Why I Oughta...

A couple of weeks ago, I posted photos of one of our Earth Day 2020 trees (a Chanticleer Flowering Pear) that we planted in the side yard as a screening tree for our Screened Porch .  That was our 36th tree planted in the yard, this post is about the 37th tree:  a Lombardy Poplar. This was an inexpensive tree that I bought at an online nursery that is about six feet tall from the soil, but very thin - caliper-wise.  I didn't measure it when I planted it, but I'll do a new-tree roundup for calipers later this Summer.  It was a bareroot tree based on the root structure. We planted this one all the way in the back - where I've been putting the wood chips - and it is located just to the north of where I planted the Corkscrew Willow three years ago .  That tree died, but you can still see the trunk of it on the left side of the photo at the top.    When I dug up the hole for this tree, I seem to have left some of the soil/loam on top of the chips that I'll have to re-

A couple of days ago, I posted a before/after photo of our Magnolia tree and the cocoa bean shell mulch that I added and mentioned that I had brought home just 10 bags of cocoa bean hull mulch from Lake Geneva.  Today, you can see our front bed with the balance of the bags laid down.  I was able to add mulch from the front of the bed to around and *just* behind the boxwoods.  We have three Vanilla Strawberry Hydrangeas behind the boxwoods that I didn't have enough mulch in the bags to cover at this point. From this point of view - and down lower near the sidewalk, you can't see *behind* the boxwoods, so it kind of looks finished despite about 50% of the bed not being freshly mulched. When we go back up to Wisconsin in the coming weeks/months when we drive two cars, I'll head over to the Hull Farm and pick up ten more bags of the stuff to finish off the bed. On the far left of the photo, you can see one of the limestone blocks that I installed to create that '

Back in February, I posted about a tree that I came across that had a lot of the features that I desired in a tree: the Diana Weeping Japanese Larch .  It is a narrow tree (columnar), is contorted, has a weeping habit and is a deciduous conifer.  I have yet to see a  Diana Weeping Larch, but I did come across a similar tree from an online nursery named Kigi Nursery called: The Horstmann's Recurved Contorted Larch Tree . I read the description and thought this was a good fit for our yard: LARIX DECIDUA 'HORSTMANN'S RECURVED' CONTORTED LARCH IS AN UPRIGHT DECIDUOUS CONIFER WITH TWISTING, TURNING BRANCHLETS. NEEDLES ARE GREEN IN SUMMER AND GOLDEN IN AUTUMN BEFORE FALLING. PREFERS ORGANIC RICH WELL DRAINED SOIL. Sounds perfect, right?  I went on the site and they were offering only a 0-1 year old tree for $40 .  I don't know what I thought it was going to look like when it arrived, but when I opened the package, I felt surprised.  Here's a look at the tree

Yesterday, I posted a photo of the bags of Cocoa Bean Shell mulch that I picked in Wisconsin and mentioned that I was planning on using it in our front yard.  I got started with some of the trees in our front yard and will get the larger porch bed next.   Below, you can see the before picture of our front yard Saucer Magnolia tree.  I mulched this tree ring with Cocoa Bean Shell mulch last year, so this is about 11 months since last mulch application.   You can see some of the flowers that are still clinging to the Magnolia - as it flowered this year after skipping a year last year.   And...now below is the 'after' where I applied a layer of the cocoa bean shells to the tree ring: One of the things that you have to do is to 'water in' the mulch to kind of set it up and when you do that it darkens the cocoa bean shells little bit.  After I do a few more tree rings, I'll water this stuff in to set it. The cocoa bean shell mulch looks great from th

Once again, I'm going with Cocoa Bean Shell mulch in our front yard this year.  On a recent trip to Wisconsin, I stopped at the Hull Farm outside of Lake Geneva and bought ten bags.  They sell it for about 50% the cost of Menards, so buying direct is worth the trip if you are buying in bulk. We first saw the French using Cocoa Bean Shell mulch in the beds at Luxembourg Gardens in Paris last year and ever since, it has become something that I wanted to bring to our home garden.    Last year, I applied bags of the stuff to the front beds and around a couple of trees .  This year, I'm going to replicate that plan and use it just on the front yard beds - to keep the cost in control and to keep it away from Lizzie.  I'll post some photos of the beds once I put the cocoa bean shells (or hulls) down on top of the existing mulch/shells. There are a couple of things that I like about this particular kind of mulch including the 'mat' that gets created as a weed barrier

For the first time since 2018, we have some Cherry Blossoms in our yard.  And it is so nice to see them appear on our Kwanzan Flowering Cherry Tree that was inspired by my first trip to Tokyo .  Back in the Spring of 2017, I was able to see some of the famed Cherry Blossom trees in Japan and when I came back home, I sought out a tree.  I found one at Menards in May of 2017 .  We were in the midst of building our new house, so my plan was to plant it in our new backyard.    It was flowering when I bought it and the next Spring - May of 2018 - it flowered .  Last Spring - 2019 - it seemed like it wanted to flower , but it never did.  It wasn't alone - as our Saucer Magnolia and Rhododendrons didn't flower, either last year.    I posted a photo of some Winter damage on this tree in January of this year . And today?  It is starting to show some blossoms.  Less than ten so far, but I'm hopeful for a full tree of pretty pink blossoms.  They remind me of peony flowers - Nat

The last time I posted about a trio of Gold Cone Junipers in our yard was earlier this year when I wasn't sure if these things were totally dying or if they were just simply struggling to recover .  I was being proactive last year and wired them up to protect from snow damage and I believe now that I caused the damage myself with the bottom 1/2 or so browning out pretty hard . I was out in the backyard this week and it turns out that these Junipers are showing some signs of growth with their yellow (or...um....GOLD) tips growing out.  Last Summer, these things were beautifully bright, so I'm hopeful that they'll come back in some way and overcome the brown dead parts.    Right now, the signs are pointing up for new growth, but I'm not sure if I should be thinning out the dead stuff by hand to try to stimulate some new growth on the dead sections?