Why I Oughta...

I was out in the yard recently wiring up that one errant trunk on the Saucer Magnolia and snapped a couple of photos of our front yard boxwoods.  You can see them above and you'll note that a few of them are showing quite a bit of brown/orange color on them.  Wondering if this is normal Winter behavior or something else.  I also note that they're all experiencing different amounts of this orange/rust coloring.  The first boxwood on the left is the most orange - and you can see a photo of this one below: The ones further North - which start to get out of the top photo are the most green.  The end one (on the North) has a 'hole' in it that was from some damage the previous few Winters.  See that one below that shows an orange section that has a large gaping 'hole' behind it.  The first time that I posted a photo of these boxwoods was in May of 2018 in this post about mulch .  You can tell that these have grown in size in the (almost) two years sinc

Late last week, I posted about the idea of building a 'garden nook' or a secluded area that draws you in as something that is 'on trend' this year and maybe something to consider for our backyard.  In that same post, I made a reference near the bottom of Japanese Moon Gates .   I included the moon gate as a way to potentially create a 'nook' but after looking around the Web, I now realize they're so much more. From this Old House Online story , you can find out the details of the structure: A moon gate is a circular opening, usually in a garden wall, which acts as a passageway. In China, where the gates were built in the gardens of wealthy nobles, various parts of the form and its ornamentation carry meaning. More generally, though, a moon gate is thought to offer an auspicious welcome or fortune to those who pass through. English gardeners borrowed the idea from China in the late 19th century. American gardeners immediately followed suit. A moon gat

We have a front yard Saucer Magnolia tree that was planted in the Summer of 2017 by our landscaper that has been with us since we moved into our new house.  The first time that I posted about this Saucer Magnolia was when I shared a photo of the tree in early August 2017 and talked about how I had 'limb'ed up' the tree to remove some of the lower branching and some newly emerging trunks from the base.   Our tree is multi-trunked (or multi-stemmed and/or multiple trunks) and at the time I was deciding to remove some of the stems/trunks that were shooting out sideways.   By September of 2017, it seemed that the tree had survived the Summer transplant (but...look at the lawn!  yikes!) and was showing plenty of green leaves.  The following February (2018), I did my first Winter check-in on the tree where it was showing off some buds that it had set the previous (first) Fall.  And by May of 2018, the tree put on a show:  flowers .  I didn't include photos of the tree

Another day, another columnar tree that I've come across that is worth documenting here on the blog.  This time, it is from a different source.  I've posted about the list from Amy @ Pretty Purple Door in the past, but I recently came across this list from Savvy Gardening that lists a series of "Narrow Trees for tight spaces" .  On the list are some of the trees I've covered before including the Sky Pencil Holly and the Amanogawa Japanese Flowering Cherry .  But, there are also a couple of new (to me) trees that I think are worth documenting here in my [ tree dreaming ] file. I'll post one today and cover the other one in a separate post. The tree that I'm documenting today is the "Van Den Aker" Narrow Alaska Cedar.   It is a narrow (very narrow!) columnar conifer that Savvy Gardening has at #10 on their list . From SavvyGardening.com comes this description : "Skinny" is how they describe it in their piece and talk about ho

About a week ago, I shared the latest look at our firewood consumption and included a photo of the small pile of Oak firewood that I've gathered from our yard .  Back in late October of 2019, we had a snow storm that arrived while most of our trees still had all of their leaves on the limbs.  That caused some snow-related damage in the neighborhood and we had a significant limb come down on one of the two large Oak trees in our backyard .  By my count, there were 27 or more rings on the limb , so this thing had been growing for more than a quarter century. In Mid-November, I posted another set of images that included some of the (then) cut up/processed pieces and talked about measuring the moisture in the Oak over time .  At that moment (November 18th), the piece was showing a moisture reading of: 24.5%.  I set that piece aside and am using it for this post today.  I remeasured the moisture content.  On the 'exposed side', where I first measured, and it has dropped alm

Yesterday, I posted a couple of photos (and a video) of the Great Horned Owl (or Owls) that have taken up residence in our neighborhood and talked about some of the natural features of Randall Park - including the large Barth Pond at one end and (what I think is known as) St. Joseph's Creek running from north-to-south along the boundary.  Nat and I really love our neighbors and like our neighborhood.  The lots are large(r), the trees are mature and I can walk to two different train stations.  Did we talk about the pond ?  Pretty great , right?  Welp, there are (at least) two other activities that take place in Randall Park that are community/neighbor-driven that make the place a special place to live.  The first is the annual block party Soap Box Derby that I've covered here on the blog.  Here's the Randall Park 2018 Soap Box Derby post and the 2017 Randall Park Soap Box Derby Post .  That's a handful of families who transform their annual block party into a HU

We have an owl that lives on/around our block. He's been around for a while and we hear him hooting in the overnight hours during the Summer when we sleep with our windows open.  In fact, I'm pretty sure that there are/were multiple owls in the neighborhood.  I've heard them call and respond.  Maybe Momma and babes?  Or pairs/partners?  I don't know. Our neighborhood is called Randall Park in Downers Grove and has a large pond at one end of it and a creek running through one side of it, so we have plenty of wildlife.  And we're doing our part by participating in the 'Certified Wildlife Habitat' program from the National Wildlife Foundation where we've provided the necessary components of food, water , places to raise young , shelter and some sustainable practices like composting and what-have-you. So, it is a good spot for something like a family of owls to make a home around our block.  They have plenty of water, large, mature trees for shelter