Why I Oughta...

I've TOTALLY neglected my climbing hydrangea this year.  Compare it with last year - August 2023 - and what you see below and you'll see that this thing is NOT thriving.    This leads me to wonder:  is it better to stress a perennial like this one out drought-wise - which may lead to a stronger, more resilliant shrub long-term?  Or...is this just drought-stress that is tough on this climbing vine?  

Back on July First, I posted the details of a new (to me) Northern Glow Korean Maple tree that I planted in our front yard in a newly created island bed.  I tucked it in next to our third Spring Grove dwarf Ginkgo tree.  Planting a new tree in the middle of the summer Summer is always a risk - with the heat and drought conditions that usually occur around here in Zone 6a/5b.   But, I learned last year that some shade cloth (50%) is a pretty good path towards helping young, dwarf trees get established during the heat of July and August.  So, that's what I did:  I put up a shade cloth covering both the Ginkgo and the Northern Glow Korean Maple .  With the cloth down at the end of August, I've begun to provide supplemental water to both of these small trees.  And, what I'm seeing on the Maple is a surprise (to me):  new, late-Summer foliage growth.  There are a handful of new buds that have emerged on some of the tips of the tree and some new leaves are beginning to unfurl.  S

As part of an earlier 'garden edit', I moved a bunch of stuff around near the tree swing tree and pulled four Hakonechloa Macra (the green ones) Japanese Forest Grasses that were planted in the back of this bed to the front border.  That was in late April .  Today?  The four are still hanging on.  But, are clearly struggling.    Below is a look at them: These have been getting A LOT less water than they would normally get - but that's because they are now near the pizza oven site.  So, I've been holding off on watering anything that well over there.  With the heat of August bearing down on us, I'm going to try to keep them watered-in.

Beginning in Spring 2022, I have talked about installing a second yard hydrant in our backyard featuring a self-rewinding hose reel.  I included it on my 2022 to-do list and failed to install the post and reel in 2022.   I carried that task over to our 2023 list and put it at #5:  install a second hose reel .  I had the hose reel for more than a year, so it was simply a matter of installing the post to hold the reel. This is the third of these reels that I have at the house - the first one is in the garage .  The second one is about half-way back attached to our fence .  This third one is planned for close to the spigot.  I have historically used a loose hose to water the patio containers.  I thought this upgrade would keep things a bit more tidy.   Ahead of digging the hole, I called J.U.L.I.E. and had them mark any underground utilities.  In the photo below, you can see the red line for electrical underground.  And the orange stake is where I wanted to dig the post.  All clear.  I c

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 had bounced back a bit.  It wasn't com

Putting a few things in the [ lawn diary ] in this post: cut length + domination line.  First, the cut length.  Back in June, I posted about how I was using Hydretain to try to reduce watering while bringing my front yard lawn down one notch on my mower - to 4 out of 6.   The past few Summers, I cut the lawn at 6/6 and while it was dark green and lush, it started to fall over a bit and was probably *too long*.  I mean...the lawn looked great ( 2019 early August when it should be failing ), but I wanted to push things a bit this year and see if I could handle the shorter cut. I posted this image in 2019 showing how when my mower was set to 6/6, I was getting between 3.5" and 4" of grass length .  Knocking two spots off the mower height setting, I'm now seeing between 2" and 2.5" of height right now.  See below for the current length: So far, so good.  We'll check back in with the lawn in late August after the full month of hot, hot heat has beaten the turf

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 something called chlorosis - which sounds like it is l

I've thought about an in-ground irrigation system for the past few seasons and went so far as to get a quote from the guy that Chris at Green Grass recommended ( Phil's Irrigation ).  We have been talking about a zoned system that covers our grass, our perennial beds and even some of the containers on the front porch and back patio.   But, in the mean time, I've been both hand-watering, soaker hoses and using various sprinklers to try to keep things alive.  In the front , that's been - exclusively - via an impact sprinkler on a spike.  And, it has worked pretty well.  But, we're on the third season of the impact sprinkler and between using it a lot and the wear/tear that comes with it being on the end of a retractable hose , it started to have a bunch of leaks and the pressure wasn't strong enough to have it complete a full evolution.   In the back, I've used that same impact sprinkler and a multi-pattern stationary sprinkler.  That one was, to

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's this one wi