Why I Oughta...

Another sure sign of Spring coming soon is the emergence of the pink, conical-shaped tips of Hellebores that we have planted in a small colony in our backyard.  I posted one-year-and-one-day ago about these same tips here .  And, in the photo below, you can see that they're back - peeking out of the soil, but living nestled in all of the leaf litter from this past Fall.  I took this photo before the snow arrived this past week, so the foliage clean-up will have to wait until the snow melts away.

The (dang) rabbits are indiscriminate with their gnawing this Winter.  Beyond girdling my Belgian Fence trees , they're also eating away at the green tips of my other shrubs, including this Matcha Ball Ash Leaf Spirea.  I planted this one in Fall of 2023 and really liked the fern-like, almost Japanese-Maple-like foliage .   Below is a picture showing the newly exposed centers of some of the branches on this shrub after they've been clipped right off by these furry pests. This shrub came back just fine last Spring and leaf'd out .  But, then something weird happened and it struggled with (I think) drought stress.  It dropped many of its leaves.  Then...in November...it set buds that STARTED TO OPEN (eek!) just as Winter was setting in .  Drought stress. Confused bud burst. Now, rabbit pressure.  This is one to watch this Spring. 

The damage from the (dang!) rabbits isn't contained to our backyard.  They're also working on things in our front yard including one of the small conifer trees - a Weeping Norway Spruce - that is planted IB2DWs.  I was out in the garden this past week when I spotted this strange site:  a spruce 'tip' that was laying next to the tree.  See below: One of those (dang!) rabbits gave this tree a try this Winter and it seems didn't care for it that much.  

In the Fall of 2021, I planted three Green Gem Boxwoods in the backyard, about half-way back on the south side of the garden .  They were tiny, $5-ONE-GALLON shrubs that *barely* lifted their crown about the soil.  Today, they're starting to stand on their own.  See below for current state of the three Green Gem Boxwoods in early Winter along with a lot of leaf litter. Some nice moss on a couple of those small boulders, too.  

The small Skylands Spruce tree that went into the 'island bed' in our front yard has a number of cones clinging to the tips of some of the upper branches that have sort-of 'unfurled' and grown the past few weeks.  The cones - once tightly wound - are now a little bit more 'open'.  See below for a photo of one of the cones.  Note the chicken wire ring to keep the (dang!) rabbits from gnawing away the tips of this tiny tree: 

Yesterday, I posted about my first experience with trying to dig up and save dahlia tubers using the "saran wrap method" .  In that post, I talked about how I decided to leave a couple of tubers in the ground to see how they would do.  We're in Zone 6a/5b, so dahlia tubers are *not supposed* to survive our Winter.  But...because of the unique setting, I thought I'd give it a shot.  By 'unique setting', I'm talking about what I think is a small, potential 'microclimate' that exists on the side of our house. By 'microclimate', I mean...an area that is slightly "warmer" than the rest of our garden.  I'm not talking a huge difference.  But, I suspect there's some difference. Why?   Well...experience, mostly.  And, the Disneyland Roses.   I had Disneyland Roses up front and along the side.  The three in the front...lost their first Winter.  The three along the house?  All have survived. What makes it unique?   Fi...

Before the snow totally melted this week, I noticed a phenomenon in our backyard:  I had created a ' Desire Path ' between our house and the compost bin in the back of our yard.   What are desire paths?  Check out this post from U-W Madison .  They talk about desire paths are an example of the relationship between people (me) and place (our backyard): But desire paths are not inert histories. Once established, they influence how pedestrians use and interact with their environment going forward. To the dismay of some planners and to the fascination of others, desire paths are representative of the constantly evolving relationship between people and place. Below is a photo showing our 2023-2024 Wintertime Compost Bin Desire Path: Speaks to the continued kitchen-scrap composting that we've done all Winter.  Egg Shells, coffee grounds and vegetable scraps all found their way to the bins and put in the bin with the "Feed Me" Compost Bin sign .  To date, th...

As I've done a few times, I wanted to document a few looks at the snow bank that has been created IB2DWs.  This is an area where both me AND my neighbor pile driveway snow, so it gets higher/taller than the rest of our front yard.   Here's a look at the snow level in 2021 .  And here's a look at the snow level in 2022 .  Looking at the photos below, there are of course some changes.  The conifers added this past Fall give a different look at the depth.  But, the Red Fox Katsura and Bald Cypress are there all the way back in 2021.  Naturally...the trees have grown, so it isn't super easy to compare.  Based on the branching on the Katsura, I'm thinking that 2023/2024 snow pile is in between the two other recorded.  2022 was deeper.  2021 was less snow.  Just an eyeball guess. Below is an early morning look:

This morning, we're getting walloped by a big snow storm, which will leave behind six-or-so inches of new, fresh white snow.  Yesterday, before that arrived, I walked our kitchen compost out to the bins (and of course, dumped it in the active compost collection bin with the "Feed Me" sign hanging on it ), figuring that it might be a couple of days before I was going to get back there.   On my way back to the house, I was struck by some of the 'winter interest' that I came across in the garden.  Most of the time, it sure feels like when I read about 'winter interest' that they're mostly talking about evergreens.  Shrubs, trees, etc.  And, those surely provide interest during the winter.  But, as I've posted about (and have some regret about), I've made a long-term mistake by neglecting conifers as a key part of our garden and rather focused on deciduous trees and perennials.    I've begun to address that conifer situation and will continue ...

Most everything perennial in our backyard garden has gone to sleep for the season.  But there's some new(er) things that are seeing their first Winter season in our yard that are showing a little bit of contrast.  Below is a photo that shows an inter-planted set of Twinkle Toes Pulmonaria and Blue Champion Primrose.  The Primrose went in the beds in VERY EARLY Spring 2023 and this is the first Winter:  The foliage difference is pretty striking;  the Pulmonaria is mostly brown, wilting and dead.  The Primrose?  Green and seemingly evergreen.   A new (to me) nice little study in winter foliage. Here's a post from a little bit over a year ago showing these same Pulmonaria without the Blue Champion Primrose .   Also... note the leaf litter.  Those Northern Red Oak leaves sure don't break down easily.  

Every Fall, I've gone about protecting our Disneyland Roses (Floribunda Roses) from Winter using an insulation method of laying Fall leaves around the bush.  Typically, I take a small ring of chicken wire and create a ring.  Anchored by a bamboo pole, I erect the chicken wire ring around the rose and fill the center with leaves that I pick up off the lawn.  Some of those leaves are chopped up with the mower, some are just raked up and piled in there. This post from November 2022 shows how I set up that Winter Protection for roses last year .   H ere's another post showing Fall 2020 that shows similar chicken wire rings and leaves that I used to overwinter the crowns of our Disneyland Roses. That system seemed to work just fine.  It wasn't elegant, but (*knock on wood*) I haven't lost a Disneyland Rose yet.  But, my roses are starting to get large and unwieldy.  That has made the chicken wire rings more challenging every year.  So, I went of...

I've mentioned that I failed/made a big gardening mistake when it comes to conifers.  The rule of: "Conifers Should Come First" is something that I wasn't aware of, until this Fall.  That's when I went about a dizzy'ing spring of planting my own conifer garden IB2DWs.  What's so great about conifers?  Texture and structure are a couple of big reasons to believe in conifers.  But, four-season gardening is (maybe?) the biggest for this Zone 5b (Now Zone 6a!!!) gardener.   Everything around here goes dormant.  Some perennials like hostas just totally disappear.  Grasses hang around all Winter.  Decidious trees go bare.  But, conifers?  They stand tall and proud during the Winter.   This past week, we had our first real snow fall of the year.  And, the dwarf conifer garden was a new highlight.  Below are a few photos showing some of the conifers covered in snow:

I most-recently posted about the hedge of columnar Frans Fontaine European Hornbeam trees in our yard earlier this Fall in September of 2023.   I covered how they had grown over the years and documented the full-Summer foliage.  These trees are so interesting - their growth habit is the thing that gets most people's attention.  But...their continued marcescence - or holding their leaves late into Winter - is really a big part of the 'why' any homeowner would want these trees in their yard.  They are decidious, so they naturally drop their leaves, which leads to people buying A LOT of Green Giant Thujas and common Arborvitaes to provide screening - they are evergreens.   But our Hornbeams provide that 'evergreen' look well past when most trees drop their leaves.  Below, is a photo showing the current state - early December - of our Hornbeams.  These are five years old. You can see plenty of yellow leaves at their feet, but pay attention to all the ...

This is the second winter for this little, evergreen shrub.  Planted in the Fall of 2021 , it has just hung out here, under the Oak Tree (tree swing tree) in the bed on the north side of the property.  Green Mountain is properly named: Buxus sempervirens 'Green Mountain'. And, based on this post where I tried to get smart on variety vs. cultivar vs. sport terminology , the single quotation marks are - what I thought the real tell was.  But, I'm not totally sure?   Single quotes = cultivar, right?  But, I think the second word is NOT supposed to be capitalized? Hinsdale Nursery calls it a cultivar .  So, let's go with that.   Green Mountain is a Boxwood cultivar. And, this cultivar is pyramidal - which was why I was drawn to it and planted it as a single evergreen shrub in the bed.   It hasn't grown too terribly much in the past growing season, but it is still here.   But, calling it an evergreen is a misnomer, right?...

This past week, there was a bunch of online/tech chatter about a new (just emerged from stealth mode) hardware + services startup called Mill.   It is from the founder of Nest, who's thermostat changed that entire product category, so the history of success instantly gives this new thing - a composting bin + a service to take your food waste - some credibility.  Mill is a super-fancy kitchen composter that basically cooks your food waste to ensure the bin doesn't start stinking.   #13 on this past year's list was to do more with composting - including under the sink kitchen food waste .  I have the bin, I just stopped filling it in not for any particular reason. The Mill news was enough to nudge me back into the kitchen scrape food waste game.  It didn't take long to fill the little bin with vegetable scraps, egg shells, coffee grinds and house plant foliage.   I used a compostable bag to line the bin, but it was *so* compostable that it had alre...

This week, we woke up to a white-out in our backyard with fresh snow on the ground and clinging to every branch and limb in the yard.  Made for a pretty view.  Until I had to go out and shovel.  Multiple times.   While it feels awfully far away from gardening season, it sure seems like I have to start sorting my priorities in the next few weeks as late Winter/early Spring tasks will soon be upon us. 

A quick check-in on our small grouping of Hellebores - Lenten Roses - in the backyard here in the garden diary.  These are planted in a small colony of four.  The last time I showed these was early December when all four were still green and leafy .  As I've mentioned in a few other recent posts, we had a VERY cold period of weather right around Christmas where we saw sub-zero temperatures with no snow cover for insulation.  That moved just about everything in the garden along to their final dormancy stage.   When I was out this past weekend looking at the Hellebores (one Sally's Shell, three Ivory Prince ), I noticed that there was a change that you can see in the photo below:  The Sally's Shell Hellebore has taken on mostly brown and dead foliage while the three more-recently-planted Ivory Prince Hellebores are all still winter green: These are some of my EARLIEST bloomers and typically have the first growth that requires protection from late Winter...

 The timing of dormancy in the garden continues to be a real source of learning for me in our garden - with different plants moving at different pacing that varies from year-to-year.  One of the plants that I caught in the garden going through a transition this week was the trio of Twinkle Toes Lungwort (Pulmonaria) that is showing a mix of foliage that appears to be green and some that is showing pure garden death.   See below for a photo showing the three Pulmonaria in early January: This Fall, I moved these these three out further to the edge of the bed, so there is likely a bit of transplant shock , but based on what I've seen over the years, these are right on track.    Here's a post with photos from early March 2021 that shows a similar mix of dead foliage with the new growth.

A couple of days ago, I posted a photo of the Magnolia tree fuzzy flower bud that I spotted on the tree this Winter and talked about how observing tree buds has really shifted my mental gardening model from a Spring start and Winter finish --> Early Winter start and Fall Dormancy finish.  That means, after the trees shed the leaves, they start to set next-year's buds.  And, *that's* when the season starts (for me, now).  On the same day that I took the photo of the Saucer Magnolia tree, I wandered by the pair of early-espalier Sugar Tyme Crabapple trees that are planted on the south wall of our house.   I planted the pair of these trees in September of 2021 , so this was the first FULL growing season.  They bloomed white flowers this Spring - for their first set of flowers .  And set their first fruit (for us) this Fall .   I've begun to train and prune these trees this season into an (eventual) Palmette Verrier espalier shape  with ...

 Three growing seasons ago - the Summer of 2019 - I planted a row of VERY SMALL Hicks upright Yews in the far back of the yard .  I wanted to create a little structure back there and was inspired by a curvy, swoopy, undulating hedge that I saw here .  By last Fall (November 2021), they had put on a little bit of size and girth and I was able to document the current state here .  13 months ago, one of them - the fifth from the left - was at that time the tallest Yew in the row.  Today?  It still *is*.   I wanted to mark the height heading into Winter - so I dug my spade in the ground to show the height in relation to the handle.  See below for the current height of this tallest Hicks Yew: Above is a closeup that shows the very tip almost to the black rubber handle at the end of the evergreen shrub.   Getting tall, isn't it?