Gardening blog

I'm back to the garden blog! Just too much to do this year without getting it all down and frankly, I missed it too much. The kids have gotten more manageable that even if I only post 2-3 times a month, it's still worth it!

Rosemariegarden.blogspot.com

Last tomatoes of the season

The Cherokee purple tomato plant went crazy at the end of the summer, producing a bunch of tomatoes. I picked them green and let them ripen on the counter and now we can enjoy them ... The last of the summer crop never tasted so good. Bon apetit!

September shrubbery

September is my favorite time of year to plant; the days are cooler, the ground is warmer, and the plants are cheaper. Unfortunately, in my case, I didn't score any great sales on plants. Instead, for the first time, I tried my hand at mail order plants. They arrive smaller but are less expensive than the typical 3 or 5 gallon shrub.

hydrangea twist n shout

In my years of gardening, my experience has lain mainly with perennials - preferring them over costly woody shrubs. I was experimenting and I'd prefer to experiment with $5.99 than $59.99. I think you get my jist.

hardscape

But now, hardscape in, it is time to plant our shrub border per plan and this has been the moment I've most waited for. This weekend saw our last shrub of the season planted. Next spring & fall we will finish the border (appx: 20 shrubs left to buy).

foreground: tor spirea; side/fence: virginia sweetspire henry's garnet

I agree that the shrub border is an important part of your garden - it lays the foundation and gives winter interest when the herbaceous perennials lay dormant under ground. I've just been too scared and uneducated (and now, too busy with babies) to do this on my own. Our designer helped pick those shrubs that would be small (for our space) and provide seasonal color to our yard.

current shrub border September

Idea Garden

Coming to Cantigny with my kids is somewhat surreal since I used to come here all the time as a girl when I was in Brownies. I don't remember all of these lovely gardens though, my memories are of the tanks -- it is after all a World War I museum -- and the mansion (I have distinct memories of touring the house and being ultimately amazed at the "dumb waiter." Go figure.)

Last week we were there for a music demonstration; after some music making and splashing in the fountain, we walked around the Idea Garden.

Windchimes using utensils

Storage baskets as flower pots!

Here's an idea ... take a nap!

Plant-Dog

Tic Tac Toe shrubs

Gourd Tunnel

Cherokee Purple tomatoes

 

Delicious heirloom tomatoes from our yard ... makes the perfect summer tomato salad.

 

Shakespeare's garden

Landscale plan: Porch demolition

With the baby's birth, things have been slow moving but we finally picked a contractor to do the patio work. When I looked at their references, it turned out that a neighbor used them as well. Now we just need a final meeting to pick material and decide if we need a retaining wall or not.

Our landscape architect seemed to think we did not need a retaining wall, but a few weeks ago we took apart the existing porch and the grade is pretty steep. We can try and level it with dirt but will it eventually erode? That's to be determined.

Here are some pictures of the porch demolition -- that we decided to tackle to save some dinero.

 My strong man!

Another shoddy job ... No wonder the thing was falling apart! They used the wrong nails (or screws or whatever), the screen underneath was in strips (I guess that was cheaper than using a solid piece?!), the bottom beams weren't even attached to the house but just laid on top of each other ... Incredible!

May blooms

 Columbine

 Lady's Mantle (Alchemilla mollis) *

 Bellflower

  Geranium x cantabrigiense 'Biokovo' - Biokovo Cranesbill *

 Sundrop (Oenothera fruticosa)

 Clustered Bellflower (Campanula glomerata) *

 Speedwell 'Hocus Pocus'  *

Geranium 'Max Frei' (Geranium sanguineum 'Max Frei') *

Astilbe chinensis 'Milk & Honey' *

Catmint

yarrow *

* indicates the plants I planted

April Blooms

A little late ...

Tulips

White bleeding heart

Corydalis

Variagated Jacob's Ladder 'Stairway to Heaven'

Virginia Bluebells

Standard Bleeding Heart

Judd Viburnum

Crabapple

Crabapple

Landscape Plan: Front yard Design thoughts

Right now my front yard is what you call a "Gardner's garden." I don't take offense to that - I love plants. The problem is that the perennial beds are just too big for me to take care of and I can't afford to hire a landscape company for regular maintenance. I'd love to satisfy my gardening with smaller more manageable beds and make my front entry way more inviting.

The Landscape designer came back to inventory all of my plants and so we discussed the vision for the front yard.

Here they are:

1. Fix the front stoop: Existing brick stoop that the previous owners either did themselves or hired someone who made a lot of shortcuts. Since we've moved in, it's been falling apart and we have to fix it properly. Structurally bad, it's also too small and the step is too high. The idea is to make it a 2-step stoop.

Our crumbling front stoop - priority #1

The LD also assured me it could be made bigger without compromising the life of the Oakleaf hydrangea next to it, which I wish to keep.

2. Make a courtyard entrance/walkway: Right now I love the canopy the crabapple gives to this space and my bench underneath it feels like a courtyard ... somewhat. I told the LD I wanted a courtyard and he really felt that utilizing the L-shape area would be a perfect place for this. He agreed and is making me a plan to incorporate a courtyard with my perennial bed that is under the crabapple - which is pretty and low maintenance.

Larry, Darryl & Darryl and the future courtyard

3. Viburnums-a-bye-bye: I love Larry, Darryl, & Darryl, my 3 Judd Viburnums, but the new courtyard design will eliminate the 2 soldiers standing guard near the front door to make the door more visible. Larry can remain.

4. Spruce, another bye bye: The Spruce by the road had the plum tree in front and so it has a lot of dead areas. The LD said he's like to see it go because it's unsightly and is in poor health. Once that tree is gone, there will not be much need for all the groundcover growing underneath. It's low maintenance, but I'm getting invasive groundcovers coming in which is making it high maintenance. The plan is to grass up this area. That way, the bed behind it can be seen from the road and it is a pretty perennial bed.

The lonely, spindly, spruce

5. Shared Sunny Garden, Simplified: My neighbor and I garden the shared lot line between our houses. My side is always a mess and I can't stand it. I like the 2 lilacs, the magnolia and the beautyberry (of which I both planted). Other than that ... yuck. Our LD agreed that this area needs to be simplified and he will tackle that with the understanding that 1/2 belongs to my neighbor. I also have a thug in that garden - bishops weed - which the only solution to eradicate is Round-Up...

A hodgepodge of mess

I was happy to learn that I am growing some plants he said were difficult to grow - pulmonaria, corydalis, and the beautyberr, that my 2 trees (magnolia and dogwood) have frost damage (no disease), I planted my dwarf blue spruce too deep (re-plant), and that my spicebush may be right on or over the lot line (ARGH!).

Magnolia x butterflies

My magnolia tree that I planted as a twig about 3 years ago has finally produced its first bloom. I can't tell you excited I was to see it!

And a tree came a tumbling down ...

The design plan for our backyard won't be ready for another 4-6 weeks, but we know it involves removing the small maple tree, so we went ahead and took it down this weekend.  This will be our 5th tree we have taken down since moving in (2 poorly sited apple trees, 1 diseased service berry, and 1 diseased plum tree). I'm a tree hugger, so all this tree removal is throwing me for a loop.

I was pretty sad to see it start to get taken down, but behind this large bramch was another one that was completely dead. In fact, there were a lot of dead branches to this tree. Our LD said it wasn't healthy and competing with the enormous sugar maple behind it for water.

When we got to the roots, we were surprised that there were not that many and spreading out - typical of maples. Looks like the root ball was still intact from when it was planted. The wire holding it all in was still there and the poor tree never had a chance.

 Wesley woke up from his nap in time to take a few pictures with our woodsman, my grandpa - "tree remover extraordinaire"