Why I Oughta...

Adding this to the [ garden diary ] here on the blog to remind myself (mostly) that I put down 15 fertilizer tree spikes near our Frans Fontaine European Hornbeam Trees that we put in last year.    I put two on each tree but the most Western one that got just one.  (7 trees x 2 spikes) + (1 tree x 1 spike) = Feed trees for the spring.  I am going to supplement the last tree (and maybe a few others?) with a direct application of Milorganite (or the generic that Menards claims to be selling soon). What made me decide to go with these Jobes Fertilizer Spikes again is that the tree leaf that is featured on the packaging appears to be a Hornbeam leaf (or something like it...) so the product seems fit for purpose, right? I last showed the view from our screened porch BEFORE the Hornbeams went in here , but to mark the fertilizer application, I took a similar photo and am sharing it here below.  The angle is different, but I wanted to show the leafy-ness of these trees prior to the a

A few weeks back, we had a few days of very heavy rain.  It came down in the morning, afternoon and evening.  For like three of four days straight.  The ability to work in the yard was almost zero because of how saturated the ground was in the yard and the beds.  But that rain event also exposed to me a few areas in the far reaches of our yard that I think are worth documenting here in order to be sure that as I begin to address the far back yard that these spots are giving proper consideration. Due to their location and distance for the existing water mitigation tools (Dry well, etc), I am thinking that the only way to really address some of these is through a combination of improving the soil's ability to absorb water (aeration, de-thatching) and through the changing of the grade. First up is this linear puddle that is maybe twenty feet long and sits between a rough (eventual!) bed and the yard from the trampoline to the neighbor gate on the southside.   The second

Of all the various tree-related posts here on the blog, the Dawn Redwood might have the most action in terms of posting.  I first bought our initial Dawn Redwood back in May of 2017 and planted it in our new backyard in Downers Grove.   By October of 2017, I was concerned that the tree was not going to survive .  And I was right.  It didn't come back.   So, I replaced it with a tree from an online nursery and planted it in July .  Not the best time to plant a new, young tree, right?  But, by Fall, it was showing signs of growth and it had seemingly weathered the tough, stressful planting.  Mid-November of last year, the deciduous needles had turned all brown (as they are SUPPOSED TO DO!) ahead of the hard Winter.  Finally, my most recent post on this tree was on April 1st of this year where I shared a photo of some of the buds that had set last Fall about to burst open with new growth .  The issue is that back on our initial Dawn Redwood, we too, had buds that had set, b

I snapped this photo of the freshly burst free leaves from our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree a couple of weeks ago, so the {post-date} on this post is a little inaccurate.   So let's call this May 2nd or so in terms of usefulness in the [ garden diary ] purposes.   This photo is going up almost a week after I shared the same Kwanzan Cherry trees in bloom down in St. Louis .  That post is here .     The tree still has not bloomed, but once it does, I'll grab some photos and add them to the [garden diary] post over on HornbeamHill.com . Should be any day now based on a May 21st bloom in 2018 .   We have a few other flowering trees in our yard, but there are a few on my radar to acquire including an Eastern Redbud tree - maybe a multi-trunk variety (??) and maybe another flowering Cherry.  I think I saw a Yoshino Cherry at Home Depot on one of our trips.  Maybe it will come home with us.

I logged my concern about our Weeping Himalayan Cedar Tree a couple of weeks ago when I shared a photo that showed that the small, young tree was turning brown from the top down to the middle of the tree.  I had planted the tree just a little bit over a year prior, so our one year warranty was over and if the tree was dying I was out the money.  In that post, I found at least one source that confirmed that young cedar trees will sometimes brown out in the late Winter/early Spring to shed some of their needles to only grow back out green shortly thereafter. Welp...I have some good news.  At least I'm pretty sure it is good news.  Check out the photos at the top here and bottom of the post.  See all those new green needle buds?  They are all over the limbs of this beautiful tree. I am really excited to see that this thing made it through our tough Winter and now that I know it experienced some stress, I'll try to baby it through the Summer to make sure it is adequatel

About a month and a half ago, I was complaining about how my big Squirrel Buster bird feeder was leaking seed  - you can see that post here .  Spring is the time when I give our feeders a rest after feeding the birds and critters all Winter long, but for my birthday, I was given this new addition:  a Squirrel Buster Standard Edition.   This is much smaller than the big one we already have and has a little different set-up in terms of how you fill it.  But, it is made by the folks at Brome Bird Care, so I know it is a thoughtful feeder.  I'll get it out on our feeder pole (We have a new one of those, too...so I'll post about it because it is awesome looking) soon and fill it to see what kind of birds we get in late Spring.   

A few weeks ago, I posted  a photo on the blog of the Aurora Borealis (Northern Lights) from my JAL flight home .  I've spent quite a bit of time up in the air during the first part of this year.  Thus, I have seen a lot of cloud-time.  Let's post this week another photo from the road - this time on a recent flight home from Newark where I caught the Sunset while we were above the clouds somewhere over Pennsylvania.