Why I Oughta...

I somehow (somehow!) have really failed to post about my visit(s) - yes...multiple visits this year - to Northwind Perennial Farm in Wisconsin.  Home nursery to Roy Diblik - who I've posted about before here on the blog.  I have a tag up for the place, but when I was taking about some hostas this past week, I mentioned that I planted some Japanese Forest Grasses - Hakonechloa Macra Hakone Grass - and realized I never got around to posting some photos of those visits.   Well, today, I correct that miss. Starting with a photo of a display of something people call Scottish Lovage - but is exclusive to Northwind in Wisconsin.  That photo is below - showing off a couple dozen 1# containers of Ligusticum scoticum.   The sign reads:  "Compact, upright, clump-forming perennial.  Glossy leaves with umbels of tiny, white flowers.  Beautiful seed heads." The second sign provides the pedigree:  "This plant is highly regarded at the Chicago Art Institute.  Northwind is the only

I was walking around the front beds and - once again - I'm struck by how I've had not a lot of luck with anything I've planted underneath our large Norway Maple tree that sits right outside of our front porch.  This large tree is in decline - likely due to the construction we had when we built our house in 2016 and 2017.  I've tried to attack *that* problem by having the arborists from Davey apply a growth regulator and a liquid fertilizer last year.  And, I'm hoping that the tree is on a path towards survival.  They'll come back this year to apply a second year of fertilizer - that I'm pretty sure (based on these photos) is working .   This year though, I lost a mature hydrangea - a Vanilla Strawberry (one of four out front) and my Lime Light Hydrangeas suffered some this year - and dropped a lot of their leaves in the middle of the Summer .  Here, below, is a top-down photo showing the dead hydrangea (very bottom, middle) and the proximity to the Norway Ma

When I put together my 2021 to-do list , I included as #3 the idea of working the 'in between two driveways' area.  I mentioned that I needed to add a layer of mulch and think about doing even more.  I did some of that - mulched AND added a trio of Serendipity Allium to the bed .  And, the Chanticleer Pear Tree (after some hard pruning) seems to be on track.  (I'm not sure that's a good thing...but that's for another day.) But that's the extent of the work over there so far. Revisiting what I wrote back in late February about this area, I mentioned doing more: Later on (after I published my list), I wrote a post expounding on this area and even had some thinking about the area and converting it from turf grass .  But, I never got around to doing that very thing. Why post about it now?  Because, after a hard Summer of sun beating down on it, I am reminded why this area is so problematic.  See below for what it looks like right now:  Hard, dry, brittle and brown. 

Right at the end of August, I shared a photo of some of the bare root hostas - Bressingham Blue hostas - that I planted this year in a new bed.  Seven of the eight made it and have emerged this year.  Right around the same time, I planted nine Frances Williams hostas in a different (new) bed.  Frances Williams are variegated and have a yellow margin - so I put the bare root plantings in the bed with my other variegated hostas .  I planted these before anything else emerged.  And, I'll say that *these* were VERY.SLOW to emerge from the ground.  Here's the place they went in the ground in April .  So, how are we looking on those nine plants now? Here, below, is a look at the plantings from two different angles: And, here, below, is an annotated version of one of the photos showing - by my count- eight of the nine have worked out. Now...it MIGHT be nine for nine.   And that's because the plant in the circle farthest to the top/right has what is actually three little hostas e

The last time I posted an update on our Mickey Mouse (standing) topiary was back in late July of this Summer .  I had just recently moved it outside to our back patio and the Creeping Fig Vine that I had planted on it was doing well and growing to cover part of the frame.  We brought home the frame from this Spring's Epcot Flower and Garden Festival and I bought the balance of the supplies online .  That look back in July was at about the 3 month mark .   Today, marks the five month mark since stuffing, wiring and planting the topiary.  And we're seeing quite a bit more coverage with the Creeping Fig Vine seeming to have established itself and would around the front and back of the frame.   Here, below, is the front of the Mickey Mouse topiary after about 150 days.  The vine - planted in the 'heart' has covered a lot of his belly, some of his face and some of one of his ears. Below, you can see a photo of the back of the topiary.  I just started to train some of the vin

Earlier this Spring, I came across some Kentucky Coffee Tree seed pods at a park by Downers Grove South and began the journey of getting them to sprout and grow into tiny tree seedlings.  I posted about that process (cracking up the pods, soaking the seeds, planting them, etc) back in June here . Over the past 70 days, I've kept them alive in their little nursery stock containers and have watered them (enough) to get the little trees to grow.  In the photo above, you can see my tray of little Kentucky Coffee Trees.  And one little Maple seedling.   In total, there are five containers of Kentucky Coffee tree seedlings with to little trees in each one - ten total trees.  (And that one Maple).  Below, is a look at one of the containers showing the pair of seedlings.  As a milestone, the trunks of these are NOW woody.  No longer green - or red like the leaflets.  If you look closely, you'll see that the trunk has a TINY bit of 'turned wood' on it - near the top.  Meaning, t

We have had an interesting growing season in terms of precipitation in our zone - USDA growing Zone 5b - in Northern Illinois.  I say 'interesting' because the Illinois State Climatologist has posted over the Summer on their blog and talk about a dry Spring/early Summer followed by a really wet period.  A few callouts from that post:     The first two-thirds of June was very dry across Illinois (Figure 5). In fact, the period between June 1 and 20 was the sixth and seventh driest on record in the northwest and northeast Illinois climate divisions, respectively. But... Due to the very wet last 7 to 10 days of the month, June ended wetter than average in all but the northwest and southwest climate divisions, and it was the sixth wettest on record in the east-central division. That 'really wet' period was great.  But, it was followed by another very dry period.  If you look at the US Drought Monitor from late August , you can see that our county (DuPage County) is in the