A Summer Place

We took a trip to our Wisconsin home mostly because we had a very large arborvitae topple onto the walk during the winter.  It didn't make sense, as ours was the only one in the area to have this problem.  Well, the arborvitae has been propped up with a wooden 2" board.  I am not sure this will be the solution, but for now it is at least upright and looks green and healthy. 

My Knockout rose bushes, which had been under the arborvitae, looked very spindly with only bottom growth, so I cut them back severely.  Our Wisconsin place is about two hours north of the Chicago area, so things are not quite as far along growth wise as back home.  The land where our home is built was littered with huge boulders as construction crews dug foundations.  These boulders were used throughout the area for retaining walls and pleasantly became part of the landscape.

My hyacinths and daffodils are just about done, the sedums, nepetas, coreposis, day lilies, campanulas, shastas, coneflowers, and dianthus are all up and growing well.

I am an absent owner and have to choose plants that are xeric and will not require a great deal of care.  So far, there are times when I think that this far away garden looks better than my garden at home.  There is a watering system on the grounds but just for the grass areas and trees.  All of the bed areas are without any additional water unless by hose.  I have boxwoods, red twig dogwoods, Arrowwood Viburnums, Carl Forrester grasses, Chanticleer Pear over the patio (which looked beautiful).

We put out our patio furniture, and also a small table and chairs by our front door, watered all of our cactus plants, turned the water back on, cut down and fertilized everything.  My husband refused to touch the rose limbs (because we both forgot our garden gloves), but I showed him how brave I was and cut the rose bushes up into little pieces.  He finally loaded them into a plastic bag complaining the whole time.

We talked about selling the place as we both yelled "ouch" from the thorns because we don't come up as much as in previous years.  We have been coming for about twenty years to two different homes, our grandchildren love it, it is a whole different world where people drive long distances to come to Wall Mart.  There are no shopping malls, but there is a Home Depot now and a Target.

If your take a ride in any direction right out of town, there are large expanses of land dotted with farms, cows, sheep and horses.  Little towns whip by in a flash, like Burlington (where Panicum 'Northwind' was discovered at Northwind Perennial Farm).  This perennial farm is certainly worth a stop if there is time, not just for the plants but for the vintage yard art and the chickens that walk with you as you shop.  If you go in the opposite direction down Route 50 out of town you will run into Pesche's Garden Center in the middle of farmland.  It is a fun experience, great gift shop, reasonably priced perennials with lots of unusual varieties.

I get a feeling as I drive in on Route 12 that I am going back in time, like American Graffiti, the young people still play very loud music while tooling around town in their hopped up cars and motorcycles.  This is an old town back to the 1800's with a gorgeous lake, Lake Geneva.  What were we thinking of ?  No Sale!

Is There A Reason To Look Out Your Window?

We should all have a reason to look out a window, whether it be to look at who is passing, the dawn, the sunset, the stars, a storm, but most important what we have in our landscapes should be the best reason of all. 

I went around the inside of my home the other day peering out each and every window and, to my amazement, I did have points of interest through just about every window.  I am not sure that this was a major concern when I was landscaping this blank slate.  However, I do remember thinking about the placement of the Chanticleer Pear and the Star Magnolia.  Each one of these specimens fills my view as I look from my dining room windows, the Pear straight ahead and the Magnolia to the side.  I still have some views to improve on my shade side of the garden.

As I move to the living room windows, which are in the shape of a bay, there are flowers visible from all angles.  When I pull up the sheer shades, it always reminds me of that old story The Night Before Christmas when they threw open the shutters and pulled up the sash and saw that magical scene of Santa and his sleigh.  Oh, sorry, I got carried away, but throw back your curtains, pull up your shades and see what you have outside your windows.  Is it interesting?

It's The Last Hurrah!

With temperatures in the mid 80's for the past two days the Spring garden is as a peak.  I have had to water the flopping tulips and hyacinths and the Star Magnolia has dropped most of it's flowers.

I have spent more time this year noticing the sequence and cycle of the plantings because of writing the blog and taking photos.  It is interesting to take a group of photos one day only to see how much they have changed the following day.

Many of the earlier daffodils have dried up and I will have to snap off that little bulb so they don't put energy into making seed.  Even though I have coverage from daylilies and other tall plants, I become very impatient waiting for all of the bulb foliage to die back.

Lunch At The Garden Club

The fun garden club has gone back to lunch meetings.  The no lunch situation just began in September and it was not popular.  Wow, what a difference, we could hardly fit everyone in our host home.  I was on the lunch committee today so I was very busy being a hostess.  Many people came out of the woodwork when they heard "lunch."  It was at a beautiful home build in the late 1880's, lots of remodeling, but retaining the original character of the home.

The driveway and the patio brick was from a past era, and the gardens looked true to the original time period of the home.  Our lunch was a wonderful salad of tortellini on a bed of lettuce with bread sticks and salami gorgonzola biscuits with chive butter.  The deserts were yummy, carmel brownies and homemade chocolate chip cookies.

This was a very active crowd who could barely stop talking to hear the presenter.  It is amazing what food will do!  Our speaker was a Botany major in school and has a business as a garden designer and coach.  She spoke on roses, their requirements, culture, pruning and her favorites for our area.  She demonstrated pruning techniques on a real rose bush and answered questions on fertilizing, coffee grounds (not a proponent of using coffee grounds) and protection for the winter (mulch - not rose cones).  She recommended compost as a first course when planting and then the Bayer Systemic throughout the season until August.

I am showing some of her recommendations for our (zone 5) area, but I am sure many will do well in several zones.  There were many more listed, but I just picked out one in each category.  I have had problems with the original cherry colored Knockout, but I agree with our speaker that it is still the most desirable.  The doubles grow smaller and do not have the same spreading habit as the original.  I would say the Rainbow Knockout, even though the flowers are smaller, has a similar spreading growth habit to the original Knockout.

Metamorphosis In The Garden

Metamorphosis is not only something that occurs with caterpillars into butterflies, it occurs in the garden all the time.  I began with an all sun garden under my small Pagoda Dogwood tree tucked into the back corner of my yard.  It's leaf coverage was so small that I could grow Veronica Sunny Border Blue, Cone flowers and Phlox.

Well, over the last few years this lovely dogwood, even though damaged by the Cicadas a couple of years ago, has branched out considerably.  It is no longer a sun garden back there but has morphed into a shade garden.  I really did not want it to be a shade garden, but it spoke loudly as to what it would have growing under it's feet.  I finally gave in and moved the sun loving plants and began to redesign a whole new garden.

I planted Thunder Bolt Hosta, Autumn Fern, Ghost Fern and Maggie Daley (named after our mayor's wife) Astilbe last summer and fall.  I also transplanted a large Rhodie back there from the front of the house.  They have all survived beautifully so I guess it was a good move to go with the shade.

I don't know why I fought this change as I love shade plants and miss so many of them from my other homes.  I guess I am kind of gun shy because in my old old home I had nothing but shade, couldn't grow anything that required sun.  My tomatoes grew to ten feet tall without tomatoes!