Why I Oughta...

There are big portions of our back lawn that currently look like this photo below - littered in white, tropical-looking blooms that are falling from a pair of mature Northern Catalpa trees that we inherited in our Zone 5B, Northern Illinois backyard: Below is a look at the mid-yard Northern Catalpa tree that is fully-leaf'd out and full of white blooms: Both Nat and I have grown to really like the Catalpa trees - and their large leaves, white blooms and layered limbs.   I've posted about the Catalpas before - here's one from Fall 2021 .  And from 2019 when I posted about it for the first time .  And, I've been growing some seedlings in containers , too.  More on these in a future post.  

I mentioned that we had an arborist come out to look at some of the trees our property for maintenance and while he was there, I asked him to help me identify a few trees.   At the time, I wasn't sure if they were weed trees or something that was/is worth keeping.  I showed him one of them and he immediately told me it was a Kentucky Coffee Tree.  I posted about the first one - along our back fenceline here .  Then, I posted photos of the second of them - on the south property line about halfway between the large Oak and the trampoline.  This post is showing the third of these trees.  This one is along the north property line/fence line and is to the East of the cluster of American Elm trees we have (all of them small) along the fence.   So this is kind of growing up in/out from the canopy of the biggest Oak tree (swing tree) and just next to the River Birch clump. You can see the chainlink fence in the photos here - that's from the c...

Yesterday, I mentioned that we had an arborist come over to our house to assess and help us build a plan for a couple of our trees.  While he was there, I asked him about a couple of trees that we have growing in our yard that I was uncertain of the cultivar.  I have had a few trees that I was trying to figure out before, but I've mostly sorted the Walnut/Tree of Heaven/Sumac situation .  But, I had two *other* trees that I didn't seem to fall into any of those categories, but were growing in weird ways. I've left them up for the past few years, but not because I liked the trees, but because I just couldn't figure out what they were. I asked the arborist if he could identify them and it took a second for him to tell me:  they are Kentucky Coffeetrees (or Kentucky Coffee Trees, if you'd like).  Turns out, I have (at least) three of them in our yard.  They're all small, but in spots that they can live and grow without much thought. In the photo at ...

Just a few days ago, I posted a photo of our three-trunk River Birch in our backyard that we inherited with our lot.  If you look close enough at the photo in that post, you'll see a few yellow leaves on the tips of the tree.  I didn't notice the yellow at the time, but when I was out in the yard this week, I saw something that surprised me:  the yellow leaves covering this thing.  And...seeing a bunch of leaves drop to the ground.  Here's what the patch of grass underneath this River Birch looks like (photo below).  In the top right corner of the photo, you can see the three-trunks of the tree. Seeing all those leaves on the ground is, ummm, concerning.  I mean...it is early August.  Not early October.  And, it has happened really fast.  Like, from green a week ago to yellow and dropping now. I went poking around and found some (potential) answers. Miller Nursery says it is one of two things :  Stress.  Or somethi...

The last time that I posted a photo of this three-trunked tree was back in the month of May of 2018 when I included it (for the first time) in the tree inventory of our backyard.  It was Springtime, so the tree looked sparse at the time .  I'm sharing this photo in the [ tree inventory ] tag here on the blog to show how the limbs have leaf'd out and is providing some new lower-hanging screening and some branching that is starting to extend out over the lawn. The other thing to note is the big change the area around the tree has experienced over the past two seasons - back in 2018, this tree was surrounded by turf.   Today, it is tucked into a mulch bed with a series of Ostrich Ferns at the tree's feet. This is one of two multi-trunked trees in our yard - the other one being up in the front yard with our Saucer Magnolia . I'm going to grab the calipers of these three trunks this Fall when I do the balance of the trees in our backyard. The other things to note...

It isn't super easy to glean from the photo above, but that is our Dawn Redwood tree that seems to be doing well - again - this Summer.  The last time I shared a photo of this tree was last Fall when it was starting to turn colors and was beginning to drop some needles. This tree grew three feet of height last Summer and built out quite a bit of new branching , so I had been hoping that we'd see another good season.  And, so far?  It seems to be doing ok.  I've run a soaker hose on some of the plants in this bed, including this Dawn Redwood - to make sure that it gets enough water. I left the spade shovel in the ground next to this tree - that's a five-foot-tall shovel and gives you a sense for the height of the tree as it stands now.  I'm NOT seeing a new three-foot-tall top on the tree right now, but there *is* some new growth on the leader (or...if you will... the apical meristem).  Below is a photo of the leader.  Can you see it? Here'...

When we had our house built back in 2016/2017, one of the steps was the digging and installation of new sewer and water lines.  That required some serious digging from the center of the street all the way up to our house.  That digging was located fairly close to our large parkway tree - in fact it was so close that when we came to see the hole, we could see that the sewer guys had cut some of the roots.   Ever since then, I've been holding my breath with concern that the tree had suffered some damage.   I'm posting this in the [ garden dairy ] so I remember both what the canopy looks like in Spring but also what the color of the leaves look like, too.   Here, below, is the tree.  It is orange-ish/brown-ish.  Certainly NOT green like the rest of the maple trees around our neighborhood.   And, I'm content this year because I noticed the same thing last year.  This tree isn't suffering/stressed (at least I'm...

Back in early January I picked up a new caliper measuring tool from Amazon and started to set some baselines on the trees that we've planted around our yard.  After deciding on following the "6' from the ground rule", I marked each tree with a Sharpie.  Then began to measure them.  First up were the eight Frans Fontaine European Hornbeam trees that went in near the fenceline in Spring of 2017.  I then went around and took an inventory of  the nursery stock in the remaining part of our backyard .   I have done a 'height' inventory of the past few seasons, but with the tree heights growing, it has become a little bit less scientific/precise on some of the trees. I thought that I had posted about the small front yard trees we have, but in looking back in the archives, it appears that I forgot to include a post about them.  So, here's the baseline for two of the three small trees we have out front in the [ garden diary ].  The multi-trun...

Two days ago, I posted the first findings of using the caliper measurement tool on our young trees with this post showing the caliper measurements of our Frans Fontaine European Hornbeam trees in the backyard.  Today, I'm documenting in the [garden diary] the rest of our young backyard trees which all came from nursery stock.  I did the same thing on these that I did on the Hornbeams:  measured six inches from the ground and marked each of the trunks. First up is the pair of Greenspire Lindens that we've put up as an esaplier .  First is the one on the right (facing them).  Then the one on the left (facing them).  This one is slightly larger. Then the Weeping White Spruce that I planted mid-Summer 2019 and is dealing with it's first Winter below: One of the backyard Chanticleer Flowering Pear trees - this one along the south fence line below.  This tree was planted on Earth Day 2018 and was a really tiny tree (and was cheap, too!)...

A couple of days ago, I shared a photo of the new caliper measurement tool that Nat picked up for me on Amazon so I can get some better measurement of our young trees in the yard.  I have been tracking the heights of my newly added trees to the yard for the past couple of years (here's this Summer's measurements and here's last Summer measurements ), but some of the trees are getting more than ten feet tall and using a conventional tape measure to accurate reflect their growth is difficult.  Between not being able to reach (and be at eye level) with the very top of the tree and the reality to some of the tree's 'growth' isn't always in height, but in branching out and what-have-you. Like I've done with the heights (which...for many of the trees, I'll still do during the late Summer), I'm going to document caliper measurements on a regular basis.  I'm thinking that I'll do a semi-annual measurement this year (now + Summer) to see if th...

I took this photo above a week or so ago - with the Greenspire Lindens being entirely green and not having lost a leaf yet this year.  Putting this here in the [garden diary] to note how much the trees hve grown and to document the progress of the Candelabra that I've made this year. I'll take another photo once the leaves fall off to get a sense for the structure, but below you can see the candelabra that is taking shape.  The red indicates the branch structure that exists so far and the yellow show the bamboo supports that are in place. Winter gives me a chance to look at this double candelabra espalier and decide if it is going to be five cordons or six cordons or limbs in the candelabra.  Here - below - in teal - is the six limb version.  It looks tight to me. On the left, this means that I need: a new 2nd from the bottom left limb. a longer bottom limb on the right.  a decision between three and four on both sides. a new fifth left limb ...

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the large Oak tree that we use for our tree swing and today, I'm posting another larger tree in our yard that is pre-losing its leaves:  one of our Catalpa trees.  We have four of them and there are actually three in this photo.  The large one in the middle of course coupled with a Walnut tree on the left that has lost all of its leaves already.  But, tucked on in on either side of the Walnut tree?  A pair of small Catalpa trees: You may or may not know Catalpa trees, as I didn't either until we moved in and inherited these.  They're a pretty unique tree because they are considered what I would call an 'All of the above' tree .  That means they're a shade tree.  And a flowering tree.  And an ornamental tree.  They flower in the late Spring and have beans in the Fall.  And the leaves are H-U-G-E.  I like a lot about these trees, but I don't think that I've ever come across them in the nu...

Last Summer, I documented the 'mighty' Oak Tree that we inherited in our backyard here on the blog in June.  As we're moving to late October, I wanted to post here the view - looking northeast - of the same tree and canopy before it drops all of its leaves.  This was a Mast Year and it dropped thousands of acorns, but like always, the leaves are clinging on to "fall" what seems to be the last leaves in the yard every year. There's no way to know how old this tree is, but I know we lop'd off some limbs before we built and opened up the tree a bit.  That means that this year, we saw quite a bit of growth on the large limbs to 'puff them up' a bit with new branches/leaf clumps.  The tips grew just fine, but that exposure of new parts of the central limbs has allowed the tree to fatten up a bit more this season.

Last June of 2018, I posted photos and details that documented the heights of the existing trees in our inventory around the yard .  In September, I posted two more tree heights to the inventory .  This is the annual check-in with those same trees. As a reminder, here's the heights that I documented in Summer 2018: 2018 Tree Heights  Saucer Magnolia:  81" North Flowering Pear: 112" Frans Fontaine Hornbeam:  113" Red Maple Sun Valley:  96" Crimson King Maple:  112" South Flowering Pear:  80" Flowering Cherry:  112" Dawn Redwood:  63" Bald Cypress:  51"   2019 Tree Heights Saucer Magnolia:  104".  (+23").  22% growth North Flowering Pear: 182" (+70").  39% growth. Frans Fontaine Hornbeam:  162" (+49") Red Maple Sun Valley:  108"  (+12") Crimson King Maple:  112" (+0").  0% growth. South Flowering Pear:  115" (+35").  31% growth. Flowering C...