Why I Oughta...

One of the great joys of keeping a garden journal or garden diary is that it allows you to see how much you've changed over the years.  The changes happen with growth and die-back of the plants, but also in your tastes and preferences of plant materials.  That's certainly happened to me as I've gotten to know trees and plants and both what works and what doesn't.  But also, what is the *right* plant (natives, drought-tolerant) and what might be the *wrong* plant (invasive or short-lived).   Take for instance the flowering pear tree.  When I started, I was so excited and proud to plant a small, $5 Cleveland Pear tree in our old yard.  It thrived .  So much so, that I bought even more of them.  Little did I know (at the time) that they're both NOT great trees in terms of longevity, but also...if you get the wrong variety...they're invasive.   I even went so far as to plant a couple at our new house when we moved.  Would I plant those today?  I don't think so. 

One of the plants that I picked up at this past year's Morton Arboretum Plant Sale - BUT failed to post about when I planted - was this decidious shrub called a Spice Bush (Lindera benzoin).  I tucked it in back by the fire pit and mostly forgot about it.  Below is a snapshot of the sign from the sale that I took back in April and you can see that it has a Forsythia with yellow Spring flowers.   Below is the plant tag showing that it will grow up to be 6-12 feet tall and 6-12 feet wide.  And will handle partial shade: Below is a photo showing what it looked like when we brought it home with green leaves on woody stems.  It was about 15" tall from the soil-level. This was, clearly, not on the plan.  But, we still bought it, on a whim. The REAL reason that we bought it was that the lady at the sale told us about the Spice Bush Swallowtail, a butterfly, that relies on this plant during the caterpillar stage .  What's not to like about that, right?   Helps us continue to meet

The end of the year came-and-went and I failed to mark the closing of another chapter in daily blog posting here in my online diary.  If you look at the full archives over on the left rail, you'll see that I published 365 posts in 2022 - one for each and every day.   I've written similar recap posts over the year, including last year .  2022 marks the eighth straight year that I hit 365 posts.  One everyday since 2015.   With the first part of 2023 already behind me, it is wild to think that I'm now in my 19th calendar year of posting to this blog.   I did a quick look and it appears that I wrote 307 of the 365 posts (84%) using the [ garden diary ] tag - up from 260 out of 365 (70%) posts in 2021.      Posting here on my own little blog has been something that I have enjoyed doing - creating, writing and publishing - in a venue of my own.  With all the uncertainty around the Web and in particular (some people's feelings about) Twitter, there feels like there is a sligh

Posting a photo here in the tree diary to show that the young London Plane Tree that I planted in Spring 2020 is exhibiting some Winter foliar marcescence with a series of brown, dry leaves clinging to the branches.   This tree - the Grampy tree ( because I used some $$$ from him for my birthday to buy ) was planted in the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 .  After a brief period of transplant-stress, the tree seemed to get on just fine.  This past season, I was able to water this due to it being inside the footprint of some of the 2022-planted Green Giant Thujas - so it seemed to be in a fine spot with growth.  However...this is the first year that I've really noticed - or documented - the tree holding on to some dead leaves.  See below for a photo of the tree in early January 2023: Seeing this tree cling to some of the leaves is a good note for the tree diary - and something that is going to cause me to look over the rest of these trees - including the one I recently planted in

Starting in the Fall of 2021, I started to collect almost a full five-gallon bucket full of Black Walnuts that were falling from our Black Walnut trees in the backyard.  The goal - with that collection - was to try to make some home-brewed Black Walnut stain.  I ended up making a batch and gave it away for Christmas in 2021 .  I wanted to try the process again this past Fall, so I was out there - in the backyard - picking up the Black Walnuts all Fall.  And started to fill the same five-gallon bucket.   That was a once-or-so-per week activity of pickup up a couple handful of green balls and dropping them in a bucket.  I topped the bucket with another bucket with holes - so it would breath.  And left it out in the landscape.   Then, winter came.  And I never did anything with the walnuts.  No stain-making.   I was out back splitting some Norway Maple firewood and noticed the bucket.  I lifted the lid to see that it is loaded with walnuts.  Rotting walnuts.  Or, at least...rotting husks.

Earlier this year, in the 'scorecard' post of my 2022 garden to-do list, I marked the 'upgrade my garden tools' item as 'complete' and mentioned that I was set to explain that with a new tool that I received as a Christmas gift.  This post...is paying off that item - and showing a new Dutch push-pull diamond-shaped garden hoe with p-grip.  This one is from DeWit Garden tools and features a 84" wooden handle - with that p-grip that you can see in the first photo: Below is a look at the diamond-cutting head of this long, push/pull hoe: Below is the product label that lists this as: DeWit Dutch Diamond Push/Pull Hoe with Ash Handle - 1700mm.   And, finally, below you can see the DeWit logo on the metal head that connects to the ash wooden long handle: This is the second wood-handled garden tool that I have - with the first one being a Sneeboer garden hoe .  In that post, I mentioned that I've been thinking about this very push/pull hoe based on the recomm

This past season, I finally figured out that our backyard was infested with a warm-season grass/weed called Nimblewill and came up with a plan to treat it in place while not doing a full cool-season grass renovation.  That started with using a post-emergent spray called Tenacity  - which caused the Nimblewill to white-out and die .   Once that ran its course, I then began a project using a pre-germination seed technique followed by a project to overseed the lawn with a mix of Kentucky Blue Grass and Tall Fescue .  Which...after some watering... resulted in a bunch of new germination . And, while I was happy with the result in the Fall with new, green grass filling in plenty of bare spots, I knew the real, important results, would be visible once the lawn went totally dormant.  That's because, the Nimblewill is a warm-season grass and totally dies back once the temperature drops.  Which, historically have left us with a bunch of bare spots in the lawn and other areas with white,