Why I Oughta...

Since the new year, I've posted about a couple of spots that I'm thinking about for trees in 2020.  That started with the five trees that I want to plant in the front yard ( including five new trees ) and a small section between the espalier Linden trees and a Cleveland Pear along the southern fence line.  In both of those pieces, I talked quite a bit about columnar trees.  At this point, you're probably like:  we get it, Jake.  You like columnar form. Yes indeed.  But, because this is *my* blog, you're going to have to bear with me.  Over the course of the next few days and weeks, I'm going to use this space as a reference guide for some columnar trees that I've come across that are work referencing back as I add more inventory. This post is about a pair of what I'm calling 'white trees'.  Birch and Aspen. First up is this Dakota Pinnacle Birch Tree . The folks at  Fast Growing Trees are currently selling a 5-6' version for $99 right no

A couple of days ago, I shared a photo of the new caliper measurement tool that Nat picked up for me on Amazon so I can get some better measurement of our young trees in the yard.  I have been tracking the heights of my newly added trees to the yard for the past couple of years (here's this Summer's measurements and here's last Summer measurements ), but some of the trees are getting more than ten feet tall and using a conventional tape measure to accurate reflect their growth is difficult.  Between not being able to reach (and be at eye level) with the very top of the tree and the reality to some of the tree's 'growth' isn't always in height, but in branching out and what-have-you. Like I've done with the heights (which...for many of the trees, I'll still do during the late Summer), I'm going to document caliper measurements on a regular basis.  I'm thinking that I'll do a semi-annual measurement this year (now + Summer) to see if th

Over the years, I've done a few [Christmas Haul] posts that show off some of the things that people have gifted me for the yard and garage and shop.  This year, my first "haul" post (despite not being labeled that in the title) was this heated bird bath post from my mother-in-law.  Today, is another gift, but from my Sister-in-Law:  this rake called " The Groundskeeper II ". I came across it on someone in the lawn care community YouTube channel (wish I could remember who it was?  But, just search [Groundskeeper II rake] on YT and you'll find plenty of review posts). What is it? It is a rake.  Yep.  A rake.  But, it is a thatch rake.  And it is unique in design.  Here (below) is the rake laying in the ground in our yard.  You can see that I pulled up a little dead grass in the photo, too.   The Groundskeeper II has a couple of stickers on the handle that talk up the value prop of the tool: 1.  Easy on your back.  2.  Self-cleaning

As part of my [ garden diary ], I've been working to keep annual logs of growth on some of the trees and shrubs including my tree height inventory.  Here is the link to the 2019 tree height inventory post .   And here's the one for 2018 .  The reason I bring this up is that earlier this month, as part of doing a mid-Winter yard inventory, I posted about some Winter damage on our Flowering Cherry Tree in the backyard .  In that post , I lamented that my measurement(s) for some of the trees is becoming inaccurate because of their heights getting too tall to get a tape measure on properly.   Welp...thanks to the miracles of e-commerce shopping, I'm now the proud owner of this Digital Caliper Measurement Tool that you can see below.  This one is just $8.99 , so it isn't the most expensive or sophisticated caliper tool, but I'm thinking it will get the job done. It is pretty easy to use and came with a couple of backup batteries. As I mentioned in my '

In November of 2017 - as we approached our first Winter in our new house - I posted a photo of our heated bird bath being placed in the yard near our feeders .  At that time, I kept the feeders a little bit closer to the house.  That bird bath was originally from our old house in Elmhurst and it was a 'deck-mounted' heated bird bath.  So that meant that when I used it in Downers, I had to place it on a little table.  It didn't have a pedestal.    For Christmas that year, I was gifted a Water Wiggler to keep the water moving .   The bird bath was one of the key pieces that we needed in order to meet the criteria of being a Certified Wildlife Habitat from the National Wildlife Federation (the other criteria include three kinds of food, two types of cover/shelter and places to raise young).   The first year, I didn't see much action in the bath.   But, during the Winter of 2018/2019, we placed the heated bird bath outside again, but this time it was used pret

A couple of days ago, I posted a couple of photos of our Flowering Japanese Kwanzan Cherry Tree that had suffered a little bit of winter damage here on the blog.  Today, I'm documenting a few of our front yard trees and their buds (or lack thereof).  I wanted to capture a few of the trees and how their buds were coming along in the heart of Winter.  If you're looking for a layout of our front yard trees that is a companion of this post, you can view it here on this 'tree dreaming' post from a week ago. First up, is our small Bald Cypress.  Last I covered it here on the blog was back at the end of August of this Summer (2019) when it was showing nicely with green, lacy needles.  Today, you can see it (below) clinging to a lot of brown/orange needles on the trees small frame.   Here (below) is a closer look at one of the branches that have some thorn-like (but not thorns!) raised bark, but not what I'd consider normal 'buds'.  However, look close

With the calendar turning over to the new year soon, my mind has naturally drifted outdoors to our backyard to think about what kind of 'tree planning' we should be doing in Spring.  Right after Christmas, I posted my front yard tree succession planting plan .  And because we've been filling our bird feeder, my mind has been focused on the area you see in the photo above.  I've covered this section of yard before with this Fall of 2017 post showing the landscape plan here . Of note, what I'm showing here differs from what the plan includes, but that's because the plan doesn't call for many new trees, but instead uses the existing trees and augments them with shrubs. To set the context - or edges - of this image, you can see two trees that I've posted about before. First, in purple, on the left is the Weeping White Spruce Columnar tree . And, in red, on the far right is the Weeping Cedar tree that I planted and lost .  I've left the corpse