Why I Oughta...

In 2021, I planted two 1# small Hicks (upright) yews in the backyard - sort of near the understory garden on the north side.  I planted them somewhat close together with eyes on (eventually) shaping them up into a 'Block I' Illinois topiary .  Earlier that year, I posted about this University of Auburn topiary frame and dreamed of a 'Block I' .  The two Hicks yews were probably 12" tall in Fall of 2021 .  They've now had three (2022, 2023 and 2024) growing seasons and have put on some size.   Here are the two Hicks Yews - below - after those three growing seasons.  They've grown up (a little bit) are are still mostly columnar. It isn't easy to determine their height, so here below, is a shovel stuck in the ground to provide a height comparison.   I CLEARLY still have time to create the 'Block I' frame out of Chicken Wire, so I'm not concerned about that.  I am, however, concerned about the 'fullness' of these.  Are they going to ge...

One step forward, one step back.  So it goes with indoor, container gardening it seems.  Just yesterday, I posted an update on my oldest Staghorn Fern and how it was putting on the first basal frond since I've owned it.  Today...showing a photo of a setback:  my Creeping Fig Vine Mickey Topiary took a hit. It seems that I let it dry out and the vine has gone dry across a huge amount of the face of the frame.  I THINK that I caught it just in time and watered it to keep the vine alive.  In part.   See below for the current state: You can see the dry parts of the vine with dead leaves.  But, also..what seems like a little bit of new, growth (the lighter green leaves).  I brought this inside back in October and it was THRIVING.  Look at this photo to see the post-Summer flush growth of Creeping Fig Vine .  I've been trying to keep the topiary watered in since the incident, but this really is a product of my plants being sent down...

The time has come to bring the houseplants in from outside.  We haven't gotten a frost yet, but I know that the first frost isn't too far away.  I don't move too many plants outside, but there are a few including staghorn ferns, my firesticks cactus , Nat's big fern and my standing Mickey Mouse topiary.  This year, I kept the Creeping Fig Vine topiary on the front porch all Summer.  That meant that it received a tiny bit of morning sun, but was in the shade for the bulk of the day.  It was just six weeks ago that I last posted an update on my Mickey Mouse that showed off a good seasonal growth spurt.  If you go back and look at the photo in this post from early August , you'll note that his hands were (at that time) not covered and that there were a few 'shoots' poking out.   Today?  See the photo below for what Mickey looks like after a full season of outdoor growth: This is 18 months of growth and it is pretty well close to being totally f...

 I haven't an update on our standing Mickey Mouse Creeping Fig Vine (stuffed) topiary in a while.  Last September, I showed the (then) current state with the vine doing well and overtaking even more of the frame .  Creeping Fig vine is a tropical, so I had a little trouble navigating Winter with it being inside where it is very dry here in Northern Illinois.   With Summer here, I wanted to show the new growth that has occurred since we moved it outside earlier this year.  This year, it is living (for now) on our front porch.  See below for the current state: There are a number of new shoots that need to be pinned down, but I think it is plain to see that - overall - this topiary is progressing in terms of coverage.   I mean...compare the photo above with the one in THIS POST from less than 13 months ago .  Big change.  My plan is to get out there soon and pin down the new shoots and try to cover even more of the frame before we have...

Earlier this year, I posted some thoughts about how I could create a Block I - University of Illinois - topiary in our backyard and how I was inspired by an Etsy listing.   In that post, I did some of the layout and decided on a 4' wide and 6' tall Block I that would be about 18" thick when mature.  I've been thinking about something like this topiary for a number of years after seeing a bunch of them at a nursery on Route 12 that were (mostly) created from Arborvitae .  But, knowing we have mostly shade out back, I went through the mental gymnastics to convince myself that if I bought an 'upright' Yew, I could make the Block I topiary a go.  So, imagine my delight when I came across some $5 Fall sale Hicks upright Yews at Home Depot over the weekend.  I stuck a couple in my cart and brought them home. I put them out in a few spots and thought about placement.  I kept moving them, walking away and viewing the pots.  I want to see it from near the...

The last time I posted an update on our Mickey Mouse (standing) topiary was back in late July of this Summer .  I had just recently moved it outside to our back patio and the Creeping Fig Vine that I had planted on it was doing well and growing to cover part of the frame.  We brought home the frame from this Spring's Epcot Flower and Garden Festival and I bought the balance of the supplies online .  That look back in July was at about the 3 month mark .   Today, marks the five month mark since stuffing, wiring and planting the topiary.  And we're seeing quite a bit more coverage with the Creeping Fig Vine seeming to have established itself and would around the front and back of the frame.   Here, below, is the front of the Mickey Mouse topiary after about 150 days.  The vine - planted in the 'heart' has covered a lot of his belly, some of his face and some of one of his ears. Below, you can see a photo of the back of the topiary.  I just...

Earlier this Spring, we came home with a Standing Micky Mouse metal wire topiary frame from the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival and I went ahead figuring out how to acquire the material, stuff the thing, wire it up and plant it with a creeping Fig Vine.  Here's that post from April that shows the steps I took to get it set up initially.   Mickey Mouse topiary spent the first few months of its life on our counter top in the kitchen sitting in a bowl.  I tried to keep it pretty wet and the vine grew just a little bit.  Then, I had a setback with some dieback on the tips of the vine.  I think I let it dry out too much.  Around the beginning of June, I decided to try to move it outside on our back stoop and patio.  After a few days of trying to harden the vine off (I put it out in the shade for a few hours, then brought it back in.  Repeat that process over the course of a week or so, each day adding a little bit of time.), I decided to give i...

Over the years, I've posted about various places that I've found gardening inspiration around the world.  There's the big one - Luxembourg Gardens in Paris - that maybe had the BIGGEST impact on me.  But there's also all of the things I've taken in around Japan including the pretty great Gotenyama Garden and all of their street trees . And, the boxwood hedges outside of the FedEx HQ that have an almost cloud-like form . And the Jacques Wirtz hedges that I've never seen in real life, but love online .  The fountain/pond at the cut flower garden inside the Morton Arboretum .   And, of course, there's Disney Parks. I've posted about their roses, trees and plants many times .  And I've added Disneyland Roses and a Belgian Fence espalier based on what I picked up there.   One of the things that I recently noticed was the color combinations in some of their annual beds.  Let's start with this bed showing off a really great Pooh Bear topiary (he's...

I've been thinking about topiary for a number of years.  I've talked about backyard topiaries - including (recently) the idea of a Block I one and as far back as 2017, I bought a topiary wire (angel) at an Estate Sale and never did anything with it .   It is something that I've included on my to-do lists over the years ( 2019 and 2020 ), but never was able to tackle the project.  I've also set it as #24 on this year's list (topiary), but I've taken a little veer off course. Instead of moving on an outdoor topiary, I've somehow started with a tropical topiary on a stuffed frame. This, too, has been like five years in the making.   Over those five-or-so-years, we've been down to the Epcot Flower and Garden Festival a number of times and EACH TIME we're there, I always pause and pick up a Mickey Mouse-shaped topiary and THINK about buying it.  But, each time, I've put it down.  Either logistics, or impulse control or something.   But thi...

As I often do during the deep part of Winter, my brain starts to think about the garden and the projects that I'd like to take on this season.  I've done a couple of years of to-do lists and those have been good ways of forcing me to focus.  In each of those years ( 2019 and 2020 ), I included trying a metal-frame topiary to the list.  And in both of those years, I never check the idea off my list . But, that hasn't stopped me from thinking about how to pull one off.  And, as I was tool'ing around the Web recently, I came across this Etsy store that sells all sorts of topiary frame s.  They're all really great.  Go have a look at this Pikachu one .  Or this Mickey Mouse head .  They also sell a full-body Mickey Mouse which looks really great .  It is $300, so maybe a little rich for a first-timer like me.  But, there also was one that caught my attention.  It is the one featuring Auburn University's A/U logo.  Here's a screens...

Get this topiary frame from TopiaryTree.net .  This is their product photo , not my photo. On the way up to Twin Lakes Wisconsin, we used to drive by this garden center on Route 12 named Atrium Garden Center.  They had a beautiful nursery that seemed stocked with tons of trees, plants, shrubs and more.  We stopped a few times, but every time we drove by, I always admired one thing:  the topiaries that they displayed close to the road.  They had critters and shapes of all sizes.  Dolphins.  Guys with fishing poles.  Even a Mickey Mouse head.  You can see a bunch of their topiaries in some of these user-submitted photos on Google Maps .  Here are a few screenshots from people that have submitted them there.  (Note...these are not my photos and can be found in their original form here .) On one of our trips there, I looked more closely at the topiaries to try to figure out what they were made up of in terms of plantings. ...

I came across these Hollywood Junipers on Fast Growing Trees (that's their product listing above) and then wandered down a Juniper-related wormhole into the world of topiary arts.  And, I ended up landing at this Monrovia page about their Hollywood Junipers that features a secondary photo that looks like this: Above photo via Monrovia's product listing page And I've now suddenly decided to take on a new gardening project that involves me blindly ordering trees online (yeah...online?!?) and figuring out how to either build or buy some big enough pots to keep a couple of these on our patio.  Having just visited the Flower and Garden Festival and seeing their topiaries of different styles/sizes, I've kinda fallen hard for them and think they'll both add a little interest and provide some activity for me and the kids to putter around the yard this season.  The Fast-Growing-Trees site sells 3'-4' trees , so they're not very big, but if the site...