Why I Oughta...

Once I posted the structure of the front-yard Spring Grove Ginkgo tree , I figured I should include the back stoop versions (there is one on each side) in the [garden diary], too.   Both of these have a one-year head start, but are showing a bunch more height than the front-yard tree.

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the small Skylands Spruce in our front yard island bed.  Today, is a photo showing its companion:  the Spring Grove (dwarf) Ginkgo tree that was planted this season, too.  Unlike the Skylands Spruce, the Spring Grove Ginkgo tree is naked right now; it dropped all its leaves earlier this Fall.   And that's revealed a STRIKING structure.  Pointy and sharp.  The branching provides a bit of 'Winter interest' with a handful of main branches and dozens of short, straight secondary branches emanating like spikes.  See below:

I spent a long time thinking and planning and (eventually) buying and planting a full hedge of (at that time) small Hicks Yews across the back of our yard back in 2019.  I planted twelve 1# pots in the Summer of 2019 and they've had (now) six growing seasons ('19, '20, '21, '22, '23, '24). I picked these because they're shade-tolerant.  And, evergreen.  And, narrow/upright.   But, I was hesitant.  Why?  Because...well...Yews have a bad reputation.  Ask any gardener my age if their parents had yews in front of their house when they were growing up and the answer is:  yes.   I was hesitant to use Yews because of what I had grown-up with in the garden.  Everywhere you look in suburban gardens, people have been using Boxwoods.  And, I have, too.  Boxwoods here.  Boxwoods there.  But, after some hemming-and-hawing...I opted for these $5.00 Hicks, upright Yews for the hedge.    I came across this 'undu...

Back in the Summer of 2022, I picked up and planted three VERY SMALL Green Velvet Boxwoods around the base of a flowering pear tree IB2DWs.  These were right at the break in the bed where our gravel (Bluestone chips) runs from our driveway back to the yard.   When I say 'very small', I mean it:  they were in 1# nursery pots.  I've planted a number of 1# boxwoods over the years and I've been ok with the fact that they take time to mature.   That's the case with these three.  They're not fast-growers, but they sure have grown up.   This post tracks 28-months of growth.  That's 2.5 growing seasons (1/2 of 2022, all of 2023 and 2024).   They grown from about six-inches tall and four-inches around.  To, what you see here, below.  These are now more than a foot tall and close to a foot in diameter.  The first photo shows two of them.  Then second photo shows the third one.  Note all the suckers coming o...

One evening, I peeked out at the backyard and noticed this combo view (part ours, part borrowed) of two different Linden trees.  Ours is a Greenspire Linden that is trained into a horizontal cordon espalier; backed by our cedar fence.  And just behind and lit-from-below is our neighbors (unknown variety) of a Linden Tree that is covered in the day's snow.  Quite a look isn't it?  I posted about "Winter Interest" just a few days ago and mentioned that perhaps as a result of lacking conifers, the majority of the "winter interest" in our garden is from snow + structure.  Here...just add "light".  And you have a little bit of winter garden magic.

This morning, we're getting walloped by a big snow storm, which will leave behind six-or-so inches of new, fresh white snow.  Yesterday, before that arrived, I walked our kitchen compost out to the bins (and of course, dumped it in the active compost collection bin with the "Feed Me" sign hanging on it ), figuring that it might be a couple of days before I was going to get back there.   On my way back to the house, I was struck by some of the 'winter interest' that I came across in the garden.  Most of the time, it sure feels like when I read about 'winter interest' that they're mostly talking about evergreens.  Shrubs, trees, etc.  And, those surely provide interest during the winter.  But, as I've posted about (and have some regret about), I've made a long-term mistake by neglecting conifers as a key part of our garden and rather focused on deciduous trees and perennials.    I've begun to address that conifer situation and will continue ...

I added three small Green Velvet Boxwoods to the middle of the pair of recently-espalier'd Dogwood trees along the side of the garage.  The bed has been an afterthought (to date) and features a bunch of random hostas, Ostrich Ferns and a few heucheras.  There were no shrubs.  There wasn't much 'structure' there.  The photo at the top shows the 'after'.  The photo below shows the 'before'. I've moved that big hosta OUT and removed some of the ferns, too.   I planted these in mid-October, but posting it in early November 2023. 

Conifers Should Come First.  Or, if not first, one should attempt to make up for lost time when you can.  This is the second dwarf conifer tree and third dwarf conifer overall that I've planted in the past week.  All of which are IB2DWs.   Like the Baby Blue Spruce trees that I bought at 50% off, I bought a pair of Weeping Norway Spruce trees.  This post is about the one that is going in our established IB2DWs bed. Below are a few photos showing the pre-planting details: This came as a ball-and-burlap tree from the orange big box store.  I've had these before, but I've always removed as much of the burlap as possible.  This time, I'm going the opposite way.  All I did was cut and remove the twine, but left the burlap in place.  I'm *pretty sure* that these might be air layered trees as whenever I remove the burlap form them, the root system is pretty sparse.   I stuck this tree right in front of the All Gold grasses about half-...

Gardening advice is literally a cottage industry.  YouTube creators.  Bloggers.  Botanical Gardens.  Everybody has advice and recommendations.  And, I take A LOT of them - as I'm a total novice and learn a little bit more everyday in the garden.  I've covered some of this advice, but I came across something recently that stopped me in my tracks.   From Fine Gardening - Lisa O'Donnell in a piece titled "Conifers Should Come First" - says this:  Instead of adding them as an afterthought...let evergreens drive the design .   I *totally* feel seen. I started on the wrong foot. Did I start with conifers? Nope. I've added some over the years.   I planted a number of conifers that didn't survive - from a Japanese White Pine , Weeping Cedar , dwarf Alberta Spruce and a small Fraser Fir .  All planted.  All dead.  One early bright (conifer) spot is the Canadian Hemlocks .  They're still (some of them) around...

My number one priority for this gardening season has been to focus on adding shrubs to the garden.  That means both evergreen shrubs as well as deciduous ones that lose their leaves come Fall.   To date, I've planted 15 shrubs in the garden with the last ones being the set of three Little Lime Hydrangeas in the backyard .   When I was at the orange Big Box nursery recently, I found a table of very small (1# nursery pots) Hicks upright Yews.  I've used these all over the place in our garden, so I figured I could pick up another set of these to plant.  I mean...they were $5 each, so what's not to like, right? The question was where to put them.  There are a bunch of places, but one that I've been thinking about is how we add a little bit of structure to the (current) entrance to our fire pit area.  We have this little mulch border that we've placed a couple of small pieces of flagstone that you can use to traverse from the lawn to the fire pit...

Last Fall, I found a few Green Gem Boxwoods - in late October - that were discounted at the orange Big Box nursery.  I brought them home and planted them in the backyard in the bed on the south fenceline .  They were right in front of a colony of Summer Beauty Ornamental Alliums and are set back from the border by just a little bit.  They were in 1# nursery containers, so they were VERY SMALL.   Having planted them so late, I wasn't sure how they'd handle the Winter.  Fortunately, they survived and were still green come Spring. I included a photo in early Spring that showed these .   How are they doing today?  They've put on a bunch of new, lime-green growth.  See below for a photo showing these doing well in this spot.  You can also see (below) some of the Allium and the 'cracked' Ginko tree on the far right . These boxwoods weren't (technically) in the plan, but I was thinking I could use some evergreen structure to the garden - n...

Back a couple of weeks ago, I scrambled a bit to buy and plant some shrubs ahead of a professional cleanup and mulch job that we had going on in our yard and garden.  As I've said a few times in the past few months, shrubs are where my focus has been this planting and growing season.  In this post back in early March, I outlined a series of garden 'slices' and how I needed to prioritize the planting of shrubs to both provide the necessary structure and (in some cases) four-season interest.  To that end, #1 on my 2022 to-do list was to "Focus on Shrubs" .  And, over the past few weeks, I've tried to pay that goal off.   The most recent shrub-related post was about the pair of Ruby Slippers Oakleaf Hydrangeas that I planted from the Morton Arboretum Spring sale .  In that post, I ran through a mini-inventory of what I've added including 9 new flowering shrubs and six upright evergreens.  Full list: Six upright evergreens - Green Giant Thujas. Tech...