Why I Oughta...

Over the years, we've tried different annuals in front of our boxwoods in our front yard bed.  Our first full year - in 2018 - we planted some Ranunculuses - about eight of them.  Last year - in 2019 - we planted 16 orange marigolds.  Neither set of those did very well.  The marigolds were better than the Ranunculuses, but they didn't spread and some did better than others.  When we started with this bed, it was about 2" of mulch and then backfilled clay.  Not a ton of organic material to deal with beyond the mulch.  Over the years, I dug up spots and added pelletized gypsum a few inches down in an attempt to loosen up the clay soils.  (speaking of which...I should probably add some gypsum to my lawn this Summer) and tried to amend the soil to improve the conditions. Last year, I used a bulb auger to dig out the holes for marigolds, planted them and covered with cocoa bean mulch.  I read somewhere that the BEST way to loosen up clay soils is to actually plant in them

When we moved in, we had three Hadspen hostas planted in our front landscape bed in front of the large Maple tree as part of our initial installation.  I've subsequently added some tulip bulbs to complement the boxwoods and hostas and have been laying down cocoa bean hull mulch over the years .   As part of buying some of the nursery stock for my Priority Area #2 , we acquired six Guacamole Hostas.  Three of them you can see in the photo at the top.  Obviously, this isn't in the backyard and isn't in Priority Area #2, but Nat has been commenting on our front yard and our need to add some additional plants.  I've placed these three Guacamole Hostas (they're big - and came from Hinsdale Nursery) alternating between the smaller Hadspen Blue hostas that are there already. Here's a wider view of the front bed including these three new Guacamole hostas placed. Three of the six are going to go in that front bed and that means that other three are destined f

That photo was taken in the area of what is known as Sunset Beach Park on Elizabeth Lake in Twin Lakes, Wisconsin.  I was out for an early-morning walk and the sky was painted purple and pink.  The Park is located on the West side of Elizabeth Lake (or...as I call it:  Elizabeth Lake) and has great views of the....ummmm....sunrise.  The location of the park is mentioned in this article about new playground equipment :  Sunset Beach Park is located on the Lake Elizabeth shore, at Sunset Drive east of Lakeshore Way. Here's an overhead look of the park (the red spot is the playground equipment) from Google Maps: It is located at the end of Sunset Drive.  You might be able to tell from that small photo of Google Maps that the lake is, ummm, EAST of Sunset Drive.  And to the EAST of Sunset Beach.  Here's a zoomed out view that shows you the orientation.  Note the red arrow point up for North.  The yellow circle is the position of the sun as it rises in the mornings.

This is an early June look at a pair of hydrangeas - on the left is the smaller Everlasting Revolution Hydrangea.  And on the right is our Tuff Stuff Hydrangea.  At the bottom of the photo are a couple of still-nursery-potted Fanal Astibles that I put on the soaker hose to keep from drying out. The last time I posted a photo of these two hydrangea was last September (2019) , when they were still green and happy.  They did NOT flower last year.  In terms of size, the Tuff Stuff is/was bigger in September - after a full season of growing - but not by much.  So, I'm hopeful that we'll see that one continue to grow up. Before that, I posted a photo of these two in August of 2018 . And right about two years ago, I posted photos of both the Everlasting Revolution (it was barely green) and the Tuff Stuff (has always been *ahead*).  They were planted in October of 2017 and were shipped to us by Nat's Mom as an anniversary gift.  They were small . That means, we had the

Yesterday, I posted a photo of a miniature hosta that I transplanted from the far back part of our yard to underneath the Oak tree swing trunk and mentioned that I was watching it to see if it was healthy enough to divide into multiple plants.  While I wait for that....I wanted to post about a few other hostas that were certainly *healthy enough* to divide.  You see them above in the photo.  These are all "teardown hostas" that I grabbed in the Fall of 2017 and was surprised in 2018 when they all emerged.  Hostas, are indeed, hearty perennials. This post shows the location in question and the landscape plan that was drafted :  it includes 4 Hadspen Hostas that wrap around the corner of our house.  If you look at the photo at the top of this post, you'll count five (5) hostas.  And...in the middle of that photo, you can see one of them is bigger than the rest. I'm thinking my plan is to dig out the two 'middle ones'.  That would be the largest one and t

My top backyard priority was to get the southern fenceline planted with a series of new perennials.  Back in February, I called it "Priority Area #1" and showed a schematic of what would go where.  You can go back to that post and see a photo with a sketch on top of it showing a "head-on" look at the area.  Below, you can see a portion of the landscape plan that was developed that shows the plantings here.  You'll note that it calls for bookend'd Summer Beauty Alliums, a series of Alice Oakleaf Hydrangeas and a strip of Fanal Astilbe up front.  On the far right, you'll also see the esaplier'd Lindens and they show something as "Existing", but I don't know what that is because there really wasn't anything in that spot when we built the house. That part of the plan calls for: 15 Fanal Astilbe 12 Summer Beauty Allium 7 Oakleaf Hydrangea I also posted about how I wanted to add a larger Canadian Hemlock tree or another co

Last year, I posted a photo of this transplanted miniature hosta that currently resides underneath the large Oak tree that hosts our tree swing and remarked that it had come back and wasn't getting trampled by the kids like it was when I had it planted in the far back. The hosta is quite a bit larger than last year as it seems to have had enough time to establish itself and now is spreading a little bit.  Once it gets large enough, this one deserves to be split up and spread around with a series of clumps living here. The photo above shows a couple of other things for context - the trunk of the Oak tree behind the hosta, the larger hosta in the top right showing the edge of the bed.  And what appears to be a tiny, (and new??) hosta leaf emerging on the far left.