Why I Oughta...

Over the years, I've posted about various places that I've found gardening inspiration around the world.  There's the big one - Luxembourg Gardens in Paris - that maybe had the BIGGEST impact on me.  But there's also all of the things I've taken in around Japan including the pretty great Gotenyama Garden and all of their street trees . And, the boxwood hedges outside of the FedEx HQ that have an almost cloud-like form . And the Jacques Wirtz hedges that I've never seen in real life, but love online .  The fountain/pond at the cut flower garden inside the Morton Arboretum .   And, of course, there's Disney Parks. I've posted about their roses, trees and plants many times .  And I've added Disneyland Roses and a Belgian Fence espalier based on what I picked up there.   One of the things that I recently noticed was the color combinations in some of their annual beds.  Let's start with this bed showing off a really great Pooh Bear topiary (he's

Yesterday, I got started planting.  With the big Elephant Ears bulbs that I tucked into some containers and a trial in a bed.   Today, I'm posting about how I made my first move with the bare root perennials from Costco - planting some of the Bresshingham Blue hostas .   In that post from March, I wondered where to put all of the hostas. Here (below) are a few of the places that I mentioned back in March of places I could tuck them in.  And...called out with the red arrow - where I started my planting this year:  on the corner of the screened porch:  Our plan calls for Blue Hostas (Hadspens) paired here on the corner of the house: Here (in the photo below) are the tips of the two bareroot hostas that I tucked in around the drain pipe below.  I'll keep an eye on these to see if they mature enough this year to put on a show:

I've adopted the approach to limit feeding my lawn until May.  Why?  Because I want to avoid having to cut the lawn more than I need to in Spring.  That means that all during March and April, when the big box stores are pushing their various Step 1 programs and I see all the fertilizer on pallets, I don't apply it to my lawn.   I feed late in the season (Thanksgiving time) and know that my lawn greens up on it's own in April.  And, like I said....I don't want to have to start cutting it just yet.   Last year I published my lawn care schedule .  In that post, I include a few April items that aren't feeding the lawn like Humic Acid and Lime (soil conditioners) as well as using Ironite in the front to get that dark green look (without ALL THE GROWTH).   I'm posting this on April 24, but that bag of Ironite you see in this post went down on April 18th.  I put it on the full front yard - main yard, parkway and 'in between two driveways'.  5K square feet. Note

One of the trends that I'm really enjoying in Disney Parks is the additional of some restaurant-specific Disney Parks ephemera in the shape of custom coasters.  I've documented a few of these over the years here on the blog as part of the Coaster Collection .   The last Disney one that I posted was back in 2019 when I shared one from Aulani .   This post is about some coasters from Oga's Cantina in the Black Spire Outpost on the Out Rim planet of Batuu.  Or, you could say it is located in the Star Wars Land inside of Disney's Hollywood Studios in Florida.  Either way, you'd be right.  And, if you're interested, check out the full story on the place here on the Wookiepedia .   As for the rest of the Disney-related coasters in the collection, here's the rundown of the (now) 13 kinds 1 . The full Disney list includes: 1. The standard one you see in your rooms @ Walt Disney World resort hotels . 2. This black and white one from the original Disneyland Resort Ho

Here I was...thinking I'm writing a post that is going to knock a HUGE item off my 2021 to-do list in the yard.  But, when I went to go look up what number "cutting new, larger curvilinear beds" was on the list...imagine my disappointment that it isn't one of the 25 things.  Womp, womp.   But, it is still a big deal for me and a big milestone for the yard.   First, a review of a few things:  Starting with curvilinear bed design .  I covered where I wanted to go with our bed layout and how we had a bunch of "little" curves/bumps in our current beds - while the ideal state is very few, larger, swooping edges.  As Sue from Not Another Gardening Blog pointed out, these big, swooping curves are hard to pull off . I went through three colors of spray paint trying to get the curves right.  And, I think I got them like 90% there - with just a little bit of cleanup having to come in the next few seasons.   Second:  a note about the "order of operations" I

I've planted Elephant Ear bulbs in some of our patio containers over the years including in 2018 and 2019 with middling success.  I've been drawn to them for their large leaves and tropical feel - as well as their seemingly limited maintenance needs.  A little water and they figure it out on their own. So, when Nat brought home some hostas and purple astilbes from Costco in March, she also grabbed this bag of nine Esculenta Elephant Ear bulbs.   As I've found in the past, not all of the bulbs in the bag are viable.  I always find a few that have rotted out.  This year was not different.  But, I still ended up having more Elephant Ear bulbs that I really needed.   I started by planting one in the wooden patio planter box.  Here it is in the corner: And, I have a couple of wine barrel planters that are scattered in the landscape that I stuck a viable bulb and some of the rotten ones in.  Who knows, right?  Maybe they'll make it?  Here's one of them in the wine bar

Back in early March, I transplanted our original Disneyland Rose from our backyard to our sideyard where it joined the pair of other Disneyland Roses which are thriving in a sunny spot along the house.  I had never moved a rose before, so I read up on when/how to make the move and tried to follow the best practices:  pre-dug the destination hole, timed it before the bush came out of dormancy and waited to prune it back until a few weeks AFTER the transplant.   This week, I went over to check on all of the Disneyland Roses (and to confirm the potential location for a pair of espalier'd trees along the house there ) and wanted to see the difference between the three floribunda roses.   The pair of Disneyland Roses that were there pre-transplant were put in the ground in Fall 2018 .  And, I mostly neglected them.  Despite the lack of attention, they thrived and flowered.  And this past Winter, I tried to protect and overwinter them with a ring of leaf mulch .  Seemed to work.  The th