Gardening Can Bring You Back In Time

As my doorbell rang, you know the Reggie dog is racing for the door and I am calling my husband for help and trying to catch the dog before opening the door.  There is a nice lady standing there with two apples in a plastic bag asking about my big hydrangea out in front.  I told her it was Limelight and she stated she was having several put in that she bought at Home Depot.  Oh, she also asked for a cutting of Limelight and I told her to take one that didn't face the house because I am leaving quite a few on this year for winter interest.

Before she left I asked her name and when she told me I recognized it as one that I had met at least twenty-five years ago when shopping with my daughter.  I said we went to high school together didn't we, and after exchanging information we both stood there in shock!

In the past year I have met several people at the garden clubs that are out of my young adult past and we have thoroughly enjoyed going over old memories and catching up on what we do now.  Gardening is not only for a lifetime but it brings people together with a common bond.

She didn't see the Unique Hydrangea around the corner.

As she handed me the apples I said, let's get together and talk, she is a poet and I am a garden blogger what better combination could you have!

A Re-Do For The Front Garden

I usually write about what I have blooming around the garden for Fertilizer Friday but today I am going to show you what I bought on my trip to the nursery.  This nursery is the farthest from my home so I have not been there since the spring.

We're here and I am ready to buy because I have changes to make.

Our host was waiting for us!

Take a look at those spheres and obelisks and grasses.

It was a beautiful day, perfect for choosing some plantings for my front garden renovation.  As I looked over the shrubbery there was a person behind me with a name badge.  I asked her if she worked there, so I could ask her for a recommendation and she informed me that she owned a garden center in Milwaukee and was there for a group meeting.

The asters always look so good in the pots, but I have never had much luck growing them in the garden, except for my Purple Dome.

We talked about hydrangeas and all of the different varieties.  We both said we were not thrilled with Endless Summer and she said the growers are now suggesting that it not be cut down and mulched up to eight inches in the fall.  I was looking for Incrediball but she suggested I wait on that one because in her nursery they were very floppy in the pots, maybe they would be more upright when in the ground!

We both fell in love with a new hydrangea called Tickled Pink, beautiful color pink - bright, not faded.

I wanted a small shrub for in front of my evergreen plantings and she recommended Weigela Dark Horse, 2-3 feet tall and wide with dark bronze leaves and bright pink flowers.  I bought two of them, a little pricey but I think they will add some color out in front.

Foliage of Weigela Dark Horse from spring through fall.

I walked over to the the grasses with a real employee of the nursery looking for a small miscanthus that would stay about three feet high and I loaded two Miscanthus Little Kitten on to my cart.  I just love that name! 

Miscanthus Little Kitten

I couldn't pass up that new, most mildew resistant phlox called Candy Store Bubblegum.  Well, now I have to do all of the grunt work, pulling out and replanting.  Isn't this what gardening is all about?

Candy Store, Variety Bubblegum Phlox

This is a great time of year to purchase containers, fifty percent off at this nursery!

A sea of mums 

 I love those earth tone pots!

I hope you have enjoyed my trip to Planters Palette in Winfield, Illinois.  They are an upscale nursery that has a close relationship with the Morton Arboretum, located about thirty miles west of Chicago.

Decorating Your Home And Garden For Fall

Many years ago, when summer was over I yanked all of my drooping flowers out of their containers and put out some Indian corn, cornstalks and pumpkins on my front porch.  The pumpkins were always eaten and tipped over, the corn was chewed to the bone and it looked pretty sad by Halloween.

The Reggie dog was quite perplexed by this huge arachnid on the railing going upstairs.  I am surprised that he did not go after it!  This one has no eyes, but did you know that some spiders do not have any eyes?

Halloween used to be my favorite holiday because even though I was working full time with two children I had the neighborhood party.  We rented movies from the library and I made food ahead of time for the freezer so that everything would be ready for the big day.

These are great, I don't want to light them because then they will be gone.  I believe I got these at Target a few years ago.

Faux is becoming much more real.  These are faux gourds, achilliea, pears, pumpkins and little birds.  The pumpkins, gourds and pears are from Pottery Barn all arranged in an antique etched container.

Decorations now are over the top, lights, mummies, ghosts ringing the trees,talking vampires and witches the lawn ornaments and the celebration goes on for over a month.  I have given up on the real pumpkins, so I use the type you buy at a craft store, sprayed with marine varnish, and some are ceramic.  The pumpkins and gourds look so real now, there is no reason not to decorate containers and window boxes.  Long picks can also be purchased to stick through the decorations and anchor in the soil.

Indoors I can use real pumpkins and gourds mixed with faux flowers.

Reggie hasn't found these spiders yet!

I went to my daughter-in-law and son's home and found these people on their front porch, drinking Starbucks!

Believe it or not, I found this spooky person at the front door!

How would you like to find this in your garden?

Don't be concerned about using faux with real.  My situation is squirrels, so my quest each year is to find pumpkins that look either very decorative or real.  Each year it has become easier to find gourds and pumpkins that mimic the real thing.  Another faux acceptable is grasses because the real thing will collapse and wilt in your containers.



Halloween is still a favorite (not the Trick-Or-Treating as my dog goes crazy) with a family party and optional costumes.

Halloween is the second biggest decorating holiday in the United States next to Christmas!

First Impressions

First impressions really do count not just in our personal connections but with the appearance of the front facade of our home.  We read a great deal about focal points, and they are important, but we talk very little in regard to how our home looks to one who is passing by walking or in a car.

This is a great entrance to a 1921 home that has been renovated inside and out.  The urn as a focal point stops the eye for a moment but then you are brought on up to the front door.

Urn as a focal point on the walk

Hayrack on the gate at the side of the home

A big turn off for me is a guessing game when it comes to the location of the front door, sometimes there are homes with two front doors, which one do I go to?  Manytimes, there are so many plantings that the front door is obscured.  I know there are people who prefer a private effect (like Frank Lloyd Wright who had his front door on the side of the house rather than the front).

This is a large home with lots of landscaping, but there is still a pathway leading up to the front door which is visible from the street.

This stone pathway leads up to the front door on an angle.

Even though the lot is heavily planted, there is a full view of the front door from all angles.

This is a view of the lower level plantings on this lot, your eye is constantly taken up until you reach the front door.

Again, this home has many plantings, but the front door is left free for the eye to lead you there.

If you can imagine, this picture does not do the landscape justice, since the perennial gardens go all the way around the house, too bad about that crocked stop sign, but the owners have planted on property owned by the village.

This is a home I constantly watch through the seasons, all those mounds you see are mums.  See, I am not too bad about buying mums compared to this!  Notice the clear pathway to the front door.

This is a very large home with expanses of Limelight Hydrangea on each side of the front walk.  I have one Limelight, so I was blown away by the expanse of these hydrangeas used as a hedge on each side of the walk.

This was a stunning look with plantings flanking the walk and then diverse plantings on each side of the front door.

I have determined that I do not have the lot width to do plantings this far down on my walk (at least this is what my husband thinks) but it does give me ideas on how to handle the plantings on the sides of the walk.

I really am going to remove those thorns from the front of my house (roses) and redo with some interesting evergreens, perennials and annuals.

The Goodbye Garden

You probably know by now I like movies, old movies, some new movies and those old horror movies with Bela Lugosi.  I looked around my garden today and everywhere I looked it was saying goodbye!  For some strange reason it reminded me of a favorite movie called The Goodbye Girl with Richard Dreyfuss and Marsha Mason.

I cut the Henryi Type 2 Clematis to the ground this year because it had become very woody.  It has grown quite tall and is putting out one huge bloom to say goodbye.

Comtesse De Bouchard has lots to say as a type 3 if we don't get a frost.  Look at all of those insect bites, many more than during the spring and summer.

Duchess of Albany is a type 3 saying goodbye with just one bloom.  Again, it is being eaten by insects.

Miss Bateman type 2, you have come back, so nice of you to visit before going to sleep even if is only one bloom!

The Rhodies will develop some reddish colored leaves, not to worry, this is normal for this time of year.  They will drop these leaves but will be perfectly healthy for new growth in the spring.  Remember when it gets really cold or really hot their leaves curl under.

I am finding it difficult to say goodbye to my Pineapple Coleus (which has become more veined as the weather has cooled) and the Pink Knockout Rose.  My rose has not made an appearance in two months, but it has come to say goodbye.

The tuberous begonias have done well all summer, I will certainly bring more of these into my garden next year.

The Volcano Phlox Pink with White Eye is blooming even after a traumatic hot summer planting.

This petunia has done nothing all summer, I have even forgotten its name, but now it is making a last hurrah!

The Italian parsley will hold up until November.  It takes a really hard frost to take parsley out.

Ursula

Andrea orange mum and unnamed yellow cultivar

Unnamed yellow cultivar (I know I said I wasn't going to buy so many mums but I couldn't resist)

The pansies are beginning to fill out with the cabbages and red swiss chard.

Bright Lights Swiss Chard (the lights are the stems not the leaf)

Plumbago under the Arnie's Choice daylilies (this experiment worked in regard to having something that is growing under the daylilies after they are cut down in July)

Let's Dance is a new lace cap hydrangea that has suffered this summer with the heat.  It is now putting forth many new buds.  We'll see you next year!

The back border will soon be gone with the first frost.  Goodbye!

I am concerned about saying hello to anything in the next few months.  It has been so intensive during the spring and summer months, we need to figure out our discussions for those cold winter days!

I like Larry Conrad's idea about developing a forum for discussing what worked for us and what didn't and maybe coming up with some ideas for a better 2011.