Why I Oughta...

The hits-and-misses that I've had with cut flowers and vegetables this past year has me (already) thinking about next year.  I wanted to make 2025 the year of 'even more cut flowers' and with all of the dahlias that I planted, we made that happen.  But, the constraints of our property mean that I'm close to the limit on what I can do going forward.  We have a ton of garden space in the backyard.  But, MOST OF IT is in shade.  That means that if I want to grow more things like dahlias and other cut flowers that need sun, I have to rethink things.   I could plant up more of the front yard or...I could do something bigger.   That something BIGGER is a cut flower garden.  In a part of the backyard that *is* in sun for a good part of the day.   And, a cut flower garden that uses raised beds.  We had raised beds in Elmhurst that lived inside of a fenced-in enclosure.  That garden produced a BOUNTY every season.  Vegeta...

2025 has come to a close here on the blog with this non-gardening post being the 366th post.  I seem to have over-posted in June (31 posts), but otherwise have hit my annual goal of posting everyday for the year.  Never-the-less, That means that 2025 is not a Gold Star blogging year, but still got the job done. Last year, I put up 367 posts (Leap Year)  - another non-Gold-star year due to duplicate date posts. This is the 11th straight year of 365+ posts and the 21st year of blogging on my own domain.    I broke the streak in 2013, but there were 3 other years (2010, 2011, 2012) that I went the distance before taking off to write on a political blog for that year.   At 11 (2014 --> 2025) years, that makes it 4000+ straight days of flexing this writing muscle.  Pretty, pretty, pretty good.   Of course, the bulk of the posts were focused in my [garden diary] and I once-again failed at trying to distribute the content beyond being indexe...

I've mentioned that Winter snow came early this year and that cut-short some of my typical garden cleanup. It also dropped most of the leaves on the Frans Fontaine Hornbeams that normally hang around all Winter.   And, those two things - snow packing down and leaves falling - has created a full bed of leaf litter at the feet of the Hornbeams.  Below is a photo showing the fallen leaves that have been matted-down by the heavy snow (that has since melted).   Just in FRONT of these trees is the newly-expanded Pizza Oven bed.  That bed is full of clay soil. One of the things I've been talking about doing this Winter is amending the clay soil to make it a little bit more hospitable to gardening next year - especially with more dahlias on their way.   My first thought was to utilize municipal biosolids and just pile it ON TOP OF THE CURRENT MULCH.  But, now, seeing this leave litter, I'm thinking that I should try to rake it up on top of the clay b...

In May, I added three upright Wichita Blue Junipers to the (newly expanded) pizza oven bed .  They were small - in two-gallon nursery containers and from the big box nursery.  But, they were priced right and I've been eyeing them for a while , so I took the chance.  I planted them in a staggered pattern forming a triangle. Four months later (early September), I p osted an update with new photos and talked about how they seemed to have handled the heat of Summer with minor browning-out.   Now, as we head into our first Winter, below is a photo showing them as of late December.   Here is the original inspiration photo showing Wichita Blue Junipers with some Stachys Hummelo planted in mass .    I didn't get around to planting anything around these, but that will be on my 2026 to-do list.  But, if I'm grading myself as a gardener, I'd say that I lived up to the statement that:  " Conifers Should Come First ".   Have these gro...

The season is over.  The post-Christmas darkness is here.  So, let's do a full recap of the gardening year that was 2025.   I initially posted my 2025 to-do list in early April this year with 25 items .  In Mid-August, I did a check-in post that showed: 11 Done 7 In Process 7 Incomplete Let's do the final report. Here is the 2024 final report where I went 18/25 .   1. Gravel Path Improvement. Done.  I did the biggest part of this, but still have the 'gate-back' portion left to do.  But, I'm calling this done.  2. Make the Pizza Oven operational.  Done.    I closed in the enclosure, put the roof layer on and no longer have to deal with a tarp.  We also had a soapstone landing installed out front and started on the veneer - the very first "finishes".   3. Expand and plant the Island bed in front.  Done.   I've done A LOT up here, but haven't planted everything I was planning-to.  I'd li...

Earlier this year, I posted a couple of pieces on the notion of 'legibility' in the garden .  It was new (to me) and as part of learning about it, I wrote out my thoughts, researched what other people were saying and then followed-up with a post that outlined what Dr. Jared Barnes has created in his list of 'elements' that create garden legibility . Here are the seven elements (or components) of Garden Legibility ( via Dr. Jared Barnes ): 1. Clean edges 2. Desire lines and paths 3. Primary and secondary axes 4. Sightlines 5. Focal points 6. Entrances 7. Seeing over plantings Clean edges includes cut-edging, but also installed edges.  I've written about garden edges a number of times over the years.  Here , here , here and here .  Most recently, I was drawn to this timber-edging from a YouTube gardener and thought about using it as a retaining-wall(ish) under the Greenspire Lindens .  I still think that's a good idea (note for 2026 projects), but I was pointed...

They are back.  The (dang) rabbits.  And, they're eating the tips of our Oakleaf Hydrangeas.  This photo below has all the tells of them being around - and I'm NOT TALKING ABOUT THE GNAWED-OFF TIPS.  I'm talking about the rabbit turds.  EVERYWHERE.   That means that this will be the second year-in-a-row where we won't have Oakleaf Hydrangea blooms. I need to spend some time researching shade shrubs that flower and are rabbit-proof.