There are three potential layers to planting in the garden, the tree canopy, a shrub layer, and the ground cover. There are beneficial purposes to wildlife in planting all layers, but this also serves aesthetic and practical goals in minimizing labor to weed. My primary concern has been developing a garden that pleases me, but…

I was too slow, so two spotted lanternflies escaped while I first photographed them (below), then doubled back to possibly smash the two against the tree. I am not in the habit of squashing bugs, though I am far less tolerant with pesky flies and mosquitoes when they’re attacking me. Local authorities ask that lanternflies…

Rascally rabbits have done it again. Each time I walk past there are a few stems of several sedums that have been munched, not eaten but cut loose and sitting on the path. The loose pieces can be an inch or several, and I suppose I wouldn’t mind so much if parts of the sedums…

I’m too old to change my ways, I thought, but salvias brought me around. While I strive to fill every inch of open ground, my goal is to do a minimum of labor in maintaining the garden. More area covered by plants results in fewer weeds and less work and eliminates the need for mulch…

A word of warning. The Seven Son Tree (Heptacodium miconioides, below) is ill suited for placement where it might be exposed to straight-line, eighty mile per hour winds. Of course, no tree is well suited to such conditions, and who would have ever thought about such a breeze in the protected rear garden that is…

The garden’s milkweeds (Asclepias incarnata, below) are annually infested by aphids as the flowers near their peak. Within days, assassin bugs arrive, and while the aphids are not eliminated, their numbers are greatly reduced. The milkweeds suffer slight damage but return the next spring without fail. This year, the aphids are no-shows. It appears that…

Barbara and I would ask our young sons, ‘how big are you?” Time and again, the answer was proudly “So Big”, and of course now they are long out of the house and married (and rather large as people go). I am quite pleased, though I did almost nothing except plant the castor bean (Ricinus…

I am not one to readily give up on a plant. The back side of a decades old blue, globose spruce (Picea pungens ‘Glauca Globosa’) has gone bare alongside a conical common boxwood (Buxus sempervirens). The boxwood has long encroached on the narrow path, and the spruce spreads several feet over the small, circular patio…

Yes, I’ve whined about the lack of rainfall, though today I happily report that a storm came through late in the afternoon. But, then I watched as others brushed past with no more than a few droplets of moisture, so there’s reason to complain. Still, the garden lives on, and without my pulling hoses around….

I am an optimistic gardener, expecting the best even when my neglect should bring trouble. My too often sporadic efforts at deer control occasionally yield beneficial results. A spurt of summer growth on the Batwing Japanese maple (Acer pictum ‘Usugumo’, below) was quickly nibbled prior to the semi regular repellent treatment. I don’t recall if…

The parcity of flowers on the congested clump of Crocosmia ‘Lucifer’ should be no surprise, but with diminishing flowers in recent years, I did nothing. Now, there are two flowers and two buds. No more, from many dozens of plants. Clearly, the time to split the clump is overdue. Of course, many chores in the…

I watch my online radar as summer storms brew, then split to bypass the garden by the tiniest fraction. I can hear the rumble of thunder, but if there’s any rain, it’s a few drops, enough to tease but barely enough to keep the dust down. All the worse, acquaintances remark that they’re being deluged….