going up on May

I've talked about how our yard, beds and even view of our house from the street has changed since we moved in back in 2017.  At that time, we had a house next door (to the north) that was sitting closer (than our house setback-wise) to the street and had a driveway that wasn't right on the property line.  With our new neighbors building and moving in a couple of years back, that changed.  They upgraded the property and house in a MASSIVE way.  And...they're just good neighbors and nice people.  But, they did upgrade the property in so many ways.  In doing so, they built their new house a bit further back from where the old, smaller house was situated.   As a result, that 'view from the street' that I mentioned changed a little bit.  It changed when you are coming south on our street/sidewalk and 'see' our house.  What used to be hidden (mostly) due to landscaping and the old house was the side of our garage.  It is a big, mass of wall with no windows.   Here

Earlier here on the blog, I posted about the idea of a 'fountain wall' right next to our patio and mentioned that I thought there was an 'order of operations' post that needed to come first to ensure that I had all of the pieces sorted out and that any project that I took on would not have to be REDONE when I moved on to other projects.  However....in order to get to that 'order of operations' post, I think I need to lay out a few more of the building blocks/underlying projects that make up the choices I have to make.   One of the biggest ones is to finish up solving the 'entrance' to our backyard.    I've gone around-and-around on how to best solve the situation I'm facing:  a gradient that transverses the path we need to complete from our front yard (driveway) back to our patio. Last year, I put in a gravel walkway that covers half of the area .  And, we love it.  But, I can't simply lay down a gravel walkway for the rest of this walkway b