Why I Oughta...

It is still Amaryllis season in our house with three different varieties all working on their own (different) schedules in terms of bloom time.  The fastest one - out of the gate - was the La Paz .  It is a Spider Amaryllis and has a different look than the traditional spade-shaped-petals of most Amaryllis that we've grown.  Our La Paz Amaryllis bloomed in mid-December .  And is still putting out blooms today.  Pretty good.  The next one - the feature of this post - is the Rilona Amaryllis.  This is another unique (to me) bulb in that it isn't red and it isn't white.  And it isn't red and white.  It is salmon-colored.  And quite lovely.  Doesn't have the same OOOMPH that a dark red one does, but still a really lovely flower and the color sure brighten ups the dark days around here in January.  Reminds me of the Disneyland Rose . Here's a post showing the three bulbs when we bought them at Wannemakers . Here's a post just about a month ago showing the 3 bulbs

Last week, I read this post from Lee Reich where Lee compares spreading their hardwood ashes to conjuring the dark arts and had a little laugh.  I also...quickly learned a bunch - including how wood ash is a good source of Potassium (the "P" in N-P-K) and how a garden amendment that I've heard about/read about - Potash - is (obviously) the root word from Potassium, but is made up (mostly) of Ash.  Hence the name.   Lee talks about how the spreading of wood ash isn't a precise project; rather just a thin 'tossing' of the ash on the beds does the job.   Because we burn a lot of fires during the Winter, we end up with a surplus of ash that I collect at a couple of intervals when I clean out the fireplace and ash bucket.  Over the years, I've posted about how I've spread this ash - around trees in 2019 and on top of some snow in the perennial beds in 2022 .   I ended up with a bit more than five gallons of ash from Cherry, Birch, Oak, Hickory and....well

I went to the orange big box store to look for a Winter Rose Pointsettia this weekend and while I didn't find any of those (they had just the traditional pointsettia), I did find a large rack of Hellebores.  They're all white ones that are in quart nursery containers.  They were (originally) listed for $9.98 and now have been marked down to $4.99.  They're an all white-turning-to-light-green flower variety.  See below for the hellebores: I'm wondering to myself....can these be planted in December?  I mean...the ground isn't QUITE frozen yet and they ARE hardy to our zone.  Would they survive?  Or, could I just keep them alive as houseplants until Spring?   A quick search on the Web turns up answers like this : Container-grown hellebores can be used as houseplants. They prefer to be grown in garden soil but will survive indoors. Give them plenty of light during the winter months and indirect light in the summer. This action will mimic their natural environment of be

This Summer, I started to experiment with making my first few arrangements.  They were full of Disneyland Roses, Zinnias and whatever I could snip out of the garden .  I had a lot of fun experimenting with those countertop arrangements the last month-or-so of the growing season and is something that I'm already thinking about for 2024.   With Winter here and everything dormant, I recently opted to try my hand at a winter greenery arrangement for the kitchen.  We had this Santa Claus Holt Howard planter on hand, so I grabbed it and started planning.  See below for the Santa planter: One of the things that I learned this Summer was to try to use a grid in wider-mouth vases and planters to create some structure that the stems can be supported by instead of just being jammed into the mouth together.  I grabbed some of this green hardware cloth and cut a small section.  Below you can see it inserted in the back of the planter: From there, I cut up some of the boughs from our Christmas t

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.   Think of this as...sort-of.

My compost bins grew this Fall - from two bins and a tumbler to three bins and a tumbler.  I've long wanted to add that third bin, but it took this Fall's leaves to compel me to act.  Below, you can see the new third bin - on the left - and this photo serves as an 'early winter' snapshot of our three bins (in terms of how full they are) as the composting process slows down with the temperature drops: The new bin (on the left) is almost exclusively leaves.  The pumpkins that you see in the middle bin are there (for now) as I break them down into chunks and layer them in every time I add more leaves to the new 3rd bin.  I put in a bunch of leaves on top --> chop up chunks of pumpkins --> layer them on top of the leaves in the 3rd bin.  I've done that for the top 12-inches-or-so and as that bin continues to compress I'll keep adding leaves.   One other thing to note:  on the bottom right, there are two white plastic garbage bags that are laying around.  Those

'Tis the season for indoor Winter gardening.  It wouldn't be the Christmas season around here without growing some Amaryllis flowers from bulbs.  I've worked with the kids for a number of years to plant and grow some Christmas flowers.  Here's a look at last year's Amaryllis bulbs .   We picked three bulbs out at Wannemaker's Holiday Open House in November and planted them up.   The three varieties we selected were new to us:  La Paz - a Spider Amaryllis.     This La Paz is a Spider Amaryllis or 'Cybister'.  This post details how they're different: Over the last decade, Cybister Amaryllis have become increasingly more popular. Originally hybridized in South America, Cybister Amaryllis have narrow, somewhat spidery flower petals that appear more species-like than their big saucer-shaped cousins. La Paz has upper dark coral petals, while the lower petals are greenish-white edged in dark coral with darker midveins and a starburst green throat. Gardenia

The basal frond (or shield frond) on my oldest - and only potted - Staghorn Fern continues to grow.  And, that has single-handedly gotten me BACK into the Staghorn Fern game.  I first shared a photo and an update on this new (to me) experience of seeing one of our Staghorns put out this basal, shield frond.  Today - three weeks later - the frond keeps growing and is starting to cover quite a bit of area.  You can see the current state of this, original Staghorn Fern in the photo below.   It has been grown in the basement under a two-color (purple and blue) grow light for the past few months: I have left this one in the pot as a sort of hedge against the mounting stress.  I'm not sure what to think about this one putting on a basal frond vs the mounted ones not doing anything but really declining while under my watch.  I'm thinking that - right now - I'll just leave this one as-is and move it back outside this Summer.  At the same time, I'm really trying to baby the two

One of the things in the garden that we didn't get this past season were ANY blooms on the stand of Alice Oakleaf Hydrangeas that are planted near the patio.  Rabbits ate 'em all up last Winter by gnawing on the tips.  This year? I used chicken wire to protect them .  And...a quick peek at them outside shows that the tips are all hanging on - out of reach of the dang! rabbits.  See below for a couple of mid-Winter shots.  Leaves still hanging on, too. Way less than were on in mid-December .  But, as you can see...a bunch still there.  

This Fall, I made a pretty big change in my fern thinking.  I've long talked about how shade gardening is where I find my joy and how hostas and ferns have emerged as my favorite plants in the garden.  And, my first love with ferns was the Ostrich Fern.   I inherited some Ostrich Ferns back in Elmhurst and -for the first time - had success with ferns.  They grew, stood up and even multiplied.  I shared them with my mother-in-law and she grew them in her shade garden successfully.  And, I fostered some of them over there, too .  I even brought some to our house in Downers Grove - including collecting some from my sister-in-laws's teardown garden .   Over the years, I've moved them around and have transplanted them in some spots - including under the tree swing tree and on the side of our house .  I've historically tried to use them *AS MUCH AS I COULD*.   But, then...the change I mentioned above happened.  I started noticing that the Ostrich Ferns weren't performing

For the past few Christmas seasons, we've grown Amaryllis flowers from bulbs with (mostly) good results and have learned a little bit about different bulbs and planting situations with those .  This year, I'm trying (for the first time) to reuse some of my Amaryllis bulbs from last year .  I grew them in containers and had them bloom in the dark of Winter.  Then, I put their pots out in the sun all Summer-long.  And, finally brought them in to try to force them by putting them in the basement and trimming all the foliage off.  They've been in my basement (currently) for ten weeks.  I'll get them out in mid-November.   Besides, Amaryllis bulbs, another winter-time gardening project that people take on is growing Paperwhites from bulbs.  I found an eight-pack of Ziva bulbs and decided to try these at home.  Here, below, is the packaging from the bulbs from the orange Big Box store: Interesting that these are 'grown in Israel', no?   First, though...what are Paperw

I've owned a Staghorn Fern (Dutch Staghorn) for almost a year, but it took buying a second, smaller one to finally compel me to get it properly mounted on a board and hung.  And, now, it has a home on the wall in my office.  You can see the mounted board below, hanging on a peg near a corner that looks at a western-facing and northern-facing set of windows.   My current plan is to keep my mounted ferns on boards in my office during the cold weather, but as soon as the temperatures improve, I'll get them out on the screened porch along with my other containers.  Below, you can see the mounted Dutch Staghorn Fern - a small one - on a board with Sphagnum moss as the base.  I used 1-1/4" screws around the perimeter and fishing line to keep the moss down and attached.   One of the things that I'm going to adjust - going forward - is using a more water-hardy species of wood.  I used pine because I had it on hand, but that's not the best choice.  I *did* apply a clear c

I'm calling it:  our Amaryllis season lasted until February 23rd, 2022.  Early February showed this Lemon Star Amaryllis in full bloom and today shows the last flower in decline.   Our 2020/2021 blooms were last documented in late January 2021 .  The Star of Holland Amaryllis from 2019/2020 season was in FULL bloom in mid-February , so I'm thinking that season lasted longer than Feb 23rd.  And, our 2018/2019 season went the longest - with this full-double-bloomed flower all the way late on March 3rd, 2019 .  My plan is to leave this Lemon Star bulb to leaf-out this Winter/Spring indoors and then move it outside to the patio come Spring/Summer and attempt to keep it for next Christmas.  2022 to-do list should include bulb management and reuse, right? 

This is now - unofficially - Staghorn Fern Week - on in my garden diary.  This is the third post in as many days about Staghorn Ferns starting with my first post about bringing home a small 4" Staghorn Fern that the kids and I mounted on a pine board .  Then, yesterday I posted a little story about how I found four 6" - and more mature - Staghorn Ferns at Home Depot and decided I was going to make up a few mounted ferns for Valentine's Day this year.  In that first post, I showed a little look into how we (the kids and I) put together the first mounted fern.  Here, below, is a closer look (with more photos) of how I put together one of these larger Staghorn Ferns using the same process.   I started this larger, more mature Staghorn with the same size board, but I used a larger bowl to make a slightly larger circle.  Below, you can see the circle I drew in pencil along with the 1-1/4 narrow-threaded drywall screws that I put around the circumference of the circle.  I used

After experiencing the joy of mounting our first Staghorn Fern on a board that I shared yesterday , I decided that I was going to do another one and give it away as a Valentine's Day present to my Mom.  So, one evening after work last week, I ran out to Home Depot.  Now, we live in a spot where there's a "close" Home Depot.  That's the one I normally go to on most occasions.  It is a normal HD in terms of size and inventory.  But, we also have two other Home Depots that are *pretty* close.  Like a couple of minutes further away - but in different directions.  One of those other Home Depots is one of their MASSIVE stores.  I don't know if you've been in the B I G Home Depots, but some of them are just bigger than others.  And that means that the garden center is usually bigger than most.   Because I KNEW what the inventory was of my "normal" Home Depot was (in terms of Staghorn Ferns), I figured...why not run to the large one.  It was just a few m

My journey with Staghorn Ferns starts where a bunch of my gardening, craft and DIY interests came from:  Martha Stewart.  Back in the aughts, we used to get Martha Stewart Living magazine delivered in print.  In one of those editions, she covered Staghorn Ferns.  That was my first exposure.  I found this old, 2008 Martha Blog post about her Staghorn Fern that might have been *around* the time of the print piece.  Since then, they've been on my radar.  She posted again in 2018 when she talked about mounting a few new Staghorn Ferns and how she puts them on her front porch.   In March of 2021, I bought my first Staghorn Fern - a six-inch container from Home Depot for $10.  In that post, I talked (again) about Martha .  I kept this one in the container and moved it outside during the Summer where it spent a few months on our front porch - just like Martha.  Because I left it in the container, I decided to drill a bunch of holes in the plastic nursery pot to make it more basket-lik

'Tis the season for documenting our house plant collection in the [ container diary ], it seems.  I've done Nat's large Fiddlehead Fig tree , my wire vine plant that we brought in from outside, my only (for now) Staghorn Fern and my Maidenhair Fern that I recently repotted .  However, I have a potted plant (a cactus) that I've had longer than any of those - in fact, it might be the oldest house plant/container that we have on hand:  a Firesticks Cactus Succulent.  Seems that I've long called this a "pencil cactus", but that's not accurate.  This is a succulent and officially named:  Euphorbia tirucalli 'Sticks on Fire'. I posted some photos of this succulent when it arrived in March of 2018 - almost four years ago.  I had it in an orange container that I've moved on from - I think it cracked - because the current container isn't much larger than the original one (hence...I don't think I sized-this-up).   What does it look like fo

There's a pattern in our house with *some* houseplants:  We buy one from Trader Joe's.  Bring it home.  It looks great for a bit. Blooms right away. Then, heads into decline.  Which, usually leads to being put outside (during the Summer) or tossed into the compost pile when it dies.  One of the plants that has come home a couple of times from TJs is the African Violet.  It blooms, but is, frankly...disposable.  Or at least, that's what I thought. I came across this video on Garden Answer's YouTube page where she talks us through propagation of succulents, some fishbone cactus and African Violets .  Wait, what?  Taking apart and planting cuttings of African Violets to make MORE of them?  This is the part of the video (10:09) where she starts the African Violets .  Huh.  Had no idea.   Watching that sent me down a little Web digging hole where I found this post on the Spruce that has a headline that scratches me right where I itch:  African Violets Shouldn't Be Throw

Over the weekend, I posted some photos and an update on our potted Maidenhair Fern .  After having this delicate plant in our house for close to a year, it was time to give the soil a little refresh and to give it a closer look as Winter and the dry air in our house was taking a toll on it.  In that post, I also talked about a little bit of digging around the Web that I did in order to figure out how I can best help the fern live its best life.   If you read anything about Maidenhair Ferns, you'll find that most people recommend that they do best with very humid environments and that some people even talk about misting the fronds of the Maidenhair fern 'multiple times a day' .  Who the heck has time for that?!?   But, as I kept poking around on ferns and houseplants, I continued to come across resources talking about terrariums.  There are all sorts of terrariums.  Open ones.  Closed ones.  Succulent ones.  Orchid ones.  And, variations on those ideas.  You can't swing

Last week, I started my Winter propagation journey with a new bottle of Rooting Powder and talked about how I was planning on taking up some projects including using some cuttings (or, frankly...more like 'fallings' - because they just fall off the plant) of Burro's Tail and our Christmas Cactus.  I've had success with lazy propagation with my Burro's Tail over the years, but that was at my office on the 64th floor.  This post and photo from 2018 show a good look at the mother plant, a set of soil-rooted babies and a clear cup of water-rooted cuttings.   I have a series of pieces of this succulent that we've had laying in pots/containers for a number of months, but haven't really been dedicated to getting them to root and was mostly just leaving it to 'hope' that they'd take off.  So, I went off to YouTube to figure out what the *right* way to propagate these are - in soil or in water.  I learned that you should (ideally) allow the cutting to