Why I Oughta...

Back at the end of April, I went on an early morning socially-distant Home Depot run and bought a tree with some birthday money that reminded me of Paris .  Yeah..Paris.  Despite it being named the London Plane Tree.  It was a tall tree on a 50% off deal that I jumped at.   This post shows the label for the tree that includes the name Platanus x acerfifolia .  I stared at this tree for a week as it sat on our patio before we finally planted it around mid-May.  It went in the ground a day or two BEFORE the super-late HARD frost that arrived and shocked everything ( including our ferns ).   This London Plane tree had some tender leaves that were emerging from the buds on the tree when that frost arrived.  And...I think it got hit.  Or...some combination of the hard frost AND the transplant shock hit the tree hard.  All of the little leaves went brown and turned pretty limp.  They didn't dry out and were still pliable, but something was certainly wrong.  Here's what thos

Back at the end of February of this year, I published my 2020 to-do list for our yard.  It included 25 items that I wanted to get done this year.  Based on publishing a post yesterday that checked off #15 on the list ( Sort (definitively) Walnuts from invasive trees in the backyard), I thought, it would be helpful to take a look at how I've done so far. We're about 100 days since I published the list. And, have 100 days until the middle of September when things start to to turn to Fall. Feels like a mid-way point of sorts. So, how am I doing? Here's the list (in slightly edited format from the original post ).  I've crossed off the ones that I have completed.  There are a few questionable ones. 1. Plant Area #1 (oak leaf hydrangeas). 2. Build the 'bridge' in Priority Area #2 - between the Hornbeams and Mighty Oak . 3. Get the walkway installed/spec'd in behind the Yews along with some other plantings . Or start it on the north side behind t

That's a look *up* from the ground through a young, skinny tree limb as well as a larger, more mature (and confirmed) Black Walnut tree.  The leaves, from a distance look similar.  Back last year, I mentioned that I wanted to try to identify if a couple of young trees were worth keeping or if I should remove them.  And, knowing that I wanted to hold myself accountable, I included it as #15 on my to-do list for the yard this year . After poking around on the web in various places , I think I've settled on this clear cut detail that I found on r/WhatIsThisPlant on Reddit :  Walnut tree leaves have no notches.  Tree of Heaven (an invasive tree), do.  From u/blacksheep998 : Ailanthus has a small notch at the base of it's leaflets. Black walnut leaflets, while slightly toothed, lacked that distinctive nub. So, that's first thing to check:  Does the little tree leaves have those 'thumbs' or notches?   *Looks closer*... Sure, enough.   Thumbs are pre

Back in the Spring of 2018, I planted a couple of ferns on the northside of our house, outside our screened porch in what is pretty deep shade.  One of them was a Japanese Painted Fern .  That's what you see at the top of this post.  It has come back this year and seems to have established itself despite me not paying a lick of attention to it over the past two years. After planting them, they suffered - through transplant shock + lack of attention.  But, they sprung back and showed some life at the end of their first season .    I had planted a hosta in between them that you can see in that post from September of 2018 . I caught this fern a year later - September of 2019 when it was happy and showing off it's green and purple fronds .  Today, it seems to be doing just fine in the shade.  The other fern that I planted two years ago?  I don't see it, unfortunately.  But, there are a few hostas that have joined this one that you can see below: In the photo above

This post is now two weeks in the coming.  It is being published in the first week of June, but the photo above is from Memorial Day weekend when I put down two bags of Milorganite on the front yard.  I applied to the main yard, the south side yard, the parkway and the strip of grass on north side of the driveway.  My 2020 scheduled called for Milorganite application to the yard on Memorial Day with five bags (2 in front, 3 in rear).  In the photo, you see only 2 bags - and that's because I only applied the fertilizer to the front yard.  Of note, though.... #9 on my 2020 to-do list was to work the turf - and apply the work that I have done on the main yard on the parkway and the north strip.  I've been cutting those other sections high - like my main yard - and now the fert application is continuing that trend of hitting #9 on my list.  Why not the backyard?  Well...I don't have the backyard automower wire set up, so I held off on the back application because I d

After seeing some Winter damage (and rabbit damage ) on some of our Hicks Upright yews that I planted last year, I was happy to see that the shrubs are showing off some growth this Spring.  All twelve (12) of these small yews have new, fresh Spring growth on the tips.  I planted these in mid-Summer of 2019 and baby'd them with a soaker hose. I stuck some of the Jobe's fertilizer spikes in near the northern-most shrubs in an attempt to see if they work.  If you recall, my goal is a wavy shrub like the one this post. I posted some photos of these yews in my garden walk-around earlier this Spring and gave them a heavy mulch.

A couple of days ago, I posted photos of the new growth on our tiny Canadian Hemlock trees .  Today is another conifer - the Weeping White Spruce tree that I planted last year.  It has put on some Spring growth, too.  The new, bright green tips are clearly visible in the image above.  On the far left of the photo in this post, you'll see one of the Summer Beauty Allium that we planted last month .  The last time that this tree was featured in a post in the [ garden diary ] was last Fall when it had not put on any new growth , but seemed to have gotten through the hot Summer.   It was coming in at 47" tall in November, but you can see some of the new growth is right.on.top, so it is a little taller today.  If you look back at the photos from May 2019 when I bought the tree , it had green tips, then, too.  In that post , you can also see what the mature tree will look like as it continues to climb upwards and stays columnar in form. One other note:  I sprayed this tre