Why I Oughta...

Earlier this month, I identified the Elijah Blue Fescue ornamental grasses that are planted in the IB2DWs bed were ready to divide.  One of them was suffering from 'center rot', while the other ones were just not performing.  Were they suriving?  Yeah...but not doing what I wanted them to do.  So, I've opted to include them in my annual 'Fall Dividing' program.   I started the  process with three Elijiah Blue Fescue clumps that I planted in April of 2022 .   I took the one with center rot and pulled it out: And, I pulled out the other two and divided them.   Here, below, is a look at the 'best' one of the bunch with a nice root ball: I used my Hori Hori to divide the clumps.  Like the Everillo sedges that I divided recently, it wasn't as easy as dividing grasses.  The root system is different and not-as-easily 'splitable'.   See below for a Elijah Blue Fescue grass divided in the Fall: I started with three and now I have six small Blue Fescue clu

#17 on my 2023 to-do list was to 'keep going with groundcover' and that's something that I've done in little pockets all season-long.  The idea of 'living mulch' along with the ability to buy LESS wood mulch is quite attractive to me.  Not to mention the increased competition with weeds, the 'reduction of footcandles' (as Roy Diblik puts it ) and the filling in spaces.  There's, frankly, a lot of reasons to like groundcover.   Last year, I added 20-or-so groundcover plants including some Ajuga and Carex. This year, I've looked at how well the Ajuga 'Chocolate Chip' has done and posted about my groundcover progress for 2023 .  Earlier this Summer -in early August - I ran a subtotal of my groundcover plantings for the 2023 season .  At that time, I totaled 30 new groundcover plants and plugs for 2023: 1  Epimedium warleyense  - Orange Queen Epimedium 3  Spine Tingler Epimedium 14  Ajuga Chocolate Chip 6  Ajuga Bronze Beauty 3  Carex Montana

Last month, I provided an update on some of the nursery stock that I've been growing from seeds and cuttings including a look at the (then) one-year-old Limelight Hydrangea that I have been growing from a cutting .   The small shrub has been putting on some size and has two primary trunks that have emerged from the cutting that now have more than eight sets of leaves growing up the (now) 12-inch-or-so shrub.  They were originally planted in a small one quart nursery pot - that you can see below. The roots were peeking out the bottom of the small container, so I figured it was time to upgrade this to a one-gallon pot.  See below for the roots that have emerged after one year in the quart container: Here, below, is the 'after' - the Limelight Hydrangea in its new one-gallon nursery pot that I've put back in the landscape to live out the rest of the growing season.  I'll do what I've done in the past - dig these in the ground an mulch them in - to overwinter.  My

Earlier this Summer, I posted a photo (with pride, mind you) of our container-planted Firesticks succulent plant that we've had for five years and talked about how it does well outdoors during the warmer months her in Zone 5b.   Well...a trip to Long Beach California quickly put me in my place with this massive, planted-in-mass Firesticks Cactus display outside of the Hilton Hotel near downtown.   It is flanking their circular driveway and spread across to raised beds.  Photos below: What's not to like about that?  Ombre-coloring from dark green at the bottom that transitions to yellow in the middle and orange at the tips.  Beautiful and a nice piece of [ garden inspiration ] to file away. 

I've been trying to get what everyone wants on their neo-Neapolitan pizzas - cooked outdoors, at high heat - leopard spotting.  On a recent bake, I achieved what is pretty close to it (at least for me) with these spotts on the pie below: My stretching game has improved quite a bit this past Summer thanks to an all-day class that I took at the North American Pizza and Culinary Academy in Lisle .   However, I continue to find what I call 'indoor' pizza more interesting; despite Nat and the kids all preferring these 'outdoor' pies each weekend. Full Pizza Parlance archive here .  Frico and Stunt Pizza are included.

Planted in late October 2021 , the set of three Green Gem Boxwoods planted in the backyard beds have continued to put on some size and seem to have established themselves enough to basically go on auto-pilot from here-on-out.  They were small one gallon plants from the Orange box store that were on the 50% off sale - coming in under $5 a piece.  They're smaller-scale boxwoods and were planted to provide some evergreen structure to a place that is mid-border that is mostly shade. What do they look like today?  Below is a photo showing the three of them that have filled out and grown quite a bit of mass in their two years: Compared to just February of this year, they've put on a bunch of growth this season .  Also, a reminder....that these didn't bronze much over last Winter - and is something that I can watch this year. The Summer Beauty alliums have begun to encroach on them at the top of the photo and the center of the planting is ripe for something to be tucked right in

Over the years, I've bought dozens of succulents and - without thinking about it - potted them up as container plants.  I mean...they're not hardy for our zone, right?   That's what I've sort-of thought.  On occassion, I'd come across something succulent-looking in a garden and sort of wonder:  why am I not growing those?  Sometimes they're sedums.  But...other times, I think they're something called Sempervivum.   The reason that I bring this up is that at the end-of-the-season sale at Lowes, one of the kids wanted to buy a Sempervivum 'Hopewell'.  It was 50% off $5, so for $2.50, we were going to get an experiment. I ended up planting it down IB2DWs - by the sidewalk in the 'hard to grow' area right near the Shenandoah red Switchgrass .  What is Sempervivum ‘Hopewell'?  Sempervivum ‘Hopewell’ is an historic garden plant with succulent foliage. It will form large, open rosettes of emerald-green leaves with leaf margins that turn maroon i