Why I Oughta...

We had a large 3" caliper Chanticleer flowering Pear tree planted on the north side of our property kind of close to our garage out in front before we moved in.  It is a fairly columnar, fast-growing tree that while isn't super awesome, does give us some quick growth and a fairly mature tree relatively quickly.  Or so we thought. That tree didn't survive the first year.  It was in trouble last year and didn't come back this Spring . It was removed and replaced this Summer.  Here's the post showing off the newly planted 3" caliper replacement tree from June of this year .  Welp, *that* new tree has had a lot of trouble, too.  Unfortunately, I think that it has been caused by two factors:  1.  I watered the heck out of it. 2.  It is in a clay bowl with questionable soil. Which lead to it being overwatered and drowning while it gasps for oxygen. What lead me to this conclusion was doing a little digging and figuring out that after I had not watered

Last Summer, I posted a photo from a walk I took with Lizzie around Barth Pond at Patriot's Park .  That photo is here .  The park is very close to our house - like maybe six houses or so away and it is a nice spot to go walking.  Sometimes with the dog.  Sometimes with the kids.  Recently, I went down there with the two little ones and we spent some time in the playground.  On the way to the playground, I was struck by how nice it was out.  This path in the photo above is one of two on the north side of the pond with this one being 'closer' to the water.  The pond has something to do with water management in our area and I think part of the reason there's two paths is because this part of the path is occasionally under water.  On this day, it wasn't.  And the goose turds that normally make me tiptoe around?  Those were gone, too.  Felt like my lucky day. 

Growing up, my Dad collected bottles.  Mostly soda bottles.  He kept them in various places including on top of the cabinets in our laundry room.  He even got into collecting cases.  There were plenty of Coke and Pepsi ones, but there were also a bunch of obscure ones.  Some from the 80's but mostly older than that.  When my parents moved out of my childhood home a few years ago , they had an Estate Sale.  And guess what?  A bunch of my Dad's treasures sold.  That included many of his bottles.  I think he kept a few on hand, but for the most part, he parted with a long-term collection. So, when I was at a garage sale on our block a few weeks back and I came across these bottles, I had to grab them.  I mean...look at the prices:  five cents a piece.  That's nuts, right?  I mean...even if they were junk, throwing them away cost only a dime. The 7-up one is from the 50's according to my Dad.  The Ting bottle is old, but has a zip code on it from the bottler.  Turns

On a trip to Binny's to pick up some fancy beers for herself, Nat noticed a sign that said that the Budweiser Clydesdales were going to be appearing at Binny's in Oak Brook.  Well, we couldn't miss that, right?  I have never peep'd them in person before and it was pretty neat! They were scheduled to be there for a few hours, but the weather cut it short.  Fortunately, we were there for a while before they put them away. Talk about nostalgia and holidays and the feels all wrapped up in one nice, neat package. Amazing ambassadors for the brand.  Too bad it is a giant European conglomerate these days. But they're still bringing out the horses for Suburban rubes like us.  And guess what?  It worked.

Last year in July, I planted a Crimson King Maple Tree in the back part of our yard.  I chronicled the planting here .  And then gave a late Fall check-in post here before it dropped its leaves for the year.   One of the things that I was struck by was the lack of seeds in the tree last year.  The good news is that right now, the tree is loaded with them!  Here's one of them, all green and ready to burst.  Helicopters as we say, right?  I'm thinking that the tree was prioritizing putting down roots last year and didn't have the energy to spare to produce seeds.  Isn't nature amazing?  This season, I didn't pay much attention to the tree and I think that's just fine.  I mean...most people pay NO attention whatsoever to all of their trees, so these trees figure out how to survive on their own.  Just by the eye test, I don't think this tree has grown much in terms of height, but it seems like it has gotten thicker and more full and definitely wider. 

Almost one year ago - in early October of 2017 - I posted some photos of the locations of the Allium Purple Sensation bulbs that I put in the ground in the backyard.  I ended up putting them around the base of a big Oak Tree about half-way back from the house .  I don't think that all five of them came up and I know that we had at least one of them get dug out and taken by a critter, so I'm thinking that we likely have three left. When I came across the fall bulb section recently, I'm naturally drawn to Alliums.  Since 2011, I've posted about the various Allium bulbs that I've planted, starting with a surprise gift to Natalie that first year .  I also covered the bulbs that went into the ground in the Fall of 2017 in a post in April of this year when they emerged .  This year, I have five bulbs to put down of the same variety as last year:  Purple Sensation. In thinking about the 'path' concept I have in my head for the backyard , I'm wonde

We've been growing Sweet Potato Vines for the better part of ten years.  Basically ever since I started to buy and plant containers of my own, we've found a home for one of these.  Or six of them.  With their rock-bottom price (usually $0.99 a piece), I naturally grab one of these and a spike or two and check the box on the "spill" and "thrill" in the fill-spill-thrill container philosophy trio. But in all of that time, I have never had a Sweet Potato Vine flower.  Until now.  And I have not one vine flowering, but two!  In two different containers .   Here, below, you can see both of the wine barrel containers that I used on our patio and you can see that both of them have a very healthy/robust purple sweet potato vine and both are flowering! (also note how happy the Lemon Coral Sedum is, eh?) The flowers are quite striking and add some drama to the normally boring vine. From this DIYNetwork post , it turns out that the reason I haven'