Why I Oughta...

Just last week, I posted some details and photos of ferns that are peforming really well late in Summer and early Fall in our garden .  Those were Japanese Painted Ghost Ferns and Autumn Ferns.  I planted three Autumn Ferns - Dryopteris erythrosora - in May of 2021 and have watched them become standouts.   One of the things that I learned - by 'getting to know' these ferns is that they're semi-evergreen.  All the way until mid-December (2021) , I was able to see these ferns show up in the garden, well-past when everything else went dormant.    I liked them so much that I put the idea of adding more of these on my 2022 to-do list (#2)  and on my 2022 plant wish list .    Good news:  on a recent trip to the orange Big Box nursery, I found a set of six of these Autumn Ferns that were 50% off.  They're small to begin with (1.5 pint), so half-off made them $3 a piece.   Some photos below show these newly acquired Autumn Ferns.  First, a top-down look at the fronds.  Then, a

Our Disneyland Roses - which are Floribunda Roses - have a cyclical bud --> bloom cycle that hits a few times each growing season.  In late September, I'm seeing this cycle hit for what I think is the third time this season and what is usually the LAST of the bud--> bloom cycles.  The last time that I posted about the blooms was back in mid-June when they were looking great .   That was their first bloom cycle.  Sometime in early/mid August was cycle number two.  And, right now, we're at the beginning of cycle number three. See below for a couple of photos showing all three Disneyland Roses.  First are a pair that are closest to our backyard.  The one on the left is the OLDEST, but it was transplanted this past Spring, so it is the smallest .  You'll also note that the pair of espalier-in-training Sugar Tyme Crabapple trees behind the roses below: The third Floribunda rose is set about fifteen feet to the East - towards our front porch - on the other side of our base

Ten days in the life of a recently turned compost pile is an eternity.  At least, that's how it seems with my compost bins.  Ten or so days ago, I posted the details of how I emptied my compost bins (and tumbler) and refilled them with a proper mix of browns and greens along with some alfalfa cube accelerant .  At that time, the main, properly mixed bin was heaping.  By that, I mean I piled up the compost into a mound that extended well above the top of the fence panels on all sides and was mounded about 30" past the top of the panels in the very center.  Go here to have a look at the pile ten days ago . Thanks to active decomposition and gravity, the 'heaping pile' bin is now well under-control.  See below for an updated photo showing the edges of the bin have all sunk down and are now under the top of the fence panel edges.  And the center mound?  That's dropped by more than half, too.   We're getting close to the start of leaf collection season, so that mean

Four years.  That's how long it took for our Bald Cypress tree to go from a thin, wispy nursery pot tree to a mature-enough tree to bear fruit.  I bought this small tree at the orange Big Box Nursery back in September of 2018 .  I planted it in the IB2DWs section and followed Ralph Snodsmith's advice by giving it a " Five Dollar Hole " and hoped for the best.  By Fall of 2020 (two years after planting), we were seeing plenty of needle growth .  Same with a year later (September 2021) when the tree seemed to have 'leaped' up .   Just earlier this month, I captured the caliper dimension (6" from root flare) at 3.47" .  Up from 1.21" in February of 2020 .   This tree is CLEARLY at the head of the class in terms of all of the plantings we've made of small trees.  It is growing tall and wide .  And is likely getting ready for the first real limb'ing up of the tree as it begins to encroach on driveways.  (remember...it is located IB2DWs after

Ten days ago, I posted a couple of photos a new (to me) project of trying to grow hydrangeas from cuttings .  I tried two different culitvars (Limelight and Strawberry Vanilla) at the time and frankly...I wasn't sure if what I was doing was going to work and/or if it was going to be too late in the growing season to even attempt these. I still don't have the answer to the second question (is it too late?), but I do have a mixed-results answer to how they would do.  That answer?  The Limelight seems to have transitioned from cutting to (potentially) rooted.  The Vanilla Strawberry cutting?  Not so much. Here, below, is the limelight cutting.  The most critical thing to note?  The new, lighter color leaves at the center.  These new leaves are a sign that this cutting has managed to 'take hold': The larger leaves are cut.  And that's on purpose.  I trimmed them in half as a way to try to help the little cutting survive.  Some plantsmen call them 'solar panels'

I've long talked about how my favorite garden plant family are ferns.  Hostas are a close second.  Why?  Because my Mom was a shade gardener who toiled in her garden over the years with hostas .  Our backyard is mostly shade, so like my mother...I, too, am a shade gardener.  That means finding things that work well in shade and/or part shade.  That has lead me to lists like this that talk about various things that work well in shade like heucheras , lungwort and...of course ferns and hostas.  Over the years, I've planted various ferns in our gardens, but my first fern love was the Ostrich Fern .  I've had them in our garden in Elmhurst, brought a couple to my sister & Equation Boy's house (when we lived there) and have them here in Downers .  And, while they're really great ferns, they start to look a little ragged as the growing season goes on.  But, on a recent walk around the garden, I've noticed that a couple of varieties of ferns are looking REALLY goo

Late last season, I planted six small upright Hicks Yews in a little row about half-way back in the southside bed of the backyard .  My thought was that I was going to to try to bring a little bit of repetition to the landscape by trying to mirror or repeat the Hicks Yew hedge that I've been growing along the back of our property.   They all seemed to have done just fine this season, but earlier this Spring, I undertook a shrub project that involved relocating the four Lilacs from this area and replacing them with three Green Giant Thujas.  If you look at this post showing the planting of the Thujas , you can see the six small Hicks Yews.  In that post, I talked about how I needed to relocate some of these Yews and with the temperatures dropping, I was finally able to get around to starting that relocation.  Below, you can see one of the Green Giant Thujas and a hole in the mulch directly in front of it where I dug the Yew out of as it was a pretty tight fit. I decided to keep it