Why I Oughta...

This Christmas, my brother-in-law gifted me a new snow shovel:  The Snow Plow 24" pusher shovel.  I'm not sure where he got it from, but guessing either Amazon or Ace Hardware.  And, I'll tell you:  it is a great shovel.  And, it is American made .  A big consideration for me (when it comes to snow shovels) is the size.  I don't want something so big and heavy that I can't deal with it when it is loaded down with heavy, wet snow.  There's an idea that you should upgrade your everyday items when you replace them.  And then, when you find something that works well for you, you stick with it.  This snow shovel feels like an upgrade. With just a few snowfalls in, I'm already in love with this pusher shovel.  It does a great job, has a clean edge and is easy-to-handle.  It is also lightweight.  The website talks about how the blade is made from UHMW (Ultra High Molecular Weight Polyethylene ) - which sounds like a remarkab...

One of my ' early early' potential projects was to add a garden arch to the backyard.  That's because I was gifted a garden arch for Christmas.  It is still in the box, so I'm not totally sure what it looks like, but believe it to be a square one (non-arch) and it is made of wood.  Where could it go?  The first spot is obviously the fire pit entrance.  To help frame/create that as the 'entrance' to the fire pit .  Like this: But, I could also put it closer to the house.  Either off the boardwalk.  Or, as part of a 'hide-and-reveal' entrance off the patio?  If I did that....what would we do back by the firepit?   The answer is, of course easy:  Revisit the idea of building a moongate back there .   I suppose the installation of the arch certainly isn't permanent.  So, if I end up starting with it back there, it doesn't mean we can't build the moongate, right? 

Mid-January means it is about ten weeks since I brought home the two large Amaryllis bulbs from Wannemaker's Christmas Open House and planted them in some pots .  Like I've done every year, after planting them up, I put them in a spot with good sun exposure (full view of the sky) along with some heat (a stone table that sits on top of a heat vent from our furnace).   The first of the two bulbs - Flamed Amadeus - bloomed a couple of weeks ago - and has since had those first flower blooms die back .  The second stem with a bud is coming up out of the bulb right now.  The second Amaryllis was named Shine Dream.  Here's the post when I brought it home .  By early December, this Shine Dream was showing some 'action' .  That means (to me) ...a tip was emerging from the bulb.  It was a slow two weeks until that same bud grew up and out of the bulb a tiny bit .   Today, it looks like this: Shine Dream is tall.  Much taller than the Fla...

Here, below is a look at an unfinished part of a 2024 'garden edit'.  There are just three Hakonechloa Macra (straight green) grasses planted.  I think there's room for four or five more.   The other side of this bed (the pizza oven bed) is on my early, early priority list for adding the same grasses.  I'm thinking we need to do both ends:

Earlier in January, I posted an exploration of the expansion of my front yard "island bed " and talked about how I'd like to clean up the edges and expand the bed in a direction that will allow for even-more future bed expansion.  In that post, I suggested attacking from the sidewalk back to the house.  And, by expanding by going across the front of the yard along the sidewalk - connecting to the edge of the property line.   But, after staring at the bed every time I came/went on a walk, I have come to the realization: "The Defense is wrong." Well...at least *partially* wrong.   Since I put the Island Bed in back in 2024, I said I wanted to create three things: 1. A path. 2. A bern. 3. ...and some miegakure. My previous approach focused on the 'path'.  And, expanded a little bit of beds.   Here's how the beds looked last Spring when they were freshly mulched  below.  The lines, while clean, aren't what I want in terms of 'sweeping...

A couple of my backyard 'garden edits' involved what I termed the "Hosta Replacement Project" - where I yanked out some hostas and replaced them with something else that persisted in the winter (grasses, astilbes, etc).   I moved a bunch of them out, but there are many more left in place.  Perhaps, another section of the great 'hosta replacement project' could be one of my potential "2026 priority projects"?  I'm not convinced.  But, like Paul Graham has said :  writing helps you understand what you actually think.  As he put it , "Writing about something, even something you know well, usually shows you that you didn't know it as well as you thought." Below is a photo showing the northside bed that is about half-way back (behind the picnic table).  The thing you see standing tall and proud are those white stalks.  Those are hosta flower stalks that are hanging around after the foliage disappeared when the perennial went dormant.   ...

One of the 'wins' from last garden season were the three Garden Ghost Artemisia that I planted in the front yard Island Bed along the driveway .  They quickly filled-in/filled-out, provided a nice pop of white to brighten up the bed and were *very useful* in cut flower arrangements.  I bought them from Roy Diblik's nursery up in Wisconsin (Northwind Perennial Farm) and planted them along with a couple of grasses, some annuals and the Korean Maple tree.   Here's a look at one of the MANY arrangements that I used the Garden Ghost plumes in as filler flowers . The provide a tiny bit of Winter interest, but they also have stems that help protect the crown of the plants by trapping leaf litter around the base of the woody plants.  Below is a look at the current state of these Garden Ghost Artemisias planted right next to the driveway: I've talked about it a few times, but between the early snow-fall and the deliberate adoption (at least a little bit more than normal...