Flags & New Plants

By not getting back home until mid-April, we missed a lot of the spring flowers. To add some color to the garden, Lloyd brought out some of the flags. This corner has a Japanese quince that had two blossoms left when we got here. It and the mums will be green until the mums bloom.

I gave up on the puny dahlias that I'd planted along the front walkway and replaced them with lantanas. Lantanas are annuals here (zone 6), but I was desperate. They're small but will grow quickly and add color and fullness to the hardy mums.

The Russian Sage is beginning to bloom. The tall stalk on the right grew up faster than the rest and put out a lovely flower stalk way before the others began to bloom. Strange.

Spring in the Backyard

I'm doing a bit of a cheat here. Today is July 25, 2012, but I'm dating this entry by the date the photos were taken, May 26. This is before we got socked with outrageously high daytime temperatures. The lily garden was lovely and serene.

The backyard looked fresh and green.

What's happening in May 2012

This morning was a bit chilly but I opted for breakfast on the porch anyway. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't updated the blog in a while, so I grabbed my camera phone and took some pictures. The plant on the table is a jasmine, lovely and fragrant. The other plants are Lloyd's cactus gardens--and I use the word garden quite loosely in this context. He swears that most of the plants are not dead but only resting; I'm thinking the "Bless my Garden" sign ought to have RIP added.  (Don't forget to click on the photos to enlarge them.)

Now that you've seen the overview, let's take a walk. In the first photo, we're standing with our back to the shed. The tall light green plants are witch hazel. The small one in the middle is a miracle child. I've given him the last rites twice, but thanks to my procrastination, I didn't pull him  up. Both times, he's come back. The other two have been slowly gaining over the past 3 or 4  years. I've forgotten when they were planted.

This area behind the shed still has a fair amount of leaves. One of the projects I want to get completed this summer is digging up the area between the shed and the Bartlett pear to make a mushroom farm. I  have a newspaper clipping by the computer, an ad for a place that sells morel mushroom seed. The clipping is so old that it has yellowed. Meanwhile, this area is out of sight from the house, so at least it doesn't detract from the overall look. I can taste those morels now!

In the foreground of the photo above  you can see part of the kidney-shaped bed by the double oak, aka the kissing tree because the two trunks meet. To the right of the photo below is the part of the bed that was well weeded last year, and to the left is the section that wasn't touched. I've been weeding there this year, but it still needs work.

Buddha went out to the lily garden yesterday. The lilies are begining to bloom.

This is the view along the north fence. The ugly debris is the remnants of the surprise lilies. The spiky plants nearer the fence are day lilies. The bed needs to be weeded and mulched. It's on the list of thing to do. The surprise lilies are going to be dug up, to be replaced by grass.

The next photo is looking back across the yard to the south fence. Notice the clematis on the lattice on the left. Had I known it grew from the ends of the branches, I'd have pruned it radically. As it is, it looks like a green toupée sitting on the fence. I debated pruning it now, but it looks so happy there!

Precious is surrounded by greenery. The columbine just left of her  had already finished blooming by the time we got back in mid April. The speedwell is supposed to like sun, but its little purple spears seem healthy enough in this deep shape. You can see autumn leaves that still need to be cleaned out. I'm not too fanatical about cleaning them up if they aren't impeding growth. I am, after, all, going for a naturalized feel back here, even if the beds are pretty well organized.

The may apples in the center bottom of the next photo are beginning to pass their prime. They didn't wait for May this year and none of them made the lovely white blossom that would have turned into the apple. A friend who lives near Chicago said that hers did the same. Maybe it was the unseasonably warm early spring that threw them off.

Check out the holes in the next photo, Squirrels. They don't seem to be storing anything in them. Maybe they're getting a head start on harvest season ... or maybe Lloyd's feeding them too much and making them complacent.

And here we are back where we began, at the screened porch, where my breakfast is still waiting for me. The hostas in front and the ferns at the right will be moved to the back of the yard. I'm not sure what foundation plantings will replace them. When I get the space cleared, I'm sure something will clamor to move in! 

So much for the walk-about. I'll try to do better next time and not be so long winded!



How green are my dahlias?

I planted some dahlias in the past month only to see the leaves turn yellow. I learned that this can happen with too much watering or not enough nitrogen or a fungus in the dirt. None of these seemed to apply. In fact, a dahlia from last year that weathered the mild winter, is perfectly green and healthy looking. It's in the bottom right corner of the second photo. I took these photos to the nursery where I'd purchased the plants. They offered to give me new plants, but theirs also had yellowing leaves. They then offered to refund the price or give me other plants.

I

I opted for new plants and chose some lantanas. They're not the dahlias I'd hope to have along the front walk, but they will grow bushy and green and have some nice color while we wait for the mums to bloom in the fall. I made a discovery while pulling out the dahlias, which I'd planned to toss away. You can see in the top photos that there are some tiny dark green leaves along the stems. They seemed to be new growth. In hopes that the yellowing was the result of overwatering sometime during their little pot lives, I've moved them to the back yard. Three of the ten are planted in the space along the fence that has seen two years of tomato failure.  

 The other seven are now in one of the squares that also holds two more hearty dahlias that survived the winter. I know they're too close together, but I'll fertilize them well. If they live, they live. If not, well ...



It's been a month since I last posted. I took some progress photos this morning, but I'm going to put them in a separate post or this one will get way too long. While I'm working on the next post, take a look at the lavender in foreground of the photo above. It survived the winter and is growing heartily. The tiny flowerlets are just beginning to open and are already fragrant and attracting hummingbirds.

Don't Fence Me In

But if I must be fenced in, I'm glad it is decorated with some of Lloyd's artwork! Here are some of the decorations, both ceramic and wooden. Click on a picture to enlarge it.

The sign and plaques in the next three photos are ceramic. They are painted on tiles leftover from our basement floor. Isn't Lloyd clever? He painted them in Missouri and fired them at Shadyside Pottery in New Orleans. Shadyside is owned and operated by Charlie Bohn, one of Lloyd's former students.

The next three plaques are wood, carved, stained and waxed.

Somehow I managed to miss my favorite plaque. Next time!

A Year and a Week Later . . .

It's hard to believe all of last summer passed without an update here. Lots of dead things got pulled up and lots of new plants added, and that about sums it up. We went south just before Thanksgiving for what turned out to be a very mild winter here and all around the country. By the time we got back -- last week -- most of the spring flowers had come and gone. Azaleas and columbines are in bloom now, and some hellebores.
Today I found a summer helper for yard work, which pleases me no end. I do believe the surprise lilies will at last be banished or at least severely thinned.
I walked around the yard and snapped some photos of the current state of things. Someone is coming to blow the remaining leaves out of the flower beds, and then I can get down to sprucing up the gardens for the summer.

The Japanese maple has little bright red winged seeds for the first time.

The lily garden is choked with leaves but the plants seem to be doing fine. The fence has aged to a lovely silvery gray. It was the same color as the lattice when it was new.

 The azaleas are blooming! These are the kind that are supposed to bloom 3 times a year. Last year they didn't bloom at all. I figured it was because it was too shady where they're planted, and I believe I'm right. With the warm, warm early spring, they got a lot of sun. They're going to be moved to the front yard soon.

 The spring flowers under the big pin oak are coming along. The mayapples (the umbrella-shaped plants) are one of my favorites. I looked for them each spring in the woods near our house and the forest preserve when I was a child.  Each plant makes one lovely white blossom, which becomes an "apple". I don't know if they're edible.

This is the kidney-shaped flower bed at the back of the yard. I never finished weeding and mulching it last summer. Here's what's interesting: at the far end, weeded and mulched, the coral bells all seem to  have died out entirely or are very small. The coral bells in the neglected part are healthy and large. This tells me that maybe the coral bells don't like the mulch.

There is a nice mix of flowers and weeds around Precious. I'll pull out the sprouts of grass and the dandelions, but some of the other volunteers may have found a home.

 The mosaic needs a dose of 20-Mule Team Borax and a little sand to top it off.

This is the peonie bush that struggled against shade and wild lawn mowers -- "Huh? That was a flower?" -- when it grew along the back fence when we moved here five years ago. I moved it to this sunny location on the south side of the house, where it seems quite grateful. It's loaded with buds.

 Also along the south side of the house is the rose bush. It will be pruned way back and keep on blooming all summer long.

 The blue bottle marks the lilac bush. This little guy is in its third year. The first year an eager mower chopped it off, and then last summer I thought it had died from lack of water, but it's still hanging in there. The ornamental grasses need to have lastl year's foliage removed to make room for the new blades. The little foot bridge, like the fence, has weathered to a lovely silvery gray. We put the footbridge in to span the soggy part where the sump pump drains into the grass at the front corner of the yard.

 The Japanese quince had just two blooms left on it last week, and now it is finished for the season. The mums all need to have last year's twigs removed.

 I can't for the life of me remember what this is called. I planted it in front of the gas meter. It's not supposed to get much taller, so it won't block the meter reader's line of sight.

The baptisia bush that I thought I'd killed when I moved it last year is coming back. Silly me didn't know they put out incredibly strong horizontal tap roots, which I chopped when I dug it out. The top of the bush died out completely, and I thought it was a goner. Apparently it was busy concentrating on restoring the root system and jettisoned the above-ground bits to conserve energy. Smart plant; ignorant gardener. I moved it just about 18 inches, so it would be better positioned to overhang the outside sump basin.

The mound of leaves may be hiding new shoots of the Russian sage or it may have smothered them. We'll find out when the leaves are removed. The feathery growth in front of the sage is yarrow. It's coming back strong on both sides of the walk way.

The azaleas I put in last summer are blooming well on the left side of the front stairs. The tall dry stalks in front are some kind of tall white flower that will be blooming when the azaleas are finished.

The hollyhocks are coming in strong. I've forgotten the name of the plant to the right of the clump of grass, but it will have lovely flowers.

 The magnolia in the northwest corner of the yard bloomed long before we got home. I've tried to grow pachysandra at its base, but they all seem to have died out.

The crape myrtle that was but a twig a couple of summers ago is thriving. Look at all of the surprise lilies along the fence. They'll be for a surprise themselves. :)

 This dank corner is on the north side of the house. There's a hosta trying to come back. There used to be lilies of the valley, but they got mowed a few times and . . . A neighbor has offered more lilies of the valley. I may try again.

 This is the long view into the back yard with daylilies along the fence and bushy green surprise lilies paralleling them to the right. the Japanese maple, where this soujourn began, is at the far end of the row of surprise lilies. (You do know you can click on a photo to enlarge it, don't you?)

Didn't mean to post quite so many photos, but this does complete the circuit of the yard. I didn't show you the strawberries, which are in bloom and a few other details. I want to show you the artwork on the fence, thanks to my dear husband but will save it for the next post.