Why I Oughta...

Along the north fence line, about mid-way back in our yard, we have a couple of youngish trees that are 2" to 3" caliper trees about 15 to 20 feet tall.  After looking at their leaves, I went around to the rest of the yard to try to identify if I had more than these two.  As you can see above, the leaves are quite jagged along the edges and they are alternate, not compound.  Meaning, the leaves are not exact opposites of each other, but go one on one side, then the other side, then back to the first side, etc. I tried a few leaf identifying apps and even Google Lense and they gave what I though was questionable results:  they identified it as an Ash Tree.  The issue?  Ash Trees have compound branching .  Also, my parents lost dozens of Ash trees to the Borer over the past decade, so I was surprised to think that I had two Ash trees that had survived.    I wanted to figure out what I was dealing with, so after the web gave me mixed results, I remembered what I did whe

The tree you see above is a Dappled Willow (treeform) in the Home Depot parking lot/garden center/nursery.  It is, I think, a grafted tree (hence the 'treeform') and one that we had in our old house in Elmhurst.  I put it in one of the beds that was close to the garage side door, so we walked by it every time we got in and out of the car.  Here's the label from the tree at Home Depot: Both Nat and I really liked the tree.  It grew big and threw off these beautiful, pinkish reeds.  I gave it quite a bit of consideration before, ultimately, passing on the tree for this season.  It was $49.99, so between the price and not really having an idea of where, exactly to put this thing, I talked myself out of putting it into our cart.  One place it *could* go is in the hydrangea bed along the south fence line .  With the hydrangeas filling up the ground space, this could sit on top of them - in the back - and get what it wants:  part sun.  Then we'd get to enjoy it

A double feature:  Coaster #28 and a little lid for a hotel-room glass - both from The Roosevelt in New Orleans.  This place is super old-fashioned and my kind of hotel:  rooms that are weird sized.  Big, odd-shaped spaces near the elevators.  Half-floors with like 4 or 5 stairs.  They'd NEVER build a hotel like this today.  Similar 'old fashioned' hotels in the [ coaster collection ] include the Adolphus in Dallas and The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs.   This was my second trip to New Orleans with the first back in 2011 where we made a stop at Central Grocery . 

The last time I covered our fern and hosta(s) that have been fostered by Nat's Mom in her garden out in Naperville was October of 2017 when the hosta had ridden out the hot summer and the fern had died back for the year.  That post is here .  The photo above is one I took recently when we took a trip to Naperville.  You can see that both the hosta and the fern are HUGE.  They've been there for two full growing seasons - and this is their third.   The hosta again has some tip burn, which is disappointing, but it does get some decent sun due to the Bald Cypress that is located close leafs out later than most trees.  The size of those two are the good news.  The bad news?  The tiny Hosta Venusta that I planted back in 2016 doesn't look like it survived this harsh winter.  According to this post , one of the best times (besides early Spring) to transplant hostas is early fall - so I'll look to taking this one in September or so. My experience with transplanting

Took us a couple of weekends, but we finally went to see Solo as a family recently.  And, I liked it.  I think we all did?   The only part that I have strong feelings about is the Darth Maul part at the end.  Why wasn't that Jabba?  We went to the York Theater in Elmhurst, which is one of our favorite theaters and part of the Classic Cinemas chain.  Here's a trip to another Classic Cinemas theater in Fox Lake . 

There I was, minding my own business, walking to the train one recent morning at close to 5 am and I notice a little guy kind of prancing across the street.  He sees me, turns tail and scampers off.  He got to a safe distance, then turned and inspected me as I continued to go on my way. That's him right there in the red circle.  Not super clear, but you can get the idea.  He's pretty skinny, isn't he?  If you read the Nextdoor section for our neighborhood, you'd know that these coyotes are all over the place, but this is the first one that I've witnessed myself.  I've come across quite a bit of wildlife in our backyard (skunks, rabbits and even our Black Squirrel ) and on our block (foxes), but haven't seen a coyote...until now. Down the block from us is a large pond that spills over into a creek that runs behind the homes across the street from us.  With an abundant supply of water, plenty of wooded cover and what I would presume to be a good supply

Holy moly.  That's a lot of perennials, isn't it??  Peonies, irises, hostas and even ferns all lumped together in my garden cart.  So, where did these come from?  Someone we know is in the process of moving to Downers Grove and as part of their move, they're doing some clearing of their property.  That meant that the garden that was existing was going to disappear.  So, just  like we did with the house down the block , I went over there with my spade shove in hand and dug.  And dug.  And dug.  I filled the back of the van up and there was still so.much.more.  I'm going to try to go back and dig up a few more things.  But first, I have to plant these.  I'm planning on putting them out in the far back of the yard where they can recover from the massive amount of shock they're undoubtably going to go through.  I'll try to baby them for the next month or so with the weather being warm and then hope *fingers crossed* that come next Spring, we'll see mo