Why I Oughta...

It was just six-or-so weeks ago that I planted three small, bareroot Disneyland Roses in our front porch beds .  I wasn't expecting much out of these in their first season.  When they arrived, they were, indeed, bareroot.  But, they were also pretty bare in terms of foliage.  Two of the Floribunda roses that arrived via UPS showed some tiny, yellow flowers.  I applied some rooting compound, buried them deep - per the instructions I found - and hoped for the best. I was assuming that I'd see mostly foliage growth this first year.  Something like 60% below-ground growth (roots) and 40% above-ground growth (leaves).  But, to my surprise, I'm seeing blooms.  See below for a look at one of the new Disneyland Roses.    I've stuck to a feeding schedule - once per month - with a granular rose food.  And, this soil was amended pretty heavily last Fall with a mix of 10 bags of composted manure and 4 bags of mushroom compost .  Along with a heavy dose of municipal biosolids this

Last week, I posted some photos and details of how we added another Japanese Maple - Acer palmatum dissectum Waterfall - to our backyard .  That was the third (current) JM and the second small one we planted this season.  Earlier this Spring, I bought and planted a 2# Emperor 1 JM from the orange big box nursery and put it in a spot that we can enjoy from the patio.  I've had luck with a different Emperor 1 JM, so I wanted to go with something that I knew worked in our yard. On one of my visits to Home Depot, I wandered around the parking lot nursery (as one does during June) and noticed that mixed in with the small Emperor 1 Japanese Maples in 2# containers was something different.  There were small trees in there that, while they were red-leafed, were certainly NOT Emperor 1's.  They were lace-leafed dissectums - at first sight.  Here, below, is what the foliage looked like on these small trees: Well...that's interesting, right?  I picked up the container to look at the

There are big portions of our back lawn that currently look like this photo below - littered in white, tropical-looking blooms that are falling from a pair of mature Northern Catalpa trees that we inherited in our Zone 5B, Northern Illinois backyard: Below is a look at the mid-yard Northern Catalpa tree that is fully-leaf'd out and full of white blooms: Both Nat and I have grown to really like the Catalpa trees - and their large leaves, white blooms and layered limbs.   I've posted about the Catalpas before - here's one from Fall 2021 .  And from 2019 when I posted about it for the first time .  And, I've been growing some seedlings in containers , too.  More on these in a future post.  

In May, I planted my third Japanese Maple tree - a small, container-grown Emperor 1 Acer palmatum that is upright and carries red foliage.  In that post, I mentioned that while it was the third Japanese Maple that I planted, I had lost one - a Tamukeyama weeping tree- so, I was really on number two.  Today, I'm planting another Japanese Maple that checks some of the boxes:  weeping and lace-leaf.  But, it is also green.  My first green Japanese Maple.   Back in December, I mused about how I should add a 'few Japanese Maples' to the garden this year .  Going from one to three is 'a few', I suppose.  But, I'll let the cat out of the bag - I'm not done this year.  (eek!). That post from 2022 referenced this original overview (get to know) post showing a few Japanese Maples that work for Zone 5b .  On that list was a tree called a Virdis Japanese Maple.  Well... according to Mr. Maple , the Virdis is also known as the Waterfall Japanese Maple.  From Mr. Maple

On Monday, I posted about adding a series of perennials to our front porch beds - including Autumn Moor Grasses and eight Summer Beauty Alliums that are in front of some small Green Velvet Boxwoods (that I planted last month).   As I was planting those, I realized that the edge of the bed has crept-in and I needed to cut the grass that had been growing in there - out.   I've been thinking about the extension of the curved portion of the bed (where the Norway Maple tree *was* and have been musing about how to use some dry-stacked stone there and/or how the bed can be extended down the property line to (eventually) connect with the small, circular bed around the Saucer Magnolia.   But, for now....I decided to just simply clean the bed edge up and extend it out - just a little bit.  Here, below, is the 'after' - a natural edge like this makes the bed look that much more polished.  That (above) is the after.  Here, below is the 'before'.  Quite a change, right?  The Fr

A few towns over, we have a landscape supply place that is open-to-the-public and offers some of their bulk items like mulch and stone on a 'you fill' basis.  That means that you bring your own buckets and shovel and they sell it to you by the gallon.  NOT by the weight.  Well...I sort of guess that they've priced it 'by weight', but they sell it by the gallon.  They want you to bring in five-gallon buckets as that's the easiest way to go.   We have a short sideyard path and our firepit ring filled with Bluestone Chips that we installed in Summer 2021 that have worked out well for us in both spots.  But, when I installed them, I used whatever Bluestone chips that we had on hand - I made one order.  So, I spread them a little thin because I wanted to fill in both spots (path + firepit) to make both viable.   Part of my 2023 to-to list was to keep upgrading the firepit area and in that post, I mentioned adding some new Bluestone chips to the firepit ring would

If you buy strawberry plants once, you'll have strawberries for years, they say.  We started with container-grown bareroot strawberry plants in 2018 .  And, guess what?  They ESCAPED.  Now, we have Strawberry groundcover in one of our beds.   Back in 2019 - I called them 'volunteer' strawberries and thought it was cute.  But, they they spread.  And spread.  I ripped some out.  They came back.  I ripped out more.  They came back . But, we haven't eaten any of the strawberries in the years since they grew in 2019.  2020, 2021, 2022 were all strawberry-free years.  Why?  Well...we did *grow* strawberries.  But, they were gobbled up by the critters.  This year, however is different. In addition to leaving the strawberry groundcover in place, I also dug out eight plants and put them in our vertical Greenstalk tower.  After a period of transplant shock, they stabilized and began to throw off strawberries. Between the two spots, I started to see some 'red' peeking thro