Why I Oughta...

Back at the beginning of May, I posted about how I was trying some elephant ear bulbs in our containers this season after picking up a pack of nine of them .  Above, is one of my wine barrel containers that I have out on the back patio with - as you can see - some very happy Elephant Ears.  You can also see the wine barrel trellis that I embedded in the wine barrel with a first-year clematis vine growing up the back.  (I'll try to post about the trellis in a different post.  I have two of them that are both hosting first-year plants that, I *hope* will come on strong next year and we'll be able to use the trellises as screening material in a meaningful way.) I have to say that I *LOVE* these elephant ears and the real tropical feel they lend to our pots.  I now have them in a few - including the Black Magic variety I planted with some Dahlias - and I know that I'll do them again next year.  I believe there is likely some way to salvage and reuse the bulbs each season,

The last time we checked in on my basement workshop was a ll the way back at the beginning of April when I posted about the new wall and sealed, exterior door that were installed , thus, creating the shape of the shop.  Then Spring came and all of my attention and time were focused outside on the garden and yard.  I left the shop empty and forgot all about my plans to finish the floors.   Well, the recent run of super hot weather afforded me the opportunity to get back going on the shop and job #1 was finishing the floors.  I had, on hand, a couple of the Rocksolid Metallic Epoxy floor kits that I bought back in April when I was planning the shop build out.  Inside of each of those kits was a package of 'floor etch', which I got busy with.  Below, in the first photo, is after one round of etching the floor.  I did it 2x - just to be safe.  But, since there isn't a floor drain, I ended up having to saturate the floor (post etch) and then use a scrub brush to pick up mo

Back in June of this year, I posted about the two fingerling varieties of potatoes that I planted in containers .  I've kept them in one of the most full-sun spots in our backyard, right outside of our kitchen windows.  And they shot up.  I 'hill'd them up' as best as I could, but pretty soon, I ran out of container height.  (Lesson learned...plant them in super tall containers and plant them low, so they can get 'hill'd up' quite a bit. This week, I saw these flower blooms emerging and thought that they're quite striking.  In fact, that's the exact phrase I used in my Instagram post from earlier this week.  Striking. (on yeah... that's my gardening-focused Insta handle.   That, much like this blog, is intended as a diary of sorts.) Potato blossoms. We're growing fingerlings in containers this season. The blooms are quite striking. A post shared by Hornbeam Hill (@hornbeamhill) on Jul 2, 2018 at 7:16am PDT I posted

Back at the end of June, I posted a photo of the bounty that we took out of a yard in Downers Grove ahead of their teardown  that someone we're close to was undertaking.  (We didn't just glom on to the plants!  We were invited!)  Along with the hostas and peonoies and irises, I also grabbed a ratty-looking Raspberry plant.  Or at least, I was pretty sure it *was* a Raspberry plant.  I stuck it in the back of our property and promptly forgot about it.  Fast forward to this week and here's two different evening harvests.  Not a ton of berries, but after the transplant shock, I'm surprised we got any at all.  Not to mention getting scarfed up by the critters that run through our yard on a regular basis.  There are a few dozen more emerging/white-ish berries that will ripen soon, too.  So we'll be at it for a while it seems.  But, with just one plant, we'll never be in a position to fill pint after pint like some folks. Like the rest of their 'teardown&

Last year, in May of 2017, I first posted about the Dawn Redwood that we had bought on a whim from Menards.  It was destined to go into our backyard in Downers Grove and we ended up planting it on Earth Day with some help from the three kids .  I love this photo that Nat took of us and was reminded of it recently when my Mother-in-Law made me a framed version for my desk.  Almost one year ago exactly - on July 6th - I posted a 'two month-in update' of the tree that showed it green and mostly happy . Everything looked good.  But, we had just moved in and the backyard wasn't a priority.  And my watering - it appears - seemed to drop off.  Because we lost the tree.  At least, I know that now. Up until October of last fall, I wasn't sure.  I posted this piece asking if the Dawn Redwood was going to make it .  It had set some buds, but it wasn't looking good. I will admit that I limb'd up the redwood in an attempt to get it to focus on some of it's uppe

We have a neighbor down the block that spends a lot of time and effort to tend to his yard and garden.  He's out there constantly and seems to really like to make his yard look the best it can.  On one of my walks with Lizzie, I chatted him up about the garden and we got started talking about how he was about to split up his Daylilies.  And he offered us a few of them.  Of course, I'd take them, I said.  What you see above are a few containers that we ended up with before I put them in one of the beds in the rear part of our yard.  I don't know that much about daylilies, but we had three of them in our old garden that I placed at the foot of our Ginko Tree in the backyard .  We don't have daylilies in our landscape plan, so I've been torn about where to put them.  Seems like a little bit of 'longer-term' hosting is best.  According to the donor, these seem to tolerate some shade, so I'm putting them in an area that we aren't planning on dealin

One early morning recently, I was the first one into the office in New York and stopped to admire the view looking west over the Hudson to New Jersey.  The city was barely stirring and the heat had yet to really hit the day.  I'm calling this a [ View from my Office ] despite the 'just visiting' nature of said view.  Add this to the view looking south from the same floor almost a year ago  and you can start to get a composite.  Now, I need east and north and we'll be able to stitch together a sort-of 360.