Why I Oughta...

Today, February 16, 2020 marks my 16th year of blogging.  I started in 2004 with this post on February 16, 2004 that originally lived at JoinTomCross.com and then moved to RhodesSchool.com and finally moved over her to my name url.   Last year, I marked the occasion in similar fashion  but because it was 15 years, it felt important.  I haven't marked this anniversary every year on the blog, but have done it a few times. 2020 - 16 year Blogging Anniversary 2019 - 15 year Blogging Anniversary 2016 - 12 year Blogging Anniversary 2014 - 10 year Blogging Anniversary 2013 - 9 year Blogging Anniversary 2011 - 7 year Blogging Anniversary This post marks the 3319th post on the blog.  That's 3319 days or more than 9 full years of posts.  16 years means my blog is old enough to get it's license.  It means that I've been doing this for 39% of my life.  I've been a blogger longer than I've been a husband and father.  It is the same amount of time in my life th

A couple of days ago, I discussed that I'm very susceptible to 'plant lust' and 'tree lust' once the Winter thaw breaks and Home Depot and Menards start to put out their nursery stock.  The traps there are well-established.  First, buying stuff and then trying to 'figure out where to put it' is not a good approach.  Not to mention that the Big Box stores tend to feature A LOT of Spring/early Summer flowering items (so we are naturally drawn to them!) and if you plant what they have in stock and on sale, you often-times end up with a NON-four-season garden.  You get a lot of show in say...Spring.  But, you have a boring Summer and Fall (and even Winter) garden.  Because we had a professional do our plan, I just need to stick to it.  And not stray too far. Unlike years past, I'm going into this season of plant buying with a FIRM plan.  That means focusing on three areas - maybe two and a half areas - for enhancing the view from our patio.  The fir

Two years ago today, I posted the initial photo of our windows being installed and our house being 'closed up' during the construction process.  One year ago today , I marked the occasion with a post that looked back at that day too.  Today, I'm posting a photo of a post that has a photo of the original post.  Maybe next year, I'll remember to do a post about today's post, which featured last year's post that re-posted the original post. It is turtles window installation posts all the way down, I guess. 

As part of my 2020 planting/buying plan, I've begun to focus on a couple of areas for prioritization.  We have SOOOO much to do in regards to buying new plants per our plan that I thought it would make sense to break things up into chunks.  The first one up on my priority list is this section of the landscape plan that is visible from our patio.  It calls for seven new Alice Oak Leaf Hydrangea bordered on one side by a series of Summer Beauty Allium and underplanted with Fanal Astilbe out front.  You'll see in the image above that I've called out 3 'columnar trees' in teal.  That's based on this tree-planning post .  We have three existing hydrangeas in this area - where the Oak Leaf ones are supposed to go - including this Tuff Stuff and this Everlasting Revolution and this teardown Limelight .  The first two were planted very small and have NOT bloomed, but the Limelight one that I transplanted bloomed last year , so I want to think about what to d

15 years ago, I took a shot. And it *was* this/close to Valentine's Day.  Ballsy move - as they say. We were just puppies then.  It worked out beyond my wildest dreams.  To mark the time that has gone by, here's a flashback to a less partisan time when (then) Republicans and Democrats could get along. That Maisy was soommmme dog.  She endorsed us in the mailer above - which was kind of her.  Everybody liked her.  Not like Lizzie .

Back in early January I picked up a new caliper measuring tool from Amazon and started to set some baselines on the trees that we've planted around our yard.  After deciding on following the "6' from the ground rule", I marked each tree with a Sharpie.  Then began to measure them.  First up were the eight Frans Fontaine European Hornbeam trees that went in near the fenceline in Spring of 2017.  I then went around and took an inventory of  the nursery stock in the remaining part of our backyard .   I have done a 'height' inventory of the past few seasons, but with the tree heights growing, it has become a little bit less scientific/precise on some of the trees. I thought that I had posted about the small front yard trees we have, but in looking back in the archives, it appears that I forgot to include a post about them.  So, here's the baseline for two of the three small trees we have out front in the [ garden diary ].  The multi-trunk Saucer Magno

The post I created about Wild Onion removal a few days ago made me realize that I have to get my thoughts together on a 2020 lawn care plan.  In order to do that, I thought it would be valuable (for me) to collect what I did last year so I can determine what I want to do this year. For reference, I have a cool season lawn made up of Kentucky Bluegrass.  I cut the front long  all season and the back is done shorter with my Husqvarna Automower . If last year was my *first* year of digging in and working the turf on my own, this year, I'm going to try to learn from my mistakes ( burning with fertilizer ) and successes (not pushing the lawn too much with food) and continue on my path towards 100% non-synthetic applications.  Because of the Creeping Charlie, I'm not certain that I'm going to get there this year, but we'll see. 2019 Lawn applications/treatments by Season Spring: April:  Bought as much Milorganite as I could find:  8 bags .  32# bags. April:  Bega