Why I Oughta...

Earlier last week, I posted a close-up of the fall colors on the Arctic Jade Korean Maple and talked about how I'm (already) thinking about another Korean Maple tree from the Jack Frost collection.   I bought the Arctic Jade from The Growing Place and when I was there earlier this year, I saw another Korean Maple from the Jack Frost Collection:  North Wind Korean Maple.  Here, below, is a photo of the sign from The Growing Place.  Here's the description from Iseli Nursery's website : The North Wind® maple is our flagship of the hardy Jack Frost® maple collection. It has been unscathed in Midwest field testing, surviving temperatures of -30°F. The palmate leaves emerge red in spring and change to green by midsummer. Showy pink samaras standout against the green summer foliage. When other fall color has faded in northern landscapes, North Wind® continues the show with dramatic tones of orange and scarlet. Negative thirty degrees is great.  It emerges red and...

This four-plant Oklahoma Salmon Zinnia just jumped right off the nursery tables at The Growing Place on my last visit.  It was tall, full of blooms and the colors were just in my wheel-house:  salmon, peachy.  See below for the as-bought state of this colorful cut-flower annual: Floret describes the Oklahoma Salmon Zinnia in a way that made me want to buy even more : This gorgeous novelty is one of the most prolifically blooming zinnias I’ve ever grown. Its petite, double blooms are a warm mix of salmon and peach and combine well with anything. Long, strong stems and small flower size make them a winning summer crop and wonderful bouquet addition. After bringing it home (only one, because that's all they had), I wanted those 'prolific blooms', so I knew that I had to cut it back.  Or...pinch it back - as some people say. This has four stems that were shooting way-up.  I counted up three full-sets of leaves and lop'd off the tops.  Below is a before-and-afte...

Silver foliage strikes again.  I've said it before, but I'm totally taken with the silver (or white) foliage trend that is popping up in garden centers.  And, when you combine that color with the idea that something can be grown as an annual and be 'Fantastic in flower arrangements', I'm sold.   That's how these Silver Swirl Snowflake Dusty Millers were listed at The Growing Place.  Here's their sign:  They had them in small quart containers - here's a couple of photos showing the plant and container: The new pizza oven bed is wide open and needs to be filled.  My plan includes running a border of Hakonechloa macra grasses around the edge, but I don't have them yet.  So, this year, these two Dusty Millers are going in instead: These will fill up this space and - once dahlia season is here - I'll start cutting the foliage to use in arrangements.  

A couple weeks ago, I posted a "Getting to Know" post about the Arctic Jade Korean Maple tree .  I showed a couple of photos from the inventory at the Growing Place and talked about how this cultivar is part of the "Jack Frost" Collection from Iseli Nursery .  The Arctic Jade is a hybrid maple that is 'more hardy' than a traditional Japanese Maple, but has 'large green, deeply cut leaves reminiscent of A. japonicum ‘Aconitifolium’. There's a lot to love about this tree - and that's why I brought one home. They had two sizes and after hemming-and-hawing, I went with the larger container that had a larger, more-full tree.  Below is the Arctic Jade Korean Maple tree on our driveway:    Here's a closer look at the leaves: There are a couple of items on my 2025 to-do list that are relevant - #5 is to "Get back in the Japanese Maple game" and #13 is to "add some trees".  This Korean Maple checks both of those boxes.   I placed...

I wrote about purple flowers this week.  Like I said then, I'm drawn to dark-color blooms.  The darker, the better.   When I saw this Petunia - Crazytunia Cosmic Violet - I immediately said to myself:  'add to cart'.   Here, below, is the sign at The Growing Place.  It says "Blooms deep plum purple feathering into pale lavender edges.  Crazytunias are bread for tolerance to extreme weather including heat, rain and wind.   Here's how White Flower Farm describes them : Petunia Crazytunia® Cosmic Violet is a prolific bloomer but maintains a tidy habit and won’t overwhelm its neighbors. We like the saturated purple tones of the flowers, as do pollinators. Here are a couple of photos showing the plants: I have gone back-and-forth on our smaller patio containers.  Mixed plantings vs. monocultures.   For this Crazytunia, I'm going sort-of 'in-between'.  I planted it to the side of one of our smaller containers and left ...

On a walk around the formal garden at the Morton Arboretum (the one behind the visitor center), we spotted this chartreuse shrub that was LITERALLY standing out.  It called to be looked-at.  And, that's what we did - wandering over and having a look.  I snapped this photo below - showing the bright shrub amongst some white Goatsbeard (or something similar):   I filed it away.  Interesting shrub. Then, on a recent trip to The Growing Place, I came across the very shrub - 3# containers for $50.  See below: This is something I could use in a few spots - in full sun.  Note to self:  See if they survive until the end-of-the-season sales.  

More flowers.  That's a big breakthrough for me as a gardener in 2024.  Last week, I posted photos of the Zinnias and Dahlias that I planted IB2DWs and in the new seed bed.  Today, I'm sharing the details of another new (to me) flower:  Nicotiana 'Perfume Deep Purple'.  I bought just one and planted it in the conifer garden - IB2DWs.  Below is the sign from The Growing Place that talks about the dark purple blooms and the smells that come with this flower: I've had Nicotiana Jasmine before , but it didn't reseed.    This new one is purple (vs white) and it is also in full sun.  Below is what it looks like at the time of planting: Below is a photo that provides a little context - this is in the new (as of last Fall) conifer garden.  

#2 on my priority list for 2024 is to 'keep going with flowers' .  That means...pushing through my discomfort around blooming perennials and annuals and planting things that I haven't in the past.  This year, that means that I am expanding a little bit out from what I *do* know and what I *do* like.    Last year, I had a small patio container that mixed some salmon-colored zinnias and Euphorbia .  It was great and I was able to cut from the Zinnias all through the late Summer/early Fall.   This Spring, I cut out a new bed on the southside and planned to spread some Zinnia seeds around (more on this soon) to serve as a sort-of cut flower garden bed.   But, I also went further with flowers this year by planting some dahlia tubers.  So far, I've planted six Melina Fleur Dahlia tubers (that I started indoors) .  Three in the sideyard, three in the front porch bed (where the Disneyland Roses were last year).  And, I put in three O...

Over the years, I've come across Korean Maples that are hybrids with Japanese Maples.  Famously, the folks at Iseli Nursery have introduced a collection of "Jack Frost Maples" that are hybrids of Acer palmatums and Acer pseudosieboldaianum - Japanese and Korean Maples - that have been 'evaluated and selected to tolerate the dramatic weather shifts of the upper Midwest of North America.' The upper midwest?  That's us.   So, when I was at The Growing Place and came across an affordable ($174.00) Northern Glow Korean Maple, I figured it was time to come home and go into our garden.  Below is the sign from TGP that calls it a cold-hardy tree that mostly resembles the Japanese Maple parent. And, here below, is a look at the tree that is currently stashed in the island bed by our driveway.   What do people say about the Northern Glow Maple?  iTrees has this listing : Northern Glow® Maple combines the character of a Japanese Maple and the cold hardiness...

Another day, another set of plants going in as part of my #FallPlanting sprint.  This time...featuring a set of ornamental grasses that I've seen other talk about:  Muhlenbergia reverchonii 'Undaunted' - or Ruby Muhly Grass.  At the top of this post is a look at one of the small quart-sized grasses that I brought home.  And below is a photo of the tag at The Growing Place - where they call this grass a "show stopper'.   Across Instagram, I've seen a few gardeners that I follow post photos of the plumes of these Muhly grasses - especially in the sunset.  At $5 a piece, the sale price had me trapped.   When I began to get them planted, I was struck by how dense and mature their root systems were - see below for what I'd consider a root-bound grass: I opted to put them right at the end of the current boardwalk - two in back, one out front to create a small grass colony.  See below for two photos:  one from the yard looking back at the ...

Fall 2023 is (now) going to be a moment that I'll look back on and think about sedums.  Sedums as groundcover have been on my radar since the success of the volunteer Angelina Sedum that started in our backyard and I've transplanted in a number of places.   The past few weeks have featured a few Sedum that have gone in - a Chicks and Hens Hopewell and a pair of Voodoo Sedum - all of which are IB2DWs and are part of my growing groundcover collection.  When I was at The Growing Place, I came across another new (to me) sedum:  Sedum spurium 'John Creech'.  You can see the sign above in this post.  They say:  A fantastic groundcover.  Distinctive, spoon-shaped leaves.  And it forms 'an extremely tight, dense mat that weeds don't have a chance '.   Who is John Creech?  From the Missouri Botanic Garden listing, they say :   John Creech, former director of the U.S. National Arboreteum, reportedly collected this plant at...

Fall Planting 2023 will go down as a big moment in our garden.  That is...as long as everything that I'm putting in makes it through the Winter.  I'm getting to this stuff pretty late in the growing season, so I a little bit of hesitancy in proclaiming that all of these will make it.  Last year, with the huge mass of Autumn Ferns that I planted late and didn't come back have scarred me a bit .  That fear didn't stop me from adding three more new (to me) plants on the same trip to The Growing Place.  I was wandering around the grass area and came across these small quart-sized grasses you see above.  Short in nature.  Nice seed heads.  I pulled out the plant tag and see this below from Hocus Pocus Groundcovers:  Sesleria 'Greenlee Hybrid' - Greenlee's Moor Grass. Thanks to the Front Porch bed exploration from earlier this year , I was somewhat familar with some Seslerias and ended up buying and planting a number of Seslaria Autumnalis from No...