Why I Oughta...

Spring flowers have hit our yard.  And also our flowering trees.  That includes our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry tree that is planted in our backyard.  The photo above is of some of the blooms that have emerged recently on the upper branches.  The history of this tree starts in March of 2017 when we bought it after a trip to Tokyo where I took in the Cherry Blossoms.  It lived on the driveway for a few months while we built our #newoldfarmhouse and we finally planted it at the end of June .  It survived the Winter and this Spring, buds started to open - despite the brutally long cold weather.  And now, it seems like it is on a good trajectory with new growth and seemingly happy in terms of sun/location in the yard.  Even after we added the one new bed to the south fence line, this tree is still kind of out on an island.  We laid down a ring of mulch ( but not a volcano !) around the tree and so it feels anchored, but will have to wait until next year when we add another line of beds

I've posted about my participation in the Google Local Guides program where you provide reviews, ratings and photos of local businesses and places.  I've been doing it for a couple of years and have hit a few milestones along the way.  This week, Google emailed me this note you see above:  my photos have been viewed 4M times.  Yeah...four million.  That's crazy, but with Google's scale, I guess it shouldn't be surprising. In February of 2017, I shared the previous milestone:  2.5M photo views .  So, it took me 14 months or so to get the next 1.5M views.  In March of 2016, I hit "Level 4" on the platform .  Today, I'm a "Level 7".  And guess what?  This email made me go back into the system and add a few more photos and engage even more.  Nurturing at it's best, right? 

I'm giving Clematis another go of it - this time in Downers in our new yard.  Welp, actually, I'm giving it a go in a pot.  With a trellis embedded into the back of the pot.  In the photo above, you can see the vine as it was when I got it from Home Depot.  Below, you can see the tag that shows of the variety: Clematis H.F. Young.   The photo above only shows the small trellis that came with the container, but you'll have to trust me here that the larger trellis is, indeed, in place.    I grew Clematis in our old house in Elmhurst.  Here is a photo from 2014 when one of our then three Clematis was taking off.   I had planted the vines directly in the ground then, but this time, I'm trying a pot.  Why?  Because, I'm hoping that the trellis plus this climbing vine will provide some level of screening for our patio and give us a sense of privacy.  I found this piece that provided some tips on the best way to grow Clematis in a container (hint...larger conta

After a long, cold early Spring, we finally have some color popping up in the #newoldbackyard.  However....I only count 24 of them, though.  ( I planted 30 tulips last fall .)  I also posted about these very tulips emerging for the first time earlier this year.  They're located along the fenceline largely because that's where we had available space last fall because the area in front of them was lawn.  But, as you can see in the photo above, we expanded the bed (and relocated the Automower boundary wire), so this fall I'm planning on relocating these bulbs from the fence to the front of the bed. Also, interesting, is the blue-ish flower growing behind the bulbs.  Our neighbors have it running in their beds and it has crept across the fence.  I'm pretty sure it is Virginia Bluebells , and it is quite striking, so I'm not unhappy about it migrating northwards.   I'll keep an eye on them this Spring and perhaps if they continue to creep, they deserve their ow

Our old neighbor Greg had these really amazing (and massive) Lilac bushes back between our playground and his garage.  Nat always admired them and their quite large blooms that not only looked great, but put out a pretty good scent each season.  We planted two different varieties at our old place - both larger Lilac and a dwarf Lilac.  Each of them took, but they served different purposes - with the larger one being what Nat wanted and the dwarf version fitting into a specific spot in our beds in Elmhurst.  Despite there not being any Lilac called for on our plan design, adding these were on Nat's 'wish list', so when I came across these little "Common Lilac Purples", I grabbed them and planted them.  You can see in the photo above, that I planted them pretty close together - closer than they are supposed to be, but that's on purpose because I'd like to see them grow into a little hedge of sorts right to the left of the small flowering pear tree that

Back in March of this year, I posted a photo of a couple of Milkweed seed packets that we received from the Save our Monarchs Foundation that are appropriate for our 5B zone here out in the Chicago Suburbs.  I also had t his older packet of Milkweed seed that we received at a parade in 2016 that I never planted.  With Spring here and the back of our yard still a mess, I just decided to sow them directly in the ground and cross my fingers that we'll see some action on them as the weather warms up.  I put them in a staggered row with the two Foundation packets on the right and the parade packet on the left. I put the empty packet envelopes down in the soil and took this photo so I can go back there later this Summer, see if anything is happening with them and then know which type is which.  I'm hoping that a few of seedlings will emerge and we'll get a nice first year plant that can help the Monarchs this season.  I took the Bird and the KotBT out there and they helped

I posted about some of the various hostas that we've added to our #newoldbackyard recently including the unknown varieties of what I'm calling 'teardown' hostas that came out of a yard down the street of a home that was getting torn down and the Bressingham Blues that we bought at Costco in a bulk bag .  Above are two more varieties that I scored at Menards recently and planted in the yard:  Fantabulous and Christmas Tree. Here's a page that describes the Christmas Tree variety .  And a page that describes the Fantabulous variety - which...have really large white margins and are a favorite of the folks over at NH Hostas .  Menards was (of course) running a deal and these were the two most interesting so I added them to our cart.  Turning to our landscape plan, there are a few spots that hostas are called for, but most of them are in 'to be dug' beds.  Check out the landscape plan section below.  There are Hadspen Hostas spec'd for below the