Why I Oughta...

This is a look (and post in the [ garden diary ]) of our hydrangeas in the front yard.  On the right side - under the front part of our porch are four Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangeas .  On the left, are a pair of Annabelle Hydrangeas.  There are also two Little Rocket Narrow Spiked Ligularia that are showing in the photo, too, but this post isn't about them. These hydrangea were planted at the same time and were the same size container.  I also gave both a hard pruning early this Spring/late this winter to be *about* the same size.  They were getting a bit 'leggy', so based on some guidance from fellow gardeners, I pruned them down to focus some of the growth into a more bush-like shrub.  But, look at the growth on the two varieties.  The Annabelle's are planted facing south.  The Vanilla Strawberry ones are facing east - from the building.  Meaning that as the sun moves across the day, the two on the left side stay in the sun most of the day while the four out fro

At our old place in Elmhurst, we had a big, beautiful, sprawling Anemone plant that was a gift from Nat's Mom.  Turns out, Natalie had Anemone in her wedding bouquet and they were attempting to recreate it some time after our wedding and that involved the purchase of Anemone plants to take some cuttings from.  Nat's Mom ended up with a couple of these plants and gave us one - which I stuck in the sideyard of our house - right to the south of our front porch.  And it thrived!  Like, really thrived.   After a couple of years that is.  It started small, came back in year two and I think gave us just a couple of blooms.  But in year three and four and beyond?  It was big and wonderful.  Take a look at it blooming in 2013 here .  Just like the peony that the kids gave Nat for Mother's Day this year, they also picked out a set of Anemone bulbs - these St. Brigid Blend.  Which, I believe aren't the same plant that we had before.  Why?  Because this product listing says th

Back one month ago, I shared a photo of the Sarah Berhhardt peony tuber that I planted in our backyard and talked about how peonies are Nat's favorite flowers.  Unfortunately, before that one, we didn't have any peonies in our entire yard.  But, we *are* fostering one at Nat's mom's house out in Naperville and I plan on bringing that over to Hornbeam Hill early this Summer.  For Mother's Day this year, the kids all decided to buy a few bulbs/tubers for Nat and one of them is this Karl Rosenfield Peony  - which is a double bloom variety.  Around the side of our front porch, we have a couple of hydrangeas, but then a lot of blank, naked beds.  There is literally NOTHING in this spot on our landscape plan, so I decided to wing it.  It is south-facing, so peonies planted here would be getting some good sun and due to the downspouts and grading, this area gets a good amount of water.  So, just in front of the downspout off the porch is a spot that I stuck these

I've been thinking about the placement and location of our vegetable garden, but as is often the case, life got in the way of actually building something.  So, I'm back to using my old stand-alone tomato cage containers again this year.  They're self-watering from Gardener's Supply Company and I've had decent luck with them since we moved out of our first house in Elmhurst.  The first tomato that I've added is this Mortgage Lifter Heirloom variety.  I've posted about this same variety back in 2015 that I bought from Angelo Caputo's , but I didn't ever follow-up with posts showing the fruit. 

A couple of days ago, I shared the photo and details of the Fraser Fir that I planted in the back .  In that post, I included a tape measure image that showed the current height.  I figured that taking a tool around the yard of Hornbeam Hill to document some of the other trees current heights which can serve as a benchmark in the years ahead.   Here's a few of the trees that I was able to document.   First up is our Saucer Magnolia in the front yard.  It is standing at 81" tall currently.  One of our flowering pears - on the north fence line is 112" tall currently. I measured the end Frans Fontaine Hornbeam trees and it came in (as best as I could tell) at 156" inches (13'). The Red Maple Sun Valley tree that we planted for Earth Day is 96" tall currently. The weeping Cherry that we planted for Earth Day this year is currently 74" tall. The Crimson King is currently 112" tall currently. The Weeping Cedar

These three Karl Forester Reed Grasses were planted by the landscaper by the builder before we moved in.  They're placed in a small bed that is sandwiched between the front stairs on our porch and front walk and our driveway.  I didn't document them last season here on the blog, but due to their location, they didn't have an easy time.  (I *did* document other things in the front like our Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangeas .)  Based on where our hose bib in front is located, our hose ended up living in this area a lot last year and as such these things were trampled/smashed pretty regularly.  That meant that come late Summer/early Fall, they were looking shabby.  I wasn't sure what the Winter would hold, but I crossed my fingers.  Earlier this Spring, I cut back all the winter show and now look at them!  They're doing quite well and have tons of growth.  The same can't be said about the grasses we bought from Costco last fall .  They didn't come back at all,

The reforestation continues.  When we bought the lot in Downers Grove, we knew we were going to have to take down some trees due to construction.  The Village of Downers Grove forced us to invest in quite a bit of infrastructure in the name of water management and one of the outcomes of that (digging and placing a big basin, connecting it down to the sewers, etc) was that we took down eight to ten pretty mature trees. Because of that fact and the idea that we want a private, good looking property, we've undertaken quite a bit of planting of trees in what I'm calling a 'reforestation'.  In the first year (2017), we planted exclusively deciduous trees.  Nine total.  We ended up losing three of them, so that's a net of six.  This year (2018), we've planted twelve in total.  That's 21 total, but only one of them (the weeping cedar) is a conifer or evergreen. Number 22 changes that.  Above, you'll see our first traditional evergreen - a Fraser Fir.  We