Why I Oughta...

 A couple of weeks back, I posted a photo of a pretty unique hosta - called Praying Hands - that I bought at the Morton Arboretum Fall Plant Sale.  Praying Hands is 'unlike any other hosta' and was named "Hosta of the Year in 2011".  When I bought it, I wasn't sure where I was going to plant it, but new it needed shade and I wanted to put it in the spot where I could enjoy it.  I thought about planting it close to our house.  In this post showing off our Linden Cordon Espalier trees , you can see that I was thinking of planting it beneath those trees.   In fact, I did a 'shade study' of that location.  Here, below, is a photo from 1 pm when I was trying to see if the spot stayed in shade during the middle of the day.  You can see that it is, indeed, in the shade.  But, I'm pretty sure that the sun is in a lot lower spot (already) than it is during the heat of the Summer.  So, while the Lindens are in shade in September....I'm not sure they are in

 Yesterday, I posted how I planted 57 new tulip bulbs (yellow, orange and white ones) in our front yard bed outside of our front porch.  The yellow was added to balance the color, the orange was planted to bring the count of orange ones up to par and I added a little white - just because.  Today, I'm sharing the rest of the tulip bulbs that I picked up for the backyard.  I decided to go with a purple and yellow (and a little white) color combination for the backyard.  In doing a little bit of digging around, I've found that tulips and hostas are good companion plants.  I've (mostly) planted my hostas in shaded areas - shaded by decidious trees that gain their leaves in Spring - and the tulips will come out early and the hostas, when they emerge, will hide the declining foliage of the tulips.   In late June, I dug up, divided and transplanted about a dozen variegated hostas in and around the large 31" Red Oak tree in our backyard .   First is 30 Queen of Night Single L

  Over the weekend, I planted these 57 tulip bulbs in the front bed - underneath the Norway Maple tree outside of our front porch.  This post shows the location of the current tulips from this Spring.  The important bulbs to note in this post are the yellow ones in the middle.  If you recall this post from back in May of 2019, I mentioned how Amy @ Pretty Purple Door said that adding yellow will balance out the red/orange combo .   The tulips that I added are: 28 Yokohama Single Early Yellow Tulips . 15 Darwin Oxford Elite Orange Tulips .  These remind me of the Disneyland Rose. And 14 white (first time adding white to this bed) Purissima (Emperor) Tulips . I originally planted 50 tulip bulbs in this bed.  30 pink/red Crystal Beauty bulbs.  And 20 orange Double Princess tulips. The counts now are: 25 red/pink bulbs 35 orange bulbs 28 yellow bulbs 14 white bulbs 107 total bulbs planted.  But, I know not all of them are still there - due to critters digging things up and seeing some of

  The last time I posted a photo in the garden diary of these four boxwoods was 11 months ago in October of 2019 when I showed off some new growth from the season.  The photo above shows even more growth this year as they've started to fill in the gaps.  I planted these in Fall of 2017 and they were small.  I shaped them in Spring of 2019 - which was the last time they had a haircut.  And that's because I found this boxwood hedge at the entrance to Fedex's Worldwide Headquarters campus down in Memphis where they have an amazing, wavy block of boxwoods.   I don't own hedge trimmers, but Martha Stewart has been pushing these battery-operated handheld ones from Stihl.   View this post on Instagram @stihlusa @stihl makes this little super battery powerful tool for giving haircuts to overgrown soft patches like lawn edges, herbs, lettuces, even spinach and mache. And change the blade and it trims woody shrubs like boxwood and privet. Versatile. Useful

Earlier this year, I posted a photo showing some of the canopy deterioration of the Norway Maple in our front yard - right outside of our front porch.  The tree seems to be suffering from some damage due to construction and digging around the roots.  We specifically moved the house back to save this tree, so seeing the parts of the tree going dead has me concerned.  Then in August, I posted a photo of a large limb that went down during the Derecho storm .  So, it was time to call in the experts.   I had an arborist from Davey come out and give us a plan to help this tree.  And one in the back.  It includes a pruning in late Fall/early Winter once the tree has shed all of it's leaves.  But, it also includes a three year growth regulator treatment.   In the photo below, you can see the technician boring holes in and around the base of the tree where he was set to apply the growth regulator called Cambistat .   He mixed up a container for our front yard Norway Maple (21") and o

 On a recent day, we were poking around the Morton Arboretum when we pulled over and got the kids out at the Spruce Plot.  It was empty and we had the whole place to ourselves.  I still remember the first time that I went to the Arboretum and walked in the Spruce Plot.  It was a magical experience.  It is hard to NOT smile when you walk in there.  And...having been there many times since, it is magical still. The Morton Arboretum site describes it as having a 'quite mystery': The quiet mystery of the spruce plot at The Morton Arboretum will make you feel as if you were hiking in the forests of Norway and Romania.

We have no blue flowering plants in our yard - so when we came across a full shade, blue-flowering perennial at the Fall Plant Sale - Nat said that we had to buy them.  These are NOT on my plan, but since they're Full Shade, they can go just about anywhere.   We bought three of these (and one more for Nat's Mom) for our backyard.   Walter's Garden describes these as being complimentary to hostas and ferns:  This beautiful shade perennial will make you dance with its impressive spring flowers and unique foliage. Starting in mid-spring shortly after Hellebores are finished booming, dainty light periwinkle blue flowers cover a low, mounded habit. After the flowers fade, you can enjoy its dark green leaves that are lightly sprinkled with silver. This plant will thrive in part shade to full shade as long as you provide moisture. Pulmonaria is an underused perennial that grows well in shady gardens. It is especially attractive when planted among hostas, ferns, and brunneras. Its