Why I Oughta...

The biggest, most-interesting, focal-point conifer in our backyard is a small Weeping Nootka Cypress tree that I planted in late May of 2021 in one of the big, swooping curves along the north side of the beds about 2/3rds of the way back.   It has now been 28 months (May 2021 --> September 2023) since this was planted and although I was quite concerned about this thing surviving, I can report that the tree has not only survived, but has been putting on a small amount of growth.  Below is a photo showing the current shape and size of this focal-point evergreen tree: It isn't super easy to tell, but when I compare the photos over the years, I can see that it has put on height from the leader (apical meristem) and all of the limbs have extended with new, pendulous growth.  The 'skirt' from the lowest limbs has grown, too.  But, I haven't touched this with a pruner since it went in and I think that's the right move.  My plan is to keep watering this in unti...

I was at Home Depot a week or so back and and came across the tree above that stopped me in my tracks.  It is a beauty.  I looked a little closer and realized that what I was looking at was a Weeping Alaskan Cedar Tree.  The one I dreamed about in 2017 here on the blog .  And something that looks VERY different than the tree that I planted in 2018 and called a weeping cedar:  the Emerald Falls Himalayan Weeping Cedar .  That tree didn't make it through the first Winter , but that hasn't stopped me from thinking about it since then.  This past Winter, I posted another weeping cedar - a columnar variety called the Van Den Aker Narrow - and talked about how I'm drawn to this tree in both forms. The tag on the tree at Home Depot looks like this below.  It lists the tree as: Chamaecyparis - Weeping Alaskan Cedar and is listed at $99.  I'd say it is about six feet tall from the rootflare to the top tip.  The $99 price had me thin...

Another day, another columnar tree that I've come across that is worth documenting here on the blog.  This time, it is from a different source.  I've posted about the list from Amy @ Pretty Purple Door in the past, but I recently came across this list from Savvy Gardening that lists a series of "Narrow Trees for tight spaces" .  On the list are some of the trees I've covered before including the Sky Pencil Holly and the Amanogawa Japanese Flowering Cherry .  But, there are also a couple of new (to me) trees that I think are worth documenting here in my [ tree dreaming ] file. I'll post one today and cover the other one in a separate post. The tree that I'm documenting today is the "Van Den Aker" Narrow Alaska Cedar.   It is a narrow (very narrow!) columnar conifer that Savvy Gardening has at #10 on their list . From SavvyGardening.com comes this description : "Skinny" is how they describe it in their piece and talk about ho...

Early Fall brings sad news in the backyard:  my little Emerald Falls Weeping Cedar is gone.  I can comfortably call it now.  Planted in May of 2018 , it was a tree that I'd been dreaming about for a while.  I baby'd it all last Summer and by the end of August of 2018, it was looking plump and happy .  Then we had a hard Winter.  And the tree was stressed this Spring.  I was looking for any positive sign - even thinking that young, immature cedar trees occasionally turn brown - but that ended up being a true sign of stress.    But by May, it was fighting on: showing signs of new growth and pushing the brown out to the extremities.  Alas, after watering it with a soaker hose this Summer, you can see the pile of needles laying on the ground there.  This one is dead.  And in the tracking of things, this Weeping Cedar is the third tree I've lost this season.  Other ones are:  a small Canadian Hemlock and the W...

I logged my concern about our Weeping Himalayan Cedar Tree a couple of weeks ago when I shared a photo that showed that the small, young tree was turning brown from the top down to the middle of the tree.  I had planted the tree just a little bit over a year prior, so our one year warranty was over and if the tree was dying I was out the money.  In that post, I found at least one source that confirmed that young cedar trees will sometimes brown out in the late Winter/early Spring to shed some of their needles to only grow back out green shortly thereafter. Welp...I have some good news.  At least I'm pretty sure it is good news.  Check out the photos at the top here and bottom of the post.  See all those new green needle buds?  They are all over the limbs of this beautiful tree. I am really excited to see that this thing made it through our tough Winter and now that I know it experienced some stress, I'll try to baby it through the Summer to make...

Back in September of 2017, I posted about how I had come across a photo of a Weeping Cedar and immediately fell in love with the style of tree.  It was on my 'tree wish list' for the rest of 2017 and 2018 when I found a small one at Home Depot on a random trip.  It is a Weeping Himalayan Cedar Emerald Falls variety and after planting it, I stake'd it to a bamboo rod and began to train it upwards.  By August of last year, I shared another photo of the tree that had seemingly established itself and was very green.  You can see that photo here .   I was happy with the tree and figured that we were on our way in terms of getting this thing to take off.  I even went an additional step and applied Wilt-Pruf to the Cedar to help protect it from the winter elements .   And the Weeping Cedar seemed to weather the Winter just fine.  It stayed green for the most part with some slight dulling.  Until March.  When it started to b...

On the left, you can see the tiny Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea plant that I put in last fall.  I showed an early Summer view of this thing when it was barely poking out of the mulch .  This one has always been smaller and a bit behind the other one. That one on the right is the Tuff Stuff Red Hydrangea that went in on the same day .  I posted an early June photo of this one, too here on the blog .  You can see the difference in these two, but also, if you look back at those posts I linked above, you can get a sense for how these have grown over the past two months.  Also, in the middle of this photo is my Weeping Cedar .  I planted this tree in May and it seems to have established itself a bit and hasn't experienced any needle drop like, ahem, other trees.  I cut off the top of the tree in this photo, but you can get a sense for the limbs that it has added and how it appears to have bulked up a bit.  Back to the hydrangeas, though...

Eeek!  On a total whim, I bought this seemingly scrawny tree.  You can see it in the photo above and it doesn't look like much.  But, it *is* something!  And that something is: a weeping Himalayan Cedar 'Emerald Falls' tree.  And it wasn't in the price range of my normal Menards trees.  Nope.  This one cost $69.99.  And, right now, it isn't much to look at, I know. I bought it at Home Depot in Oak Brook and here's the tag that came on it: And here's a look at it in our garage before I planted it. In the photo above, you can see that the lead was starting to outgrow it's existing bamboo pole, so if you look in the very top photo, you can see that I subsidized it with a larger, 8' bamboo pole and then proceeded to tie the lead up in various places to keep it running vertical. So, why this tree on a whim?  Welp, it isn't totally a whim.  If you've been reading along at home, you might have peep'd this post from last fa...