Why I Oughta...

The past few years have been a love story between me, the gardener and Ajuga 'Chocolate Chips', the groundcover.  I've bought it a few different sizes (quarts and plugs) and have scattered them around the front and back of our yard.  Some have really thrived.  Some have died totally.  And others...well...they're still TBD.  This time in early Spring is when these Ajugas take on a different form - with curled-up, darker foliage that make them standout a bit.  Soon...they'll be filled with blue/purple flowers.   Here's a look at some of those - starting with some less-than-one-year-old plugs.  These went in the bed in late May in our backyard, sort-of in-front-of the Fanal Astilbes .  The six plugs are not stretching out into six plants.  Soon...maybe this year, they'll connect to each other: Next up, is a pair of plugs that went in the backyard in late Fall.  These are planted in front of the Baby Blue Spruce Tree.  They, well...survived the winter.  Are they

This week, when I came home from work one evening, I noticed a particular active squirrel trying to gnaw-off a bunch of small branches near the bottom of the big crotche(s) on our large Northern Red Oak tree in the back that has our tree swing on it.  I observed him/her for a minute, then quickly saw them scurry back to what appeared to be an emerging/being-established nest.  It was located a couple feet-up from the crotch.  I thought about what to do.  And, decided it was best to remove the nest.  My thinking was that it IS NOT baby season.  This nest is NOT occupied - yet.  It is just being built.  My preference is for him to build it much higher in this tree or...in a different tree further back from the patio/tree swing.  So...I hauled out my ladder (a platform ladder) and used an extension pole that is supposed to be used to hang Christmas lights in high places and knocked the little nest down.  My emotions are still mixed and I'm sure that if this gets views in some folks eye

Last month, I ran through the success rate of some Bressingham Blue bare root hostas from Longfield Gardens.  I planted 18 and now have ten that have come back for year two.  55% success rate .  In addition to those blue hostas, I also planted nine Frances Williams bare root hostas at the same time.  These were planted in late April 2021 and were clustered around the Northern Red Oak tree (tree swing tree) in our backyard.   Last Fall, these Frances Williams hostas had emerged and were small, but mighty .  We recently had our mulch done and it seems that what started as nine hostas is now six plants.  You can see them below: I'm going to leave these as-is for this growing season, but if they bulk up by Fall, I think I need to dig up and transplant a few of them - as they're planted too close together.  The one that "looks" the best is the three-leaved one tucked in right by the trunk of the tree (in the shade).  It has the nicest coloring/margins and the largest leav

On Tuesday, I posted a photo of our Northern Red Oak tree turning yellow and putting on a nice bit of a [Fall Show] and today the tree is a striking orange and maroon that warrants a second photo/post in the same week.  The photos in this post (landscape at top, portrait on bottom) barely do this justice.  The reds are dark maroon and are coupled with a Frankfort Tiger-ish yellow/orange combination.  As I said earlier this week, this tree has been different every.single.season - sometimes going brown, sometimes keeping leaves, sometimes dropping.   But the color of the tree right now?  I don't think it has ever done this before.  Maybe it is the most striking tree in our whole neighborhood right now.  

Right at the end of August, I shared a photo of some of the bare root hostas - Bressingham Blue hostas - that I planted this year in a new bed.  Seven of the eight made it and have emerged this year.  Right around the same time, I planted nine Frances Williams hostas in a different (new) bed.  Frances Williams are variegated and have a yellow margin - so I put the bare root plantings in the bed with my other variegated hostas .  I planted these before anything else emerged.  And, I'll say that *these* were VERY.SLOW to emerge from the ground.  Here's the place they went in the ground in April .  So, how are we looking on those nine plants now? Here, below, is a look at the plantings from two different angles: And, here, below, is an annotated version of one of the photos showing - by my count- eight of the nine have worked out. Now...it MIGHT be nine for nine.   And that's because the plant in the circle farthest to the top/right has what is actually three little hostas e

Yesterday, I posted a photo of some transplanted Ostrich Ferns in the south bed .  Today, I'm sharing a photo of some of those same, harvested Ostrich Ferns in the north bed - just past the Oak Tree with the swing.   I transplanted the four ferns you see along the border in front.  One of them is large - and came from the north side of the garage.  The other three came from around the Dawn Redwood. Also, in the photo below, you can see three or four other ferns - a little further back in the bed.  Those are a few of the ten that I put in this area last year .  It seems like NOT all ten of them made it.  But, this little section should fill in with Ostrich Ferns in the coming growing seasons. 

Earlier this year, I posted a photo showing some of the canopy deterioration of the Norway Maple in our front yard - right outside of our front porch.  The tree seems to be suffering from some damage due to construction and digging around the roots.  We specifically moved the house back to save this tree, so seeing the parts of the tree going dead has me concerned.  Then in August, I posted a photo of a large limb that went down during the Derecho storm .  So, it was time to call in the experts.   I had an arborist from Davey come out and give us a plan to help this tree.  And one in the back.  It includes a pruning in late Fall/early Winter once the tree has shed all of it's leaves.  But, it also includes a three year growth regulator treatment.   In the photo below, you can see the technician boring holes in and around the base of the tree where he was set to apply the growth regulator called Cambistat .   He mixed up a container for our front yard Norway Maple (21") and o

My #2 priority area in our backyard for this gardening season is around the large Oak tree that is home to our tree swing.  That part of the plan called for adding a series of hostas, ferns and connecting the beds between the Hornbeams and this nascent bed.  The plan called for the addition of 10 or so Hadspen blue hostas, but there were two factors that made me go a different direction. First, I planted three hostas in this area already.  First, there are two, existing variegated ones present:  Christmas Tree and Fantabulous from 2018 .  Second, there was a third, variegated hosta that I tucked behind the tree - the miniature variety that I really like .  And finally....I had a mixed variety of Hostas that I've tucked underneath the Hornbeams over the years - including mixed variegated ones with more blue ones.  So, I decided to get the variegated ones out from below the Hornbeams.  And move them to where you can see in the photo at the top. Below, you can see all the new

Back at the end of May, I entered a River Birch tree in our backyard into my [ Garden Diary ].  It was a tree that we inherited, but I wanted to document it during the Summer of 2018, so I have something to revisit as it grows over time.   Today, I'm entering another tree:  a mighty Oak tree that is the inherited tree that is closest to our patio.  You can see it above in a photo that I took recently as the canopy continues to leaf out. This is one of two really large Oaks that we have inside the fence line.  The other is the 'tree house' candidate that I posted about earlier this Spring . This Oak (above) is the tree that we have hung our tree swing on and you can see the ropes coming down from it in the photo. This tree was one of a few that were in a row when we bought the property, but due to the drainage requirements - we had to build an underground pit out back and swale our land towards it - we had to remove a few of the other trees.  None of them were th