Why I Oughta...

 Last week, we were snapped back to reality with a heavy, wet snow.  False Spring had come and gone.  But, what remained after the snow fell were still some signs of Spring including these tulip starters that had come up from the mulch.  With the snow laying on top, it suddenly became VERY easy to figure out how many of these tulips were up and where they were located.  I suppose you can call that a silver lining, right?

There were more than ten large birds flying together in what you could call a boil . Or, a kettle or even a cast.  I missed much of them, but was able to whip out my phone quickly and snap these photos over our backyard on a recent afternoon.   No idea what type they are, but based on my bird feeder visits, I'm guessing this was likely a boil of Cooper's Hawks . The photo below shows seven of the (more than ten) hawks in the low-flying boil.

Last Fall, we went NUTS at the Morton Arboretum Fall plant sale.  Bought all sorts of stuff - some that made sense, some that didn't - base don our plan and priorities.   And, some of the decisions kind of landed in the middle.  They sorta made sense.  But sorta didn't.  One of THOSE was the trio of Twinkle Toes Lungworts that we bought and planted on the south side of the property .   Buying those didn't make sense because they're NOT in our plan.   But, buying them *did* make sense because of a few things:  they're blue.  And they grow and flower in deep shade - which we have tons of - and they flower in Spring - after Hellebores and before annual flowers show off.   After planting them, I mulched them initially with some wood chips and then left them alone.   There's some good news - in that it seems that all three are back this Spring.  Here's the little bit of green foliage that has emerged from the base of these plants: You can see the fuzz on the dea

Last year, we added a Harry Lauder Walking Stick tree to our backyard after seeing it a drive-thru buying experience at the Growing Place in Aurora.  We first saw - and fell in love - with this curving, interesting tree at Disneyland Paris outside of their Haunted Mansion (called Phantom Manor ) and knew then that we should buy one of these contorted trees.  Where we planted it ended up being close to the 'focal point' we were trying to design along with the apex of the 'nook' that will (eventually) hid the fire pit area.  The tree came with a bamboo pole that the tree was growing around and I pretty much just left it as is after planting.   But on a garden walk around recently, I noticed that the tree had begun to really grow AROUND that bamboo pole - especially down near the bottom.  So, I went ahead and tried to remove the pole, but it turned out harder than I expected.  After some sawing, cracking and twisting, I was able to remove the central bamboo pole.  But, no

Back at the end of February, I published my 25 point "to do" list for the yard and garden for 2021 .  In that list, I included what I called two "priority areas" as #1 and #2.  The item in spot #3 was to work the area between the two driveways. The first two priority areas are in the backyard, but this one is in the front yard and I didn't label it as a priority area before I published the list, so I'm not sure I can now.  Instead, let's just call this"Between Two Driveways".    I mentioned it yesterday as a potential location for some transplanted peonies. This is a long, narrow strip that was - up until last fall - just turf with a very small Bald Cypress and a troubled Chanticleer Pear tree .  Our neighbors directly to the north of us have recently built their new house and moved in this past Fall.  As part of their new construction, they added a new driveway that runs parallel to ours - thus creating this long strip of land.  The Bald Cypr

Starting all the way back in 2010 , I have documented the re-emergence of the pink peony tips as they peek out of the mulch in our flower beds.  When we lived in Elmhurst, our yard was MUCH smaller, but also it was full sun.  That meant that we could have quite a few peony plants that would throw off flowers that Nat could cut and bring inside.   Once we moved to Downers, peonies haven't been a focus.  And that's due to the shade garden we have in our yard.  We have a series of peonies that we've planted - including some teardown peonies, but none of them have ever flowered.   Here's one of them as they peeked thru this past weekend: Here are these same peonies in 2020 .  I think these are the 'teardown' ones, but I also planted some new ones as tubers back in 2018 .  Back in 2019, I did a roundup of all the peony plants on the property here and one of them even flowered ?!?  I don't remember that at all.   Well, I've been thinking that we either have

This is the third in a series of four posts based on the garden things that Nat brought home from Costco recently. The first one was a set of Frances Williams hosts for the backyard .  The second was two packs of Bressingham Blue hostas that are destined, too, for the backyard.   3rd post.  first two hostas.  Today is another shade-loving perennial that pairs well with hostas that we got started with last season.     And that would be astilbes.  Here's the bag of six Gloria Purpurea Astilbes (below): And, here's the back of the package showing a 20" spacing requirement and saying they get about 24" tall.   As I mentioned earlier, we started with Astilbes last year - buying 12 of them and planting them in June .  Timing was off and some of them suffered some transplant and drought stress, so I'm not certain how many made it, but it isn't all twelve. The area where we planted them - on the southside in front of some new Oak Leaf Hydrangeas - calls for 15 of t