Why I Oughta...

Nat added this bag that you see at the top of this post to one of her recent orders from Amazon.  It is a bag of Scott's Crabgrass and Grassy Weed Preventer under the "Halts" product name.  It does NOT have lawn food in it - which is fairly uncommon in most crabgrass preventers. You can find this stuff here at Amazon (this is NOT an affiliate link.  I don't do that...) for $16.99. I used this same product last year - and sought it out because of the fact that it doesn't have lawn food in the mix.  Last year, I held off on feeding my lawn until Memorial Day and I'm thinking that I'm going to do the same. I laid out my full 2020 lawn care plan here in this post from February .  In that post , you'll note that I'm calling for an application of this pre-emergent in "April" versus "mid-April".  And that's because that I'm going to turn to - once again - Michigan State University and their "Growing Degree Days&q

There are a few more vintage felt pennants from my childhood that my folks saved and gave to me when they moved out of our longtime home in Frankfort.  I've posted about a few so far: First was the University of Illinois Fighting Illini Football Rose Bowl '84 pennant . Then just a few days ago, I posted this awesome vintage Epcot Center 1982 pennant with Spaceship Earth and Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck and Goofy in their rainbow spacesuits . Today's post is about a pair of pennants that I remember very well.  Both of these were on my bedroom wall. First - at the top of the post - is a Chicago Sting pennant that is primarily black and yellow with the words 'Chicago' and "Sting' in white.  So, is the bee - he's black and white.  Turns out, his name was "Stanley Sting ".  This has the MISL logo on the tip. Here's the confirmation of Stanley Sting's name via a Google Search: Thanks , Google.   The second item for this post -

A few days ago, I posted some sad photos of the small Canadian Hemlock trees that have been devoured by some freakin' rabbits in our backyard this Winter.  After I spotted that damage, I wanted to take a closer look at some of the other shrubs in our yard to see if there's more damage that occured between when we put the yard to bed for the Winter and now when it is starting to 'wake up'.  Unfortunately, I found more.  Both rabbit damage.  And Winter damage.  Let's start with this Hicks upright yew.  It is the one on the northern edge of the hedge.  And is the only one that has this much winter damage.  For history, I bought these Hicks Yews in July and planted them in the ground shortly thereafter.  This hedge (or...eventual hedge) is part of my 2020 " Priority Area 3 ' from my recent planning series.  This post is now part of my Winter Damage Series , I guess.  Full tag of posts here . It includes this post on our Front boxwood bronzing from

A few days ago, I posted a photo of a vintage University of Illinois Fighting Illini football 1984 Rose Bowl felt pennant and remarked that it was from my childhood.  It was (somehow??) saved by my mother who packed it away with a bunch of other things from my life.  When my folks moved out of their house in Frankfort - and we moved into our home in Downers Grove - they gave me a bunch of boxes and tubs loaded with personal effects.  Along with a collection of greeting cards from my First Communion and sports trophies, these pennants were stuck into the boxes.  There are a whole bunch of them that I'll get to, but today's post is about this epic, vintage Walt Disney World Epcot Center spacesuit felt pennant.  It features Mickey, Donald and Goofy all in their 'Rainbow Brite' costumes  and this one, too, I remember from my childhood.  I'll have to ask my mom if she has any memories of when we got this, but it seems that this *has* to be from the 1980's, ri

This past weekend, I wandered in the back part of our yard and was stunned to see the bare trunks of our tiny Canadian Hemlock trees.  They have been totally ravaged by what I presume to be rabbits.  Freaking rabbits.  Last year, I planted six small (like 18" tall) Canadian Hemlocks in two spots of the yard.  We lost one of them before Winter , but the other five appeared fine before Winter. Today, the three in the very back are the ones I'm posting about and two of them have been totally attacked.  One of them you can see above with just the trunk remaining along with few lower branches.   This is the first real set of animal or critter damage that I've see on the trees in our yard. It is interesting...I've noticed that almost every morning when I take Lizzie out, we have a pair of rabbits that are hanging in our yard.  Up until now, I thought that was nice to see the wildlife.  I mean...we're feeding the birds and squirrels, so I assume that the rabbits a

The very first tips of some of our Spring bulbs have started to poke through the mulch.  This is a tulip bulb in our front beds that are covered with cocoa bean hull mulch.  Which...now that I'm looking at this photo - sure looks pretty great.  The cocoa bean mulch is a rich, dark brown and composed of small flakes that are both breaking down, but not disappearing.  Compare the color to the few pieces of bark/wood that are in the bed and you can see how the color is much deeper in the cocoa bean mulch. These bulbs are the same ones that I documented last Spring - but later in March . One of the biggest problems that I have this time of year in this area is keeping these from getting stepped on.  This bed is in between our house and the neighbors whom the girls spend time with.  It is easy to trample these tips if they're not careful.  These are the red and orange tulips that I told myself I needed to augment with yellow .  But...I didn't end up doing it last year.

It is sure feeling like Spring around these parts.  But, this columnar Oak tree that I came across on a walk sure isn't in the mood to bud out.  It is still clinging to it's Fall leaves.  This is a parkway tree, so it was planted by the forestry or arborist division of the Village of Downers Grove public works department as part of their parkway tree program.  I mentioned/covered the species that they have available in this post about our own parkway tree at the very end of 2019 and sure enough...one of the Spring-planted trees are Oaks.  They list them as (various species) in their handout . Might be a Columnar English Oak?  This Monrovia listing shows it down to Zone 5 .  This is a lovely parkway tree and the marcescence adds some drama to the curbside that's for sure.  I've covered the concept of marcescence (trees like this one retaining leaves through all of/part of Winter) on the blog.  And we see it with our own Oak trees and the row of Frans Fontaine H