What do you think happened here? This toppled tree is in the Deer Grove Forest Preserve in Palatine. Deer Grove is one of my favorite places to walk during the winter. When the ground is frozen and covered with snow I can venture off the trails without damaging the plants growing on the forest floor. …
Do you have a plant nemesis? This spray-painter clearly does – and it’s the lowly privet. He’s emphatically declaring that he does not intend to plant them, and is discouraging us from the same. (I realize there’s an alternative explanation for this involving the lack of a dictionary, but I’m sticking with my interpretation.) When …
Muddy Boots. The name. The logo. I get regular compliments on these things from clients, Uber drivers , fortune tellers, and Uber-driving, fortune-telling clients. I’m always flattered, but I end up telling the rather mundane story about how I wanted something a little whimsical that didn’t sound like the name of a law firm, and …
The White O‘Morn Cottage and the Origin of the Muddy Boots Landscaping Name Read More »
Weeds are plants that grow where you don’t want them, and plants growing in the cracks of sidewalks and driveways are frowned upon in polite society. The Wild Petunia in this photograph may be a weed in my neighbor’s sidewalk, but in mine it’s a symbol of the prairie clinging to a place where it …
Indian grass and Indian grass-colored dog along the tracks in northwest Cook County.
There are plant deserts – neighborhoods where you rarely see any shrubs that aren’t yews, junipers, and forsythias
You know how when you have finished a bag of peanut M&Ms and you crinkle up the bag and stuff it in your pocket and then later you pull the bag out to throw it away and you find a few still in the bag that you missed? Those are the best ones! Those last …
Both our permanent dog and temporary dog eat grass. They devour feather reed and hakone grass like they were covered in gravy. They aren’t fooled by foliage that looks like grass but isn’t – they don’t eat grass-imposters like lily turf and blue-eyed grass . Feather reed grass foliage seems like it would be rough …
How well do you know your Batman villains? This is the Two Face of crabapples. There is an explanation for Two Face, and it doesn’t involve acid. Many crabapples are really two trees – a flowering “top” grafted to a rootstock of a different crabapple or apple variety. I don’t like to plant grafted crabapples …
I was driving by this dump truck-sized yew on a recent windy day when a large puff of smoke erupted from the top and blew across the yard. At least it looked like smoke. In fact, it was a huge puff of pollen, shaken loose by a gust of wind. Yews have flower-like structures like …
let the mild rumpus start
