Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I shared a look at the long, thin and pink-tipped Spring buds on the lone Pagoda Dogwood tree in our backyard.   A little further back in the yard - behind the Yew Hedge - is one of the Doublefile Viburnum tree-form shrubs that we have in our backyard.   In April 2022, I planted this one (and a few others), so it has had two full growing seasons (2022 and 2023) and is now back for its third growing season.   It has burst its buds and is a little bit ahead of most things in the garden.  Below, is a look at the green tips that have arrived on this treeform Doublefile Viburnum in Zone 6a:

I planted a small, native dogwood - a Pagoda Dogwood - that I bought at a local plant sale back in October of 2021 .   I put it back by the firepit area, in front of the Yew hedge, and left it alone for couple of years.  It was small and I wasn't sure how it was going to grow, so no pruning was done until last Summer ( June 2023) when I took back all the lower branches to just a few pairs of leaves.  The goal was to get it to focus a bit more on the taller/higher section and begin to take on a more tree-form shape (vs a shrub with low, wide branching).   I was out in the garden today taking an inventory and noticed that the Pagoda Dogwood has produced long, thin buds that are beginning to burst.  See below for the current state at the end of March 2024: This tree puts out a lovely-looking foliage - here's last Summer's view of the lined, almost-ribbed leaves that emerge out of these buds . According to the Morton Aboretum, this will eventually get up ...

I planted a lone Lemony Lace Elderberry (from Proven Winners) late in the season of Fall 2022.  It was bought at the end-of-season sale at the Growing Place and came back for the first time last Spring.  Here's a post showing the purple buds on the shrub in April 2023 .    Last year, I planted another pair of elderberry shrubs - this time they were dark-foliage Eiffel Tower varieties .   The Lemony Lace Elderberry has BRIGHT green foliage that resembles a finely dissected Japanese Maple.  It is also supposed to flower.  This one with big, white blooms that arrive before the foliage.  But, I didn't seen any blooms in the first growing season.  Maybe we will this year?   That's what happened with the treeform Doublefile Viburnum shrubs.  Planted in Spring of 222 and didn't flower that first year.  But, when they came back for their second growing season (2023), they put out a lovely set of large, white blooms . ...

I planted a pair of Matcha Ball Ash Leaf Spireas in my burst of [Fall Planting] last October.  One in the front yard and the other by the Fanal Astilbes along the southside of the backyard border.    I was out puttering around in the back and noticed a flash of green on the tips of the shrub.  A closer look showed me that the buds on this shrub were/are opening up.   This is the first Spring for this thing, so I'm glad to see it coming back and (seemingly) survive the winter cold.  Below is a close-up photo of the buds and then a wider photo showing the overall structure:

The pair of Greenspire Linden trees that are in espalier are putting on a 'bud show' this week as their leaves emerge from these pink-hued bud covers.  These trees are interesting when they're naked and dormant.  When they're covered in green, Summer foliage.  They turn golden yellow as they start to go into dormancy in the Fall .  And...also in Spring when they are colorful like in the photo below.   A little over a month ago, I removed the training posts from these horizontal cordon espaliered trees in our backyard .  

Pink flowers are on their way via our front yard Saucer Magnolia tree (multi-trunk) and it appears that 2023 will be another year of pink blooms this Spring.  Many of the buds have broken and are showing curl'd-up pink flowers on their tips.  A couple of photos below show the current state of this tree in mid-April 2023 in Zone 5b - Northern Illinois.  This tree was planted in 2017 , so this make it the seventh growing season (six full, one partial) and it was planted as a six-or-so-foot tree in Summer 2017.  Here are the buds that have opened: I'm reading these blooms as an affect of what I'll call a 'normal winter'.  Either it didn't get TOO cold, or it didn't get TOO COLD, TOO LATE - to kill the flower buds. This appears to be on a similar schedule to last year - when it was in 'full bloom' in/around April 22nd .   The history of this Saucer Magnolia includes one year of no blooms - 2019.  Summer 2017 : Planted as a small, multi-trunk tree. Ear...

In what feels like a 'too early' emergence, our set of four Hellebores (or Lenten Roses) are all showing a little bit of new growth peeking out of the mulch.  And...it is just mid-February.  Now, I have a limited history with Hellebores as I've only had them for a few years.  Well, actually three of them were planted late last Spring .  And one of them has been in the ground since May of 2020 (Sally's Shell) .  That means that this Spring is the FIRST Spring for the three Ivory Prince Hellebores from the Morton Arboretum sale and thus, I have no date-benchmark for emergence.  But..now I suppose that I do. Now, what are the historical dates in the garden diary for Hellebores? 2021:  Sally Shell:  March 9th .  2022:  Sally's Shell: March 18th . This year?  Have a look at the Ivory Prince showing the tip along with last year's foliage: And the Sally's Shell: That means: 2023:  Both Sally's Shell and Ivory Prince:  February 1...

Earlier this week, we had some snow fall overnight.  And flurries flew during the day.  It didn't last long, but the temperatures have hovered around freezing all week and I keep hearing people talk about how we're experiencing a "late Spring" this year.  The grass has green'd up, some of our ornamental grasses (the feather reed grasses) are up, tulips have pushed foliage (but no flowers) and I'm seeing some buds swell on our shrubs.  And, I keep going outside to do little garden tasks, but I haven't taken on any large scale ones.  Planting a few things, cleaning some parts of the garden up.  But, mostly....waiting.  Waiting for the weather.  Some of our perennials are moving ahead - despite the temperatures.  I see hosta tips (some cultivars), Brunnera tips and (as I posted yesterday) even peonies. But the trees?  They're still bare.  I wasn't sure how *normal* this is:  to have no leaves at all on any of our trees in mid/lat...

 I titled this post April/May because I'm posting it in May, but I took this photo in April of 2021.  April 24th, to be precise.  Those are the beautiful, exciting tree buds of one of our espaliered Greenspire Linden trees that are ready to burst open.  I posted a photo of these very same buds that were setting last Fall .  I planted these trees back in our first Summer here (2017) and set up the wire system that year, too .   I posted a similar photo EXACTLY one year ago today (May 4, 2020) with the buds showing a similar green and pink hue .   Last Summer - in year four of training (2017, 2018, 2019, 2020), I made the decision about the final form and pruned off a bunch of the limbs to leave just a four-tiered horizontal cordon espalier.   Also, last year this tree was infested with Yellow Jackets that were feasting on an aphid infestation .  Before all the leaves fell, I applied in two rounds some insecticide on the limbs i...

I've been worrying about our Dawn Redwood tree for the past four weeks.  I use the traditional fingernail scrape method on tree bark to see if trees are healthy and showing green right under the bark.  Our Dawn Redwood tree seemed to be very slow to start this Spring.  I was seeing other trees have buds set and begin to leaf out in some ways while this tree was seemingly stuck in neutral.  Making matters worse, my fingernail test wasn't showing any green on the trunk.  It wasn't brown.  And the limbs weren't cracking.  But, I wasn't seeing green like I was on our other young trees.   But, I don't have a Spring 2020 post in the garden diary here to show WHEN this tree needle'd out, so that gave me concern.  What was making me relax (a bit) was this post from 2019 when I show it being 'needle'd out' in early June of 2019 .  So, imagine my delight (and, frankly RELIEF!) when I walked out in the backyard and noticed the buds swelling an...

Last Spring, our neighbors to the north began framing their house and once the window placements were set, I came to the realization that our row of Frans Fontaine Hornbeam trees were doing a pretty great job of screening between our houses.  But, there was an edge spot - closer to the front of the house - that was going to be exposed to one of their new windows.  So, on Earth Day 2020, we decided to plant a columnar flowering pear tree (yeah...I know.  they're not great trees.  But, I needed to put in something that was inexpensive, narrow in habit and, ummm, fast growing.  The Chanticleer Pear tree fit the bill . When I planted it , the tip top of the tree was right at the fence level.  But, by the time Fall came around , it had put on more than 18" to the top.  Have a peek at it in October of last year .   The tree was beginning to do its job.   I've had mixed luck with these trees.  I had a large (3"+ caliper) planted in o...

Last year, I planted one (yes, I know, I know...it was a mistake to buy *just* one) Lenten Rose (or Hellebores) in our backyard that we picked up at The Growing Place .  It is a cultivar called Sally's Shell and it was in flower when we bought it , but quickly planted it in the backyard right where the plan called for a series of them in what I've called the 2021 Priority Area #2 .  That area calls for ten (10) of them, so I have some more to buy to get close to that coverage this year.   But, before I turn to adding MORE this year, I wanted to figure out how it weathered the Winter.  And, it didn't take me long to identify this beauty as you an see a purple-ish ball of foliage that has emerged from the mulch/wood chips - that you can see below: Stepping back a little bit, you can see (below) how it sort of just fades into the wood chips, but there are some of the stems and leaves that survived the Winter associated with the little purple package in the middle....

This is the second year in a row that I've posted a photo of these beautiful multi-color buds on our Greenspire Linden trees that have been espalier'd in our backyard.  Here's last year's post showing the same buds .   I think that these are my *favorite* buds on trees that we have.  Each of them are a little different - the Hornbeams are neat, too - but I think these are the largest, most colorful ones that really just SCREAM Spring to me.  Last year, I made the call to think about changing t his set of espalier to candelabra shape , but this Spring, I'm thinking that I'm going to go back to just a formal cordon and remove the tips that bend up.  Once I get around to wiring and pruning this Spring, I'll post some additional photos. 

We have three young trees that were all bought as nursery stock that haven't broken dormancy in our yard.  On a walk around the yard yesterday, I was surprised by the small Chanticleer Pear tree that had not joined the other ones in flowering out.  Below, you can see that tree for garden diary reference.   Here's one of the buds on the tips of the tree.  I've scraped away some of the bark and I see plenty of green underneath it, so maybe this one is just late in waking up? On the other hand, why isn't it showing even ONE flower?  The tree across the yard is in full bloom.  That has me concerned. The Crimson King Maple tree is also showing no signs of life.  If I look around at other Maples, I see some buds bursting open on *some* of the tips, but a further look around the neighborhood and I see plenty of trees that haven't broken dormancy yet.  A scrape on this one shows a little bit of green, but the tree itself feels a little 'h...

This troubled tree - in our front yard - appears to finally have overcome transplant shock and a clay bowl to get back on schedule.  At least....that's my hope.  You can see the flower buds that are set to explode in the photo above.  This is the second tree in this location after the first one that was installed when we built the house died.  This one , too, would have died if I didn't intervene.  I'm pretty sure that digging out a little channel that broke up the clay bowl underneath this tree is what saved it from drowning itself. The last time I posted about this pear tree was last Summer when it was leaf'ing out .  It didn't look super healthy and robust, but was green.  I trimmed many of the dead limbs off, but left everything else that was leaf'ing.  Prior to last year, this thing was all out of cycle.  In November of 2018 - YES!  November... it flowered .  In terms of timing, this flowering pear tree is showing buds...