Why I Oughta...

Yesterday, I posted a photo of our Disneyland Roses showing off their last round of bloom s for the year and talked about how nice it is to have some of these colorful flowers this late in the season.  I suppose...it sort-of makes up for the fact that Spring seems to last FOREVER around here and the flowers don't begin to pop-off until August.  2024 has been the season of the dahlia in our garden and it seems that I 've called for 'a lid' on the dahlia season for weeks now .  The plants have been producing fewer blooms each week - starting in October and I assumed they were drawing to a close.   I wanted to extend the season as best I could, so in mid-October, when we were facing a hard frost on a couple of nights, I protected the dahlias with some frost covers .  It appeared to work - and they kept on blooming.   But, starting in November (when the weather turned cooler), I stopped watering the dahlias and began to think about my plan for trying to save the tubers.  In

Over the years, I've created and expanded garden beds using various methods including digging out all the turf, flipping the turf and (more recently) doing some combination of digging/flipping the turf and layering on cardboard to supress the grass.  That cardboard smothering method seems to work pretty well and it is well...easy.  At least it is FAR easier than digging out the turf.  But, the cardboard method has a big drawback - the grass is *STILL THERE*.  So, that means it is tricky to plant in the bed immediately. If you plant in the cardboard zone, you have be careful to remove the turf around any 'holes' in the cardboard that you want to plant in - otherwise you'll end up with grass peeking through around the stems/trunks of whatever you plant.  Trust me...I know.   My problem is that I don't plan ahead enough and get the beds ready BEFORE I want to plant them.  So, why shouldn't I use some of this "Fall Planting" time to build out new/extend ex

This is the second Winter that we've had the young(ish) Triumph Elm Tree in our front yard and that means this is the second season that I've used a paper tree wrap around the bottom few feet of the trunk - all the way down to the rootflare - to protect the trunk and bark from Wintertime sun scald.  Here's a link to a post from last November (2022) where I talk through scald and why I was choosing to wrap the tree. Below is a photo showing the wrap in-place this year:

The guys who planted our new Triumph Elm tree in our front yard told me three things when they were leaving it:  1.  Put the tree away wet.  2.  Wrap the trunk this winter to protect against sun scald and cracking.  3.  Don't touch the tree for years.    Of that advice, I *sort of* understood the first and third one.  Watering in a new tree for a couple of weeks is very important.  But, having the tree installed so late in the season meant that I could 'put it away wet'.  As for #3 - pruning - I've learned my lesson and don't touch trees for a number of years.  But, #2...wrapping the tree.  That was new to me. So, what is sun scald?  From the University of Arkansas Extension office comes this explainer : Sunscald is a fairly common physiological problem found most commonly on young, thin-barked ornamental and fruit trees. Research suggests that during the winter, frozen tissue on the south or southwest side of the trunk which is also being heated by the sun, thaws

Last month, I began to prep some parts of our yard for winter with the addition of chicken wire protection to keep the rabbits away from nibbling on the evergreens all Winter.  I started with the Canadian Hemlocks and also wrapped our Weeping White Spruce columnar tree , too.  In those posts, I mentioned that I was planning on trying to protect a couple of our Disneyland Roses using a similar technique - wrapping a ring of poultry netting around them - but this time, filling them with mass to protect from winter frosts. Below are a couple of photos that show the currents state of our two sideyard Disneyland roses.  First, the eastern-most one.  The chicken wire is wrapped around the rose and filled with mulched/chopped-up fall leaves to provide mulching protection.  I also threw down wood chips around the bottom to keep critters from getting inside:  The more western one - below - is the larger of the Disneyland roses.  This one, too, was wrapped in chicken wire and mulched from the b

In March of this year, I posted some photos of a few different things in our yard that had suffered what I believe was rabbit damage .  These trees and shrubs emerged from Winter with parts of the limbs clipped right off by what I think was a hungry rabbit (or rabbits) that were looking for some food when snow had covered everything.  Why do I think it was rabbits?  Well, first of all, because we have plenty of rabbits.  And second, this post from Mom.com : During the winter months, rabbits survive by foraging for food under the snow. Because vegetation is less plentiful during the winter, rabbits may increase their intake of tree bark and conifer needles. This year, I decided to take a proactive stance against these rabbits (no offense, guys.  I'll try to supplement what you eat this Winter) by erecting a barrier that would make it difficult for them to get to the trees.   Back in May of 2019, I first planted three Canadian Hemlocks in the far back of the yard .  And a week or so