The main drag through our neighborhood is lined with Bradford pear trees and it's beautiful when in flower. Stinky, like dead fish, but pretty if you can get past the odor. Unfortunately, they are our neighborhood's harbingers of Spring. The trees were planted approximately 18 years ago and I'm guessing were bought for a song by the developer. They're common and it's always concerned me. Even more so now that my neighbor's gorgeous pear trees in her front garden have succumbed to fire blight and will have to be removed. Their invasive nature has landed them on the Illinois Invasive Plant List. In other words, choose something other than a pear. Ironically, the callery pear (Pyrus calleryana), from which the Bradford originates, was brought over from China in an attempt to thwart fire ...
Search Results for: trees
Easy Plant Tag Organization for the Not-So-Organized
Plant tags have a way of accumulating like laundry, Japanese beetles and chin hair. All must be dealt with, but I'd rather deal with the tag thing. Winter is the time of year I attempt to organize the chaos I created indoors while creating last year's garden. There's nothing else garden-related to do besides organize and dream of the plethora of plants that will find their way into the garden. They will inevitably come with more tags which I'll deal with next year. So for now, I'm working on plant tags from 2019. It's during the growing season that these end up everywhere. My workbench, coat pockets, kitchen countertop, bathroom vanity. You name it, it probably has a tag on it. For the longest time, before I finally decided to corral the plant tags into some kind of order, they simply ...
A Traffic Stopping Front Yard Garden
In all my garden scouting, I very rarely saw front yard gardens. Most had the typical smattering of evergreens and deciduous trees, but few relied on perennials to carry a design. Oftentimes, front yard gardens are like mullets - business in the front, party in the back. Fortunately, the figurative garden mullet is much more appealing than the actual hairstyle. Homeowners often save the good stuff for the backyard or more intimate spaces not observable from the street. What a treat it was to experience a true front yard garden where the homeowner let it all hang out! In a good way, of course. The garden was designed by landscape architect Robert Milani for a home on Chicago's North Shore. There's nothing cookie cutter about the area. The one thing most homes have in common though, is a ...
Rodent Trails and the Importance of Tree Wrap
Hydrangea paniculata 'Vanilla Strawberry' changing color as autumn approached last summer. Voles have found it and I'm scrambling. I'm on the verge of a Caddy Shack moment and if improvised explosive devices existed for vole management, I'd blow up my whole yard right now. For the first time in several days, the sun's out and I thought I'd walk the garden in search of the first signs of Spring. What I discovered had me spewing sentence enhancers. It's a far cry from the serenity I envisioned this morning. Last June, I planted a tree form Vanilla Strawberry panicle hydrangea. The caliper of the tree can't be much over an inch, as you can see in the picture above. It's immaturity and sunny southern exposure make it a perfect candidate for tree wrap, which I had every intention ...
Plant Truck Chicago: Connecting Plants and People
What do you get when you cross a 1974 GMC van with an artist and one of the biggest names in the Chicago gardening scene? A plant truck, of course. While attending a garden media event in August, I ran into my friend Tony Abruscato, aka Mr. Green Chicago. He owns the Chicago Flower and Garden Show and was excited to tell me about his latest garden venture, Plant Truck Chicago. Think food truck, minus the food. As I tried to envision a mobile greenhouse, he told me to get over to the IGC (Independent Garden Center) show where the truck would make its official debut. It's pretty cool! The truck was the brainchild of artist Jason Verbeek. As Tony was telling me the story of how he acquired the truck, I had to stop him once he dropped the artist's name. It sounded so familiar. Turns out ...
I’ve Got Voles…Again
Voles are cute and yet, I want to kill them. My thoughts weren't so violent before I discovered just how destructive those little buggers can be. They ain't so cute anymore. In early October, we had a wicked storm, the kind where the rain falls sideways, trees bend like licorice sticks and wind bellows like an Amtrak train at full throttle. When the storm finally moved on, we were left with water damage between the first and second floors (which insurance won't cover since they attribute it to faulty installation when the home was built 20 years ago!) and one leaning magnolia. I'm more upset about the tree. I have two Centennial Blush star magnolias that flank the corners of my patio. I planted them in 2016 and the one on the east side always seemed to struggle. When the leaves began to ...
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