Why I Oughta...

I don't seem to have posted about these yellow perennials in our front yard, despite them being planted before we moved into our new house back in 2017.  We started with three.  All of them didn't make it that first year and were replaced.  Today?  Just one of those replacements is still alive.  The rest of them - which are situated underneath the large Maple tree - haven't come back.  The oldest post I can find that shows these is this one from 2018 when I can see two of the replacements still alive.  That Maple tree - which provides some shade for this remaining Bottle Rocket Spike Ligularia is the same one that I posted about having some stress in the canopy .  I also think have a theory that the Maple tree is competing for resources with everything within it's dripline and that's one of the reasons these Ligularia haven't fared well.  I've haven't posted any of these in the Garden Diary, but I did mention them in some of my backyard plannin

Back in April, I posted some photos of a handful of trees that appeared - at the time - to be late in terms of coming out of dormancy for the year .  They were a Chanticleer Pear tree that was planted on Earth Day 2018.  A small Red Valley Sun Maple planted the same day.  And a Crimson King Maple that I planted in 2017.  Something weird is happening with two of them.  And it is now happening with another tree. First, the bad news.  The Crimson King Maple appears to be lost.  I'll post about it separately.  But, let's look at the other three.  Here, below, is the Red Valley Sun Maple.  The top of the tree never broke bud.  And the limbs became dry and brittle.  But, this Summer, this growth shot out from the base of the trunk.    If the tree was healthy, I'd call these things "suckers". They sure look like "suckers", don't they? From this post,  suckers are normally a sign of stress : Suckers are a tree’s attempt to grow more bra

The story of our contorted tree starts with a trip to Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris back in the Summer of 2019 .  Nat and I spent a day there during our visit and we were both struck by the trees and foliage that the Imagineers planted and nurtured around their Haunted Mansion.  The queue is outdoor like at WDW, but it winds through a garden full of weeping and contorted trees and shrubs.  It gives off quite a look - one of decay, dying and ill-looking horticulture.  Based on that trip, I included the idea of buying a 'contorted tree' on my 2020 to-do list .  #13 on the list was to buy a weeping or contorted tree .  I suppose that I could have crossed that off my list when I bought the tiniest of tiny contorted trees online this Spring with my small Cortorted Hortsmann Recursive Larch .  But, I couldn't stop at one contorted tree.  So, when we were doing a "drive through" nursery run to the Growing Place during the early stages of Covid quarantine and s

I recently picked up this fern at Home Depot on a whim.  Had no intention of buying a fern, but as I was looking at the hostas, I saw it and thought....hmmm...that green fern is calling to me.  If you've been reading along over the years, you'll know two things: 1.  I'm a shade gardener. 2.  I love ferns. I have a few kinds, but it seems that the two that are consistently successful for me are:  Ostrich Ferns.  And I have one, ignored, but thriving Japanese Painted Fern .  I just recently transplanted ten (10) Ostrich Ferns that I've been calling "Survivor Ferns" from our fenceline to a spot on the plan that called for ferns.  I also have this other fern - that I call our " Teardown Fern " - which came from my sister-in-laws lot before she built her house.  I stuck it in the far back of our lot and it has been doing really quite well .  Ignored for the most part, too. This new fern - pictured above - kinda resembles that "Teardown Fer

We have two large Oak trees in our backyard.  One has a tree swing on it.  The other is located a little further back in the yard and is along the south property line.  That second one is the tree that I documented last Fall/Winter when it lost a good-sized limb in an ice storm .  I've just been referring to the trees as "Oak Trees", but since our visit to Waterfall Glen where we came across an Oak Tree identification sign , I wanted to see if I could get clarity on the actual varieties. First up is the south-side tree.  That photo at the top is a close-up of one of the leaves.  Note it has pointed lobes at the tips and the recesses that appear between each lobe aren't SUPER deep - like on the Hill's Oak.  And, looking at the sign, I think we can rule out the Shingle Oak for sure.  This *could* be a Black Oak, but I'm leaning toward calling it:  Northern Red Oak.   Next up - is the larger Oak with our tree swing.  Those leaves are quite a bit highe

I was at Home Depot a week or so back and and came across the tree above that stopped me in my tracks.  It is a beauty.  I looked a little closer and realized that what I was looking at was a Weeping Alaskan Cedar Tree.  The one I dreamed about in 2017 here on the blog .  And something that looks VERY different than the tree that I planted in 2018 and called a weeping cedar:  the Emerald Falls Himalayan Weeping Cedar .  That tree didn't make it through the first Winter , but that hasn't stopped me from thinking about it since then.  This past Winter, I posted another weeping cedar - a columnar variety called the Van Den Aker Narrow - and talked about how I'm drawn to this tree in both forms. The tag on the tree at Home Depot looks like this below.  It lists the tree as: Chamaecyparis - Weeping Alaskan Cedar and is listed at $99.  I'd say it is about six feet tall from the rootflare to the top tip.  The $99 price had me think twice about it - because I'

Number eight on my 2020 to-do list for the yard was to buy some fruit trees and plant them to start a Belgian Fence espalier.  Why a Belgian Fence?  Well, we already have a pair of Cordon'd Linen Trees in our yard, so I wanted to try a different form.  And, on our trips to Disneyland, I noticed that they have a number of Belgian Fences that served as inspiration .  And, on our trip to Luxembourg Gardens in Paris last Summer, we walked by their espalier garden a number of times and was struck by how they've worked their fruit trees a number of ways.  So, earlier this Winter/Spring, I identified the place that we'd plant them and then in April, I pulled the trigger and bought eight Apple trees .  By May, I had planted them 16" apart and lop'd off their heads .  Then I held my breath and hoped that we'd see some growth.  Turns out, the garden gods smiled on us and there was enough energy stored up in the rootballs and all of the trees have thrown off so