Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted a photo of my tallest Nicotiana Jasmine in bloom that was direct-sown in our sideyard flower garden .  I mentioned that those seeds came from Nat's Mom and that she grows Nicotiana every growing season.  That wasn't the only packet of seeds she shared:  she gave one of the kids a packet of "Evening Morning Glory" - Moonflower.  I didn't post about it, but I also direct-sowed a few of these seeds.  They're BIG.  Like cherry-pit-size.  I tucked them into the bed and forgot about them. Moonflower - or Evening Morning Glories are a vine and have big blooms.  But, they're ephemeral.   The Observant Gardener has a post up titled "Be Patient With Moonflowers" that overviews this flowering (annual vine) and the features.  Here's a couple of blurbs : One of the most exotic plants that I have ever grown is the mysterious and stunning moonflower. This is not an easy plant to germinate, but it is worth the effort.... ...A u...

I planted a 1# Cascade Hops Vine in early Summer 2021 that I bought at The Growing Place (Aurora Location).  At that time, the plant was pretty mature; based on the bulging, root-bound container.  So, it wasn't a surprise that I saw hops (fruits) that first season .   Then, in year two (2022), I was surprised to see that the very same vine that fruited so easily produce no hops in the following year.  Here's the vine a year ago - with no hops on it anywhere.  This year, we're back in the hops-producing mode as the vine has some larger, mature hops and some tiny, small ones.  Before I show the hops, let's talk about the vine.  I created a wire (attached to the fence) trellis a few years back , but I believe that hops vines want to REALLY CLIMB.  This goes to six-feet-tall and appears to have been cut-back at the top.  My hunch is that I didn't manage the vine enough and it started to climb over the fence and the neighbor trimmed it back...

100-or-so days after planting a 5-gallon Climbing Hydrangea ( Hydrangea anomala petiolaris ) back by the firepit, we're seeing some real upwards leader growth.  Or...what I plantsmen call "aerial rootlets".   We have this climbing, flowering vine going up a Hackberry tree and the R O U G H bark sure seems to be helpful in giving those aerial roots something to grab on-to. See below for the current mid-Summer form of our Climbing Hydrangea:  There are a few, sparse blooms on it this year, too.  So, that's kinda nice, right?   I'm hoping that this will wrap around (and not injure) the tree, so that it can be viewed from all angles. This also has me wondering:  where else could I plant one?  I've long talked about espalier'd trees along the garage, but maybe this is a better answer there, too?  Or...what about both? Last year, I saw one of these at 50% off the end-of-year sale at the Growing Place .  I'll have to pop back over there again...

The Cascade Hops Vine (Humulus Cascade Hops) has grown up the small, temporary trellis and is covering a good-sized width of the fence behind the plant these days.  Below, is a photo showing the Hops vine as it stands today - happy foliage and plenty of vines seeking upward growth. I planted this vine in Summer 2021 , so this the third growing season and last year, I added some wire (screwed to the fence) as a trellis for it to grow up .   The vine quickly consumed that trellis and wants EVEN MORE. In terms of fruit, it threw off some of those beautiful hops in the first season ( August ), but struggled last Summer and started to turn yellow by early September .    I'll watch this August to see if we get any hops.    One thing that is certain - I have to do even more trellis-wise on this next year.  Maybe it is up a wire?  Or around a hoop?  

Last year, I started to think about a climbing hydrangea in our garden.   I came across one in two of the places I turn to when I want to get educated:  Hinsdale Nursery and Erin the Impatient Gardener .  I was sketching out what I wanted to do with the firepit area and included (in my thinking) one that could climb up a Hackberry tree back there.   Last fall, I found one at The Growing Place - the tag read: Hydrangea anomala petiolaris .  I've had vines like these on my mind for a few years, but haven't pulled the trigger.  Until this Spring.  Nat's Mom - who has gifted us a bunch of plants including all of our Disneyland Roses - gifted us a climbing hydrangea.   I knew it would go back by the firepit.   #15 on 2023 to-do list was to 'upgrade the firepit area' - so this goes towards helping there.  Here are a few photos showing the vine below. When it arrived, it was just starting to come out of dormancy. ...

#6 on my 2022 to-do list included the need for providing a more robust structure or trellis system for our one-year-old Cascade Hops vine that was planted last year.  Last year, I used a small, metal ornamental trellis that allowed the vine to get up about three or four feet off the ground .  This year, I was planning on providing a true, stand-alone trellis.  But...the growth of this vine thought otherwise.   Why?  Because it grew like crazy and by the time I was getting around to thinking about which trellis to buy, it was too late.   But, my 2022 to-do list still stood.  What could I do?  I decided to take the same route I took with the Belgian Fence frame:  attach some deck screws to the fence and wire up a grid on the fence to provide for the vine to grow up.   I put in a dozen or so screws and wrapped green, outdoor wire around them in a box-shape and some cross-wires to make various ways for the vine to grow. ...

This is just year two of the set of Cascade Hops vine that I have growing in our backyard, but that's a little like providing ages for some of the kids in the Little League World Series.  I'm not sure it is accurate.  That's because I bought a SUPER root-bound plant that was more mature than traditional nursery stock, so I'm thinking that it is one year older than I 'consider' it to be. Besides the container it came in, what's another indicator of the REAL age?  It fruited last year - in year one - of being in the ground .    As I wandered around the beds peeking at what is coming to life this Spring, I noticed the tips of the vine emerging from the mulch and was surprised by the color:  they're purple.  See below: Feels like I'm NOW on-the-clock with a portion of #6 on my 2022 to-do list:  install a proper trellis for the Hops vine .  Need to find one and bring it home BEFORE the vine takes off this season.

I've been known to garbage pick.  At the curb.  Not in dumpsters and other what-have-yous.  You know the move:  people put stuff out on the curb on their garbage day (or very often...on Saturdays or Sundays when they've just done a clean-up project) and if someone doesn't grab whatever the thing is, it goes into the truck on pickup day.  I posted about an organ late last year and when we lived back in Elmhurst, they had this wonderful, annual all-city-wide amnesty day.  You could put anything you wanted on the curb and the garbage guys would take it; no stickers needed.  That was always a fun hour of driving around seeing what people were tossing.   Mostly, you find junk.  And, this time, I think that's what I found:  junk.  It is metal.  So, the most likely picker is one of those guys in the pickup trucks with wood boards that extend the height of the bed and have all sorts of metal objects tossed in there.  I call ...

It was a little bit over a year ago that I posted some photos showing the successful reinvigoration of a wire vine that I had brought in from outside but had suffered some indoor, Winter neglect.  I give it a haircut to get rid of all of the dead/dry vines and it bounced back.  We kept this container in the screened porch almost the entire year - until it was brought inside in early January.  It went upstairs to our extra bedroom - which is where good plants go to die.  This vine was in great shape when it went up and it was, as expected, promptly neglected.  And dried out.  The humidity we have inside the house isn't high enough to provide the ideal environment for most container house plants.  So, I decided to bring it down and try to give it some life.  That meant that I submerged the entire container in a large bowl of water for about 45 minutes to completely saturate the soil and roots.  A day or two later, the dried, brittle fronds ha...

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...

I added a Cascade Hops vine (Humulus lupulus) to our backyard earlier this Summer when I bought what seemed like a very mature (root bound) 1# nursery container at the nursery.  I had an existing (small) trellis and figured that I didn't need anything more significant this year.  That plant had a rough transition and suffered from some transplant stress because I beat up the roots pretty good.  But, it recovered by July and started to grow up and out . So, imagine my delight when I went out to the garden this week and saw that that this vine had fruited and we have some hops in this - our first growing season.    Why am I surprised? I've grown hops before.  Back in 2012, I planted a similar sport of hops vine - Golden (vs Cascade this time) back in Elmhurst.  And, according to this 2013 post , it didn't produce any fruit that first year.   And, didn't get any fruit in the 2nd growing season (2013) according to this post from 2014 . ...

Back at our old house in Elmhurst, we had a pair of Hops growing on trellises along our fence in the backyard.  We had both Golden and Cascade Hops and I really liked how they added a vertical element to our landscape.  In our current plan, we don't have any trellises planned nor does the plan call for Hops vine in any location.  But, when I came across this REALLY full 1# nursery container of Cascade Hops (Humulus Cascade) at The Growing Place, I grabbed it and decided to figure out a good spot for this later.  Here's what the container looked like when I brought it home below - very vigorous and healthy.  The container was BULGING - you can see it below.  And It seemed like this Hops vine was VERY root-bound.  So, it took some time to get this thing out of the container.  And when I did, I had to trim up some of the roots to get it from strangling itself.   As for the location, you can see below what it looks like after being planted f...

Yesterday, I shared a photo of a newly cropped small fern that I tried to bring inside this Fall and promptly neglected .  I mentioned that I repotted it, fed it and the lopped off the dead stuff.  I've put it out on the screened porch in the hopes that between the moderate temperatures, the higher humidity (than inside) and the light, it will recover with some new growth.   In that post, I mentioned that this fern was the second transplant project from outside with the first one being successful.  Hence, me thinking I could revive the fern in the same way. *That* first successful transplant was a Wire Vine plant. (or Angel Vine). It is named Muehlenbeckia complexa and Nat had it out in one of our planters on our front porch this Summer.  We dug it up, transplanted it and...mostly forgot about it.  I noticed it was stressed, so I transplanted it, gave it some composted manure, watered it pretty good and gave it a haircut.  I lop'd off all of th...

I could post for 100 days straight and I don't think I would run out of things to say and share about Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  Yesterday, I posted about the green tree boxes .  Today are a couple of photos of a fountain area that is in the northeast corner of the garden.  It is a reflecting pool with a large fountain at the far Eastern edge that is lined by (I'm pretty sure that they're) London Plane trees or perhaps just Plane Trees since they're NOT in London?!?! The trees themselves are magnificent.  There are four or five on either side of the reflecting pool that are placed in a line.  In between these trees is ivy.  You can see it in the photos at the top and bottom of this post.  The ivy is trained from the central base in between the trees - and the space in between the trees - and trained out in two angles.  Where it meets the trees, it is then trained back across in a straight line.  Look at it in the photos.  A...

We've been growing Sweet Potato Vines for the better part of ten years.  Basically ever since I started to buy and plant containers of my own, we've found a home for one of these.  Or six of them.  With their rock-bottom price (usually $0.99 a piece), I naturally grab one of these and a spike or two and check the box on the "spill" and "thrill" in the fill-spill-thrill container philosophy trio. But in all of that time, I have never had a Sweet Potato Vine flower.  Until now.  And I have not one vine flowering, but two!  In two different containers .   Here, below, you can see both of the wine barrel containers that I used on our patio and you can see that both of them have a very healthy/robust purple sweet potato vine and both are flowering! (also note how happy the Lemon Coral Sedum is, eh?) The flowers are quite striking and add some drama to the normally boring vine. From this DIYNetwork post , it turns out that the reason I...

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the variety of grapevine that I planted in our container this Summer (Somerset) and mentioned that I did that just because I wanted to post a follow-up.  Today, is that follow-up.  You can see that we have been attacked by some Japanese Beetles.  They've basically skeleton-ized some of the larger leaves.  Unfortunately, they arrived when I was out of town for the better part of a week, so they got a head start.  Since then, I've tried to monitor the plants and remove the beetles everyday by hand.  I tried drowning them in soapy water with mixed results.  Turns out, the Japanese Beetle is a known grapevine.  This piece from My Grape Vine says : The Japanese beetle (Popillia japonica, also known as the jitterbug) is one of the most visible and most destructive feeders of grape vine foliage out there. The Japanese beetle attacks most green parts of the grape vine, but mostly feeds on young leaves in the upper ...

Back in July, I posted a photo of our mid-Summer containers on our back patio and mentioned that I somehow failed to mention/post the details of the grapes that we planted in one of our wine barrel planters.  Above, you can see the variety:  Somerset grapes.  They're self-pollinating and so far, I don't have any fruit coming in this first season. I'm hoping that they'll overwinter in the barrel and come back next Spring.  I'm posting this mostly because I want to write something here on the blog that I'll post tomorrow showing the current state of this vine. 

Right before we went out of town for a few days recently, I gathered all of our patio containers and put them together in order to assist the watering - which was being done by one of our neighborhood kids.  I snapped this photo of all of them in one spot to text to Nat to share with the girl's Mom so she knew what needed to be watered, but I figured I'd post it here to mark what our patio containers looked like in July of this year. In the far back, in the yellow pot 1 you can see the Chicago-hardy fig tree 2 that my Sister Vic and Equation Boy/Man gave me for my birthday this year.  Right in front of that is one of my wine barrel planters with a grapevine 3 growing on the trellis.  That's also the pot that has the Lemon Coral Sedum growing in it . In front of that wine barrel, but mostly obscured is my large basil plant.  It is sharing a pot with one of my Elephant Ears .  Then, buried under the foliage is the other wine barrel planter.  That'...

One of our three Clematis vines is doing well this year as it both creeps up the trellis and really began to flower out big time.  The other two aren't getting as much sun behind the Arborvitae, so they're not performing quite as well.

We now have three hops vines in our side yard.  The one pictured here is - by far - the biggest and was planted back in 2012 .  It is a Golden variety.  Over on the far right of this photo, you can see another trellis'd vine - that's a Cascade variety, one of the other two we have growing. Last year, I was pretty bummed out that we didn't get any fruit off the Golden, but I've committed to staying on top of the plant with water and care, so I'm hopeful I'll be able to turn over to my brother-in-laws a bucket full of green hops come this fall.