Why I Oughta...

\ It is hard to determine the size of this Cooper's Hawk in our backyard, but he was big.  And, I'm pretty sure he is/was a Cooper's Hawk based on the details from Cornell .  The last time that I captured one of these birds of prey was back in February of 2019 when I saw one sitting on our fence.  This time, he was way up on a tree limb and he hung around for a while - like five minutes - before flying off. This piece shows all the hawks that call Illinois their home, but I can't tell from it if I should change by classification from Cooper's Hawk or not.

Back in late September, I posted some photos and details of three Twinkle Toes Lungwort plants that I bought at the Fall Plant Sale .  These are pretty interesting plants in that they have hairy foliage, are variegated and throw off blue flowers.  All while being shade plants.  I got around to planting them in a mass right to the yard-side of the Dwarf Albert Spruce tree - that is having some stress right now.   You can see them below:   I'm going to keep watering these in every few days to try to help them get established and hope that they'll stick around come next Spring.  ( Note:  I labeled this planting in September, yet the date of the post is October. )

 Back in July, on a whim, I bought a small Lady Fern from Home Depot and decided to plant it in the bed adjacent to my Ostrich Ferns a couple of weeks later. The fern was looking very healthy when it went in near mid/late July .  But, then something happened.  It went from green and healthy to dry, brown, limp and seemingly dead.   It felt like that transformation happened one day.  I was looking at the fern one day and the next it was dead.  I panic'd and grabbed the hose and soaked it.  Then I applied some wood chip mulch around it and watered it again the next day and the day after that.  A week later or so....I saw some new growth.   Since then, I've watered it and tried to keep it going.   Today?  This is what it looks like below.  It seems that between the water and the cooler temperatures, this Lady Fern seems to have recovered.   Will this recovery be enough for the fern to establish itself and prepare for the coming Winter?  We'll know next Spring.  

 I bought a total of eleven All Gold Japanese Grasses from the Fall Plant Sale and put them in the ground in two locations with the aim of making two distinct masses of these grasses.  I put five in the front yard - and I'll post about that shortly.  And, I put six in the ground in the backyard - in between the largest Flowering Pear tree and the 31" Red Oak Tree on the north side.  These are in 'front' of the Apple Tree Belgian Fence .  You can see that location in the photo below: The grasses might be hard to pick out, so below, you can find an annotated version of that photo showing the location of these six grasses interplanted with some hostas and our lone Azalea.  This is a brand new - this year - bed.  You can see it as bare mulch here .   I supplemented the soil around these six with a couple of bags of composted manure to try to enrich the soil and give the grasses a good headstart.  I'm going to water these in every few days this Fall to keep them establ

This post is about the 10th variety or cultivar of plants/trees that we bought at the Morton Arobretum Fall Plant Sale .  At the very bottom of this post, you can see a list of all ten of them - including one tree, two varieties of grasses and a some shade-tolerant plants.  That list now includes another shade-tolerant plant called Amber Queen Barrenwort.   This is an Epimedium - the first we have in our garden - that is described at Walter's Garden like this : A dazzling unique Epimedium that will catch your eye-it certainly caught ours! Epimediums are uncommon in the market and in high demand. The airy, delicate-looking flowers have bright yellow spurs with orange-red centers, looking light orange from a distance. Flowers are produced along the length of the flower stems, which are up to 24" long. Bright green leaves have a blush red color close to the crown. ...Epimedium are one of the few plants capable of surviving in dry shade. Although slow to establish, mature plants

Yesterday, I posted a photo of one of the Hostas that I bought at the Fall Plant Sale (Praying Hands ) and talked about how I studied the shade to try to pick the right spot that provided the conditions while also placing it so I could enjoy looking at the plant.  Today, I wanted to add to the garden diary the other hosta - Waterslide.  This is the ruffled one that I posted about earlier this month when I bought i t. I ended up planting the Waterslide hosta adjacent to the three Japanese Evercolor Everillo Sedges that are planted at the base of our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree .  You can see the Waterslide hosta on the left of the photo below. Just like the Sedges, I mulched the Waterslide hosta in with wood chips and have been trying to water it to get it established this Fall.   The plan in this area calls for the inclusion of Ostrich Ferns, so if you recall the back of the tag of this Waterslide Hosta , you'll see that both Sedges and Ferns are listed as companions.  And... 

 A couple of weeks back, I posted a photo of a pretty unique hosta - called Praying Hands - that I bought at the Morton Arboretum Fall Plant Sale.  Praying Hands is 'unlike any other hosta' and was named "Hosta of the Year in 2011".  When I bought it, I wasn't sure where I was going to plant it, but new it needed shade and I wanted to put it in the spot where I could enjoy it.  I thought about planting it close to our house.  In this post showing off our Linden Cordon Espalier trees , you can see that I was thinking of planting it beneath those trees.   In fact, I did a 'shade study' of that location.  Here, below, is a photo from 1 pm when I was trying to see if the spot stayed in shade during the middle of the day.  You can see that it is, indeed, in the shade.  But, I'm pretty sure that the sun is in a lot lower spot (already) than it is during the heat of the Summer.  So, while the Lindens are in shade in September....I'm not sure they are in