Why I Oughta...

 For Mother's Day, the kids and I bought a couple of flats of ordinary orange zinnias from the big box store that we planted in some pots for the Moms (and God Mothers) in our/their lives.  I ended up having a few extra and put some in our back patio containers (more on those later), and decided to plant four as bedding plants near the driveway in the original IB2DWs bed.  I picked orange because I like orange and it is the Illini color (of course).   Yesterday, I posted about the one Uproar Rose Zinnia IB2DWs - and that one is much larger/bushier than these.    Below the first photo shows what these orange zinnias look like after a week or so in the ground: I have limited experience with flowers (as I've said in the past), but what I've read and watched online, you can pinch off blooms to (try to) get bushier plants.  So, naturally...I decided to sacrifice these early orange flowers.  I cut them all off - you can see the result below.  I left the flower heads there on the

#2 on my priority list for 2024 is to 'keep going with flowers' .  That means...pushing through my discomfort around blooming perennials and annuals and planting things that I haven't in the past.  This year, that means that I am expanding a little bit out from what I *do* know and what I *do* like.    Last year, I had a small patio container that mixed some salmon-colored zinnias and Euphorbia .  It was great and I was able to cut from the Zinnias all through the late Summer/early Fall.   This Spring, I cut out a new bed on the southside and planned to spread some Zinnia seeds around (more on this soon) to serve as a sort-of cut flower garden bed.   But, I also went further with flowers this year by planting some dahlia tubers.  So far, I've planted six Melina Fleur Dahlia tubers (that I started indoors) .  Three in the sideyard, three in the front porch bed (where the Disneyland Roses were last year).  And, I put in three Orange Nugget Dahlia tubers in that Zinnia b

Last Fall, I planted a three-pack of Penstemon Midnight Masquerade in the conifer garden IB2DWs and talked about how I needed to keep going (out of my comfort zone) with flowers.  There was a lot to like about these perennials - they're drought tolerant, can handle heat and humidity, full of dark foliage and bloom purple and white flowers.  When I bought them, they were past bloom-time, so that flower part was taken on faith. This Spring, I marked their reemergence for their first Spring in early April when new foliage clumps came back from dormancy .   I topped this part of the bed with some big box mulch (not leaf mulch...) and mostly moved on in the gardening season.  Until this week.  When these things started to bloom.   Have a look at my three one-year-old Midnight Masquerade Penstemons ( or Beardtongue ) with their showy light purple and white clusters of flowers: This spot is full sun and is part of what I've always called the 'hard to grow' section.  The thick

I've been pushing myself to do more flowers in 2024 - and that includes dahlia tubers.  I posted recently about how I transplanted the Melina Fleur tubers that I started in containers into the new flower bed on the southside of our house.  Earlier this year, I picked up three Orange Nugget Dahlia tubers at Menards and did the same container-start with them .  This past weekend, I dug the three of them into that same southside bed.   Below, you can see the three sprouted tubers - Orange Nugget Dahlias. Below is a look at the foliage that has sprouted from one of the Orange Nugget tubers: I have a few more tubers to get in the ground and when those are done, I'll have ten-or-so dahlias in teh ground.  

My brain is already moving ahead to the exterior of the pizza oven.  I don't know if I'll get to cladding the outside of the oven, but I'd like to try this year.  You can go a lot of directions, but the one that I've focused on/been drawn-to is brick.  I've talked about brick and used a TikTok as potential inspiration for a brick pattern . That means that I've been poking around Facebook marketplace and Craigslist to figure out what kind of brick is available.  Every listing quotes the number of bricks available, but I had no idea how many bricks I actually need to clad the full oven.   In terms of oven facade inspiration, I'm very much looking to this oven build on YouTube as inspiration .  That oven is from the YouTube channel named:  The log cabin life style by Jerry Tyson .  This screenshot below is from his oven-build video ( source ) and I'm eye-balling the height of his corners to be five-feet-tall.   I know my stand is 70 inches deep by 62.5 in

Last Fall, I planted a pair of variegated sedums -  Sedum kamtschaticum 'Variegatum' down by the sidewalk as a drought-tolerant groundcover .  They managed the conditions of the Winter and emerged this Spring.  I posted about them in March when very little else was growing in our garden .  They had been eaten a bit by the (dang!) rabbits, but otherwise were in good shape.  Today - in early June - they're putting on some yellow blooms.  One of them (the one on the right) is a bigger clump, but they're BOTH beginning to flower.  See below for a few photos.  Just above them are the recently-planted Dusty Miller annuals (that are being invaded by some turfgrass that didn't get properly smothered.   It looks like I didn't post about those (yet), so I need to get them into the [garden diary]. They're likely candidates to divide in a few years - once they've spread out a bit.  

Over the years, I've come across Korean Maples that are hybrids with Japanese Maples.  Famously, the folks at Iseli Nursery have introduced a collection of "Jack Frost Maples" that are hybrids of Acer palmatums and Acer pseudosieboldaianum - Japanese and Korean Maples - that have been 'evaluated and selected to tolerate the dramatic weather shifts of the upper Midwest of North America.' The upper midwest?  That's us.   So, when I was at The Growing Place and came across an affordable ($174.00) Northern Glow Korean Maple, I figured it was time to come home and go into our garden.  Below is the sign from TGP that calls it a cold-hardy tree that mostly resembles the Japanese Maple parent. And, here below, is a look at the tree that is currently stashed in the island bed by our driveway.   What do people say about the Northern Glow Maple?  iTrees has this listing : Northern Glow® Maple combines the character of a Japanese Maple and the cold hardiness of a Korean