Wee Bunny

I finally got a picture of the wee bunny that has been hanging around my yard this past summer. He's as cute as a bug and he doesn't seem to mind when I'm around. He actually looks like he's interested in what I'm doing. I found him up in the front yard right after the thunderstorm today, so I grabbed my camera and took his picture. There was actually another rabbit hanging out with him, and I was hoping to get a shot of the two of them together, but the other rabbit high-tailed it off before I came back. Too bad.

The flowers all got a good dose of water today, since we had a sizable storm roll through this afternoon. Plenty of good soaking rain, accompanied by lots of thunder and lightning. Everything seems status quo in the gardens, with most of the plants looking happy. I didn't see the monarchs today, but I had to spend most of the day inside with the handyman working on the kitchen. It looks like we might be going to Rockford on Sunday to visit the Japanese gardens there, which are supposed to be nifty. That will be nice, especially if I can get an idea or two for the back corner.

Unexpected

Not having much experience with hostas, I was surprised to see the lovely white flower one of the front yard hostas produced. The hostas on the side of the house send up lanky stalks that have little purple flowers along the end. I thought all hostas flowered like this. I personally do not like this flower and only leave them alone (instead of cutting them off) because the bees seem to like them. To me they look awkward and messy. Imagine my surprise when I saw the lovely white flower this particular hosta came up with. Now I wonder what kind of flowers other types of hostas produce. I actually like this one.

I found a bargain priced tamarisk at the local garden center, and picked it up fully intending to plant it up front, in the sunniest part of the yard. The garden worker admonished me to plant it in a spot that had tons of sun, as she planted one in a spot that only got 4 hours of sun and her tree died. Once I got it home, I changed my mind and ended up planting it in the backyard where it can get maximum sunlight and, thus, half a chance to survive its experience. Back to tearing up sod.

Once the tamarisk was planted, I sat back to watch things in the yard. First, two monarch butterflies came by and landed on the butterfly weed. This surprised me as I thought Monarchs only liked milkweed plants. Go figure. Then I spied a thirteen-lined ground squirrel climbing up a mulberry tree. It was up there about eight feet from the ground. This was also a surprise, as I thought ground squirrels stayed on the ground. Then Wee Bunny showed up and scooted under the ferns by the garage. I could see its white tail as it sat in the shade of the ferns. This guy is so cute. He's not exactly 'wee' anymore, but he's still a junior rabbit. He was running back and forth by the fence yesterday afternoon in what appeared to be a bunny version of having fun. I could see no other reason for doing it except for pleasure. Perhaps he was experiencing joi de vivre.

I went to the Atrium garden center again yesterday, looking at possible hydrangeas for the front yard. I found them, but at great expense. So now I'm waiting for a hydrangea sale (if there is such a thing). However, I managed to pick up a few more plants and an inexpensive pot to make yet another arrangement for the side door, by the chair which seems to have taken up permanent residence there. The overall effect is pleasant, which I guess is what encourages me to make more of them. Talk about positive reinforcement.

At Last!

Well, well. I've finally got a rose that enjoys life. Originally I had this guy by the front of the garage, where, I guess, he wasn't getting enough sunlight. I moved him over to the fire pit patio, and, voila, he started to put on new growth. So much new growth that I got him a little thingee to climb on. I found this thingee at a new garden center, the Atrium. The Atrium is a huge center with tons of plants and assorted paraphernalia that encourages one to overcome their determination to NOT spend any more money on more plants. I ended up buying the thingee (which I needed) and plants for a new planter by the door (which I did not need). Anyway, I'm delighted that a rose has finally deigned to grow for me.

Other updates: The little sumac I got for Phil is not thriving. It is wilting and turning brown. I transplanted it to another location in an effort to save it. It was definitely not happy where it was. Perhaps the soil is too saturated or dense or something over where it was. I moved it to higher, dryer ground. Let's see what happens.

The little Japanese Maple, on the other hand, is putting on new growth. I'm watching this guy carefully. I want him to make it.

We went to Planter's Palette last Sunday, and Phil found the makings of a decent fountain there, many of the parts on sale, too. He's going to put it together this Sunday so we can have a water feature in the garden (at last).

I'm thinking of taking the blue hydrangea out of the center of the front yard garden (where it is just sitting there like a lump) and moving it over farther into the sunlight. In its place, I think I'll put a more shade tolerant hydrangea that will actually grow and produce flowers (like all good hydrangea should).

Birdbaths

While on the Garden Walk last Sunday, there were a few people that had little birdbaths constructed from clay pots. The idea was appealing, so I gathered some clay pots and some spray paint and tried my hand at it. I like to have examples of art around the gardens, and this seemed like good opportunity to have some of my own personal art work strewn in among the good stuff. It was very easy to put the birdbath together, using industrial strength glue, spray paint, a stencil here and there, a sponge, and a little wooden bird. I came up with two ideas. The first one is all white with green ferns painted on the sides. I also glued some blue-green stones along the rim of the basin. So far, so good. The second one is dark blue (I thought I'd use up the blue paint I got to make Henry's bench) with sponge painted white clouds on the sides. I glued a little cardinal in the basin for added frou-frou. They are definitely very primitive attempts at art, but I made them and they have a place in my garden as long as I can stand to look at them. I placed the white and green birdbath over by the ferns in the backyard corner garden, and the blue birdbath currently resides in the teeny Monet garden at the end of the Henry Path alongside the garage. I'm sure I'll move them several times before they find a permanent site.


I also painted the pink bench I found on my morning walk last week. It's all dark blue with a leaf stencil on two corners of the seat. I put it under the evergreen tree out back and placed a potted fern on it, and a potted coleus arrangement in front of it. It's tilted slightly forward, so I may work on it a little to straighten it out (depending on how much it ends up offending my eye).

Benched

The right time and the right place finally presented itself yesterday, in that I finally found a suitable bench for the fire pit patio area. They only had one of the benches on hand, so I'll have to wait another two weeks to complete the set. I went to every place I could think of to find a couple of simple picnic benches, to no avail, until I went to a place in Villa Park/Elmhurst that specializes in playsets and picnic tables. At first, I thought this was going to be another disappointment, as they had nothing outside to indicate they had separate picnic benches. But upon going inside, I spotted a little table and bench that had a reasonably sized bench for the patio. I ended up getting it and asking to be called when another one comes in in two weeks. I brought it home, and it fits the area just fine. Hooray!

While out walking this morning, I passed by a house where they were throwing out a child's chair and bench. At first I passed by the bench, but quickly decided to turn around and take the bench. It's pink, but I can paint over it, and I can use it anywhere to either be a bench or a stand for a potted plant. It'll end up somewhere useful, and if not, I can throw it away at no expense to me.

Contest

Last Sunday, while at Cantigny, we saw a group of very large pots with plant arrangements that reflect the school colors of the Big Ten Universities. It was interesting seeing the ideas the creators had. The one for the University of Illinois needed to have orange and blue as its colors, and, as everyone knows, it's difficult coming up with truly blue flowers. The arranger did a good job using some flowers that tended more towards the purple than the blue, but the effort was there. After a few minutes, I put it to Phil that WE should hold a contest to see who could come up with the best arrangement using blue and orange. Henry and/or Luke could be the judges. (I don't think Henry would hold anyone to the whole blue-orange restriction and may go with the one that was the cutest, in which case I'd put a stuffed animal in mine to sway him to chose mine. Luke, on the other hand has high standards and will make sure the rules are adhered to strictly, in which case I want truly blue flowers in my arrangement.) In anticipation of the big event, I started looking around for appropriate flowers and decided to take a stab at an arrangement, just to see how it looks. I found what I think are truly blue flowers, but they are very small and up on reedy stems, making them even harder to see and contrast with the other flowers. There was an amazingly ORANGE annual that, although I'm not fond of the shape, makes a real orange statement. I thought some orange-ish foliage might look good, so I got a cinnamon coleus for contrast. Then I threw in some blue-purple petunias, blue ageratums, and some little orange petunia-like flowers to fill out the lower level. This all went into the pot I got on sale at Jewel for $10. I think it is an 'ok' first attempt, but not exactly what I want to show for the contest. I have another $80 in bonus bucks at Knuppers, so I'll go back there and see what else looks good for a second attempt. I have an idea about using an orange rose as a central plant. Let's see if I can find one there. The question still remains about what to use for the blue color requirement.

Good news! The baby bunny is back, or at least it's still here. Luke saw a black cat carrying in its mouth an animal that looked a lot like a little rabbit a few days ago, and I dreaded to think it was the wee bunny that visited me in my garden. But today, it was back by the lilac bush watching me make my container arrangement. Hooray! Now I definitely have to think of a good name for it/him/her.

Favorites

Two of my all time favorite annual flowers are nasturtiums and mock roses. These guys never fail to please in form or staying power. The nasturtiums get planted alongside the garage and they always come out and spread themselves around the mulched area. They usually flower in shades of orange, yellow, and red, with roundish dark green leaves (which are edible, by the way). This year Henry and I started a bunch of them indoors in April so they are bigger now then they usually are at this time of the summer. As I had plenty of starter plants, I also put some of them up front to see how they'd do up there. The mock roses have been planted in the direct sunlight part of the brick patio out back for many years now. They always "take"" and they always have a way of surprising me with their blooms. I try to keep to one color (usually pink), but they often have a mind of their own and surprise me with another color (usually yellow). Anytime I want some color in a very sunlight spot, I turn to mock roses.

It's decidedly hard to find flowers that like the shade, outside of impatiens. Shade seems to be the spot for shades of green rather than displays of intense color. If it weren't for hostas and ferns, I don't know what I'd do with shaded areas. And I seem to have more shaded area than sunlit area in my yards. I looked at a satellite picture of my house on Google, and I couldn't actually see my house because of the trees overhead. I could see the houses on either side of my house, but not mine. That tells you something about the kind of plants I have right there. Out front, there is an enormous maple, a sizable magnolia, a yew directly next to the house, and a young maple of some sort. In the back, the yard is lined with a variety of nameless neighbor trees (some buckthorns in there in various places), shadow from a neighboring willow (aged and enormous), a walnut tree actually in the yard, and an evergreen directly opposite the sliding glass windows and to the side of the garage. Shade everywhere!

Myrtle

While browsing around the garden section of Loew's, this little semi-dwarf crepe myrtle caught my eye. I've seen myrtle down in New Orleans and loved the way it looked along the streets. I pondered mightily before taking the unmarked (price-wise) plant to the cashier in hopes that it's price would convince me to buy it, to put God knows where in the yard. This little guy ended up costing $4.98, which meant I had to buy it and give it a chance (It had no chance where it was in the garden section as it was as dry as dust from lack of watering.). Once back at home, the task of finding the right spot for it arose, The tag said it needs at least 6 hours of direct sunlight. Great. This means it has to go in the center of the backyard. I stood in the center of the yard and rotated slowly around to see where this guy could possibly go. As luck would have it, if I extended the garden bed under the evergreen tree out back, there might possibly be a decent spot. Back I went to digging up sod, only on a much smaller scale this time. It took relatively little sweat to complete the planting, and now the myrtle stands proudly in the backyard. The tag says this guy may get to be 8 to 10 feet tall, which may cause some consternation later on, but for now it's fine. Let's see how fast this myrtle grows and then we'll worry. For now, it looks happy.

Roses

I have never had any good luck with roses. I keep buying them in hopes that one of them will find me acceptable and grow. The problem is that my yard has no place that gets at least 6 hours of direct sunlight. There's so much tree coverage that direct sunlight only hits the very center of my backyard (where the fire pit currently resides). However, I did plant a white rose plant under the back bedroom window just in case this time it would take, and it looks like we may have a winner. It has three, count them, three blossoms on it as we speak, and the plant looks reasonably healthy. Hooray! With any luck, it may grow and prosper. I've heard that there are shade tolerant roses, but when I ask about them at the local nurseries, everyone says that they are surprised to hear about them and that they don't have any of them on hand (this said with skepticism about the whole shade tolerant rose idea). I'm waiting to see how the rose I transplanted into a large pot and put out on the fire pit deck is going to do. It's just sitting there, looking stunned, and not doing much of anything. No new growth, no curling up and dying. It probably can't figure out what's going on. First it's in relative shade, then it's stuck out in the sunlight. It probably wants me to make up my mind and let it be in peace. I can't even remember what color the roses on this plant are supposed to be. I think they're yellow, but who knows at this point, it's been so long since I've seen it bloom. Poor thing.

Contained

Having seen an example of a container with contrasting plants, I went to Knuppers to find likely victims for a similar experiment. I found three chocolate coleuses and some white impatiens that fit the bill. I also came across a pot on sale, probably due to having some chips in it. The pot looked passable to me, especially at the sale price, so this became the setting for the plants. The 3 coleus and two of the impatiens were wrestled into the pot and look decent. Hopefully they will fill out and look more like what I had envisioned at the start of this. As I was at the garden center anyway, I also picked up some little white flowers to go into the rose pot out on the fire pit deck. That poor rose looked awfully lonely all by itself so now it has some friends.

I put the leftover plants here and there in different garden beds. While I was planting the second one, the mosquitoes found me and rang the dinner bell. What an absolute misery these mosquitoes are! I have to slather myself in foul smelling repellant everyday I go out to tend the garden. Otherwise I get bitten mercilessly. Even when I'm repellant, they hover around me and whine by my ears, threatening to dive in anyway. I see no good reason for the existence of the mosquito, except to torture and sicken. They are evil.

Cantigny Gardens

Today we went to Cantigny Gardens in Wheaton to check out the gardens there. They have and "Idea Garden" and a formal garden that we walked through. The Idea Garden had some interesting plant pairings and some plants that caught the eye. There was one that we saw on the way home when we dropped by Platt Hill Nursey, which we picked up and will try to find a place for. It will get about 3 feet tall and about as much around when it grows up. This will be a challenge to find an appropriate site for the plant, but it will be fun when it fills out. We spent about two hours walking around, getting ideas for the yard. They have some great trees there. One tree, right next to the McCormick House, is reported to be over 300 years old. It is magnificent. I took some pictures of flowers and plants that looked interesting, and I took a couple of little movies of fountains to show Henry when he comes home.

Fourth of July

I'm starting this garden blog on the Fourth of July, mainly because I have the time to do it right now. This blog will help keep track of the little things that are making gardening the joy it has become in my life. And I do mean "little things". For instance, there is a wee rabbit that seems to have taken up residence in my backyard. It is smaller than a minute and apparently likes to watch me dig holes in the ground. I have seen it sitting comfortably on the garden mulch (cocoa mulch), chewing a piece of clover, and watching me tramp back and forth across the yard as I transfer sections of lawn elsewhere. I have seen it three times already within the past 10 days, and pretty soon I will give him/her a name.

Then there's the male cardinal that warily took a bath in the backyard birdbath as I was sitting on the deck. The cardinal is a striking bird, and to watch it flutter around in the water was a treat.

This morning, as I was watering the new plants in the backyard, a robin dropped down on the ground rather close to me, eyed me for a moment, and then proceeded to walk around me and the garden beds in search for worms. It came very close to me as it searched. Perhaps it thought I was a water sprinkler rather than a person.

These are little things, but they help make up the wonder that is gardening for me.

So far I have ripped out a LOT of sod to make larger garden beds. Taking sod out is very hard work, and I had to give myself many pep talks to continue at it. I have new respect for anyone who does this for a living. Carrying around 40 pound bags of topsoil or compost is also quite difficult, but I managed to do it when needed and without throwing my back out ( said back threatening to go out more than once during this). I'm now working on a section of the yard that was formerly a weed patch. I've cleared out vast quantities of weeds, only to see tons more that need to be dug out. What a mess this corner had become. Ultimately, we want to put a fountain/waterfall feature back there, but in the meantime, I want to set some plants in to mature and give form to the overall effect. I found out the Koreanspice Viburnum tolerates shade well so I went to the local nursery and actually found it. Unfortunately, it grows to 6 feet. While pondering this little setback, a nursery worker told me that there is another viburnum that is the same thing only a smaller version, it being called Cayuga Viburnum. I wandered over to the Cayuga and found it to be so. Ergo, I bought (at considerable expense...this is the most expensive plant I've purchased so far) a Cayuga Viburnum and took great care to plant it per specifications. I hope it makes it, as this bush is supposed to have lovely scented blossoms in the spring. This corner area is far from finished. It needs color, which is always hard to manage in a shaded area. I put an astrilbe in there and it looks nice and colorful, so maybe more of those will fill the bill. Of course there are a lot of hostas back there now, and I put a couple of shade tolerant hydrangeas in as well. I think anything that catches my eye will probably end up back there.

Next project ideas:

1. Tear up a small area of sod up in front to make room for a smoke tree/tamarask/red bud tree?
2. Tear up the sod around the fire pit tiles and put in mulch and/or low-lying ground cover?
3. Transplant some tiger lilies to the other side of the yard to mask the garden waste corner?
4. Put in the raised vegetable garden bed for next year (this will be done!)

One other thing we did was to engage a lawn care company to help rid the lawn of all the weeds that have invaded and taken over, especially in the backyard. They sprayed about a week ago, and you can see the weeds curling up. Hah! This could be good.

July 13th is the annual Garden Walk! I went to this last year and came away inspired by what several local gardeners accomplished.