Why I Oughta...

One of my kids has started to fly a small, consumer-grade drone around our yard and garden.  They're just getting the hang of the thing - and starting to take a few risks by flying it higher and further away from where they're standing.  And...it has been going well.  We're getting some interesting photos of our garden and yard and even some from our our neighborhood.  They were out flying the drone recently and started to snap a few photos in our front yard.  Everything was going (and looking) good - here's some photos from the drone flight out the front of our house: And then.....this happened: That's static.  The drone got stuck in a large tree in our front yard.  About thirty feet up in the air.  Oh, no.   Once I figured out where it was located, I grabbed a few footballs to try to knock it down.  After about 25 minutes and dozens of tosses (and some stuck footballs), I was able to get the drone down.  And...all the footballs. But...we had one incident:  one of

Earlier this Summer, we had a storm that dropped a couple of good-sized limbs from a few of our trees.  A big one from one of our Oaks.  And a few medium-sized limbs from one of the Black Walnut trees.   On that Black Walnut limb were ten-to-twelve green-covered walnuts that weighed the limb down - and likely caused it to snap due to the weight.  With a semi-wooded lot with some mature trees, that happens from time-to-time.   Normally...the limbs drop the ground harmlessly. But not this time.   This time, it came down DIRECTLY on top of our small Waterfall Japanese Maple tree *right* at one of the tree's joints.  That limb SNAPPED off one of the major limbs on the Japanese Maple.  See below for a few photos showing the damage on the Waterfall Japanese Maple tree : And, here, below, is the limb in question.  I fished it out of the bed and threw it on the lawn.   This was back in June.  Fast-forward three months to now.  How is the tree doing?   Below is a photo showing the Waterfall

This is the second Winter that we've had the young(ish) Triumph Elm Tree in our front yard and that means this is the second season that I've used a paper tree wrap around the bottom few feet of the trunk - all the way down to the rootflare - to protect the trunk and bark from Wintertime sun scald.  Here's a link to a post from last November (2022) where I talk through scald and why I was choosing to wrap the tree. Below is a photo showing the wrap in-place this year:

The guys who planted our new Triumph Elm tree in our front yard told me three things when they were leaving it:  1.  Put the tree away wet.  2.  Wrap the trunk this winter to protect against sun scald and cracking.  3.  Don't touch the tree for years.    Of that advice, I *sort of* understood the first and third one.  Watering in a new tree for a couple of weeks is very important.  But, having the tree installed so late in the season meant that I could 'put it away wet'.  As for #3 - pruning - I've learned my lesson and don't touch trees for a number of years.  But, #2...wrapping the tree.  That was new to me. So, what is sun scald?  From the University of Arkansas Extension office comes this explainer : Sunscald is a fairly common physiological problem found most commonly on young, thin-barked ornamental and fruit trees. Research suggests that during the winter, frozen tissue on the south or southwest side of the trunk which is also being heated by the sun, thaws

This Fall, I planted two very small Ginkgo trees as part of my overall fall planting program.  One in the backyard.  One in the front.  Why two of them?  Because the first one I ordered was broken upon delivery.  I was PRETTY SURE that the tree was going to die.  But, I planted it anyway .  Because that one was broken, the online nursery sent me a second one to plant - and that one showed up in a healthy condition .  Now...about one month later (those were planted the first week of October), what do the trees look like? First, then broken one.  The tips of the top branches are holding limp, brown leaves.  Not good.  Based on my experience, Ginkgos go yellow before brown.  So, my presumption is that these are lost limbs. And, for comparison's sake...here's the one in the front:  Some browning on the tips, but this one is in a much better place.  Seeing a little bit of that yellowing on the tips, too.   I'm not sure if I can be certain, but I think I'm operating under th

Last year, we added a Harry Lauder Walking Stick tree to our backyard after seeing it a drive-thru buying experience at the Growing Place in Aurora.  We first saw - and fell in love - with this curving, interesting tree at Disneyland Paris outside of their Haunted Mansion (called Phantom Manor ) and knew then that we should buy one of these contorted trees.  Where we planted it ended up being close to the 'focal point' we were trying to design along with the apex of the 'nook' that will (eventually) hid the fire pit area.  The tree came with a bamboo pole that the tree was growing around and I pretty much just left it as is after planting.   But on a garden walk around recently, I noticed that the tree had begun to really grow AROUND that bamboo pole - especially down near the bottom.  So, I went ahead and tried to remove the pole, but it turned out harder than I expected.  After some sawing, cracking and twisting, I was able to remove the central bamboo pole.  But, no

Four weeks ago, I posted a series of photos showing how I had pruned both of the Greenspire Linden trees that we have espaliered into a Horizontal Cordon .  We went from four levels down to three and then restrung the wire to support a new fill-in fourth Cordon.  When removing the top Cordon, I cut what is technically called the Apical Meristem in an attempt to redirect some of the growth this season to the existing Cordons with the goal of beefing them up and then thinking about how we might be able to turn the tips up into a Candelabra shape.  (Scroll down in this post to see the different espalier shapes including a Candelabra .) A few things to call out though: First, in the photo above, you can see that we have one misaligned Cordon level.  On the left, the limb is coming out about four or five inches higher than the limb on the right.  I've trained the one on the right *up*, but there is currently this misalignment.  Is it a deal-killer?  I don't think so.  Especia