Why I Oughta...

At the Wannemaker's Annual Christmas Open House, we met the Big Guy (of course), ate some grilled foods from Casey's and...came away with two big amaryllis bulbs.  As is the tradition.  Each of my two youngest kids picked out a bulb that there plant as we try (*fingers crossed*) to get some Christmas flowers.  I previously posted some details of amaryllis bulbs at Home Depot this season .  Last year, I planted two bulbs from Wannemakers:  A Double Dream .  And an Exotic Star .   The Exotic Star bloomed right around the New Year .  But, the Double Dream was a total dud.  It sent up a bud tip in March (yes...March!), but then it withered and died.   In 2023, we planted three .  One of them was a dud - Samba. But, the La Paz went off quickly. With a Rilona Amaryllis coming in right in-between.  Blooming in January .   This year, we are trying two new (to us) bulbs.  Here are the two tags of the bulbs they...

On the first of February (2 weeks ago today), I noticed the pink tips of the Hellebores had emerged from the mulch in their annual late Winter arrival.   Those pink tips and buds were accompanied by the previous year's foliage - which persisted through the Winter.  With the temps in the 40's yesterday after work, I decided to get out there to clean-up the foliage.  Here, below, is the 'before' photo - with all of the green leaves on the plants: And, here below, is the 'after' photo.  Looks like a messy pile of oak leaves laying on the ground.  But, if you look closely, you'll notice some peeks of pink.  I've left the leaves in place (for now) as a little bit of extra protection until we do a proper cleanup in the beds. Here, below, are a few more looks at this year's Hellebores being protected by Oak leaves. I considered a 'chop and drop' for the foliage - where I'd trim-off and then cut-down into smaller pieces the stems and leaves and ...

I've used biosolids (municipal biosolids from Downers Grove) in various ways over the years on our property - topdressing of my lawn in spots, as an amendment and accelerant in our compost bins , as a vertical mulch to try to improve the soil/clay conditions in my front porch bed (along with leaf litter) , as a soil/perennial bed amendment with stump grindings to attempt to balance the nitrogen loss , as a little boost when planting new shrubs like the SnowQueen Oakleaf Hydrangeas and most recently as both soil cover and hole-filler in the newly extended IB2DWS bed area with my new dwarf conifer garden and new (to me) flowers.   This year, I'm going to be using them in a few (new to me) additional ways:  first, as a dormant application on top of my beds.  This Fall, I blew most of the leaves out of my beds and chopped them up with the mower.   I then blew some of those chopped leaves back into the beds and left plenty of small pieces in the lawn.   T...