This Garden Cooks!

Down the Primrose Path

2012-01-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

Garden. Walk. Not.

Occupy 2012

2012-01-18T11:53:00.000-08:00

Unlike other years, I have no New Year’s resolutions because by now, the third week in January, my good intentions tend to vaporize. But I do have a goal and that’s to Occupy –to reside, live in, absorb, inhabit, engage, take up (however you want to define it)—as many moments as possible this year.

My goal is to enjoy those moments in my garden away from the computer and from the constant “beep” or “ring” of some electronic device. To take a few moments to watch and listen to what’s happening in the natural world—without the distractions that steal so many moments from each day.

Under my umbrella goal of Occupy 2012, my garden-related plans include:

Seek inspiration: Go on more garden walks – local garden clubs host many walks from spring through fall.
Revisit the writings of Fred McGourty, Richardson Wright and Henry Mitchell.
Plant some new varieties of annuals—I want “Wendy’s Wish,” an annual salvia with a spectacular
Spend more time on the trails at The Morton Arboretum, especially on the west side when the daffodils are in bloom.
Make a point to explore each of the Chicago Botanic Gardens 24 display gardens to study one during each visit.
Attend the Garfield Farm’s heirloom festival again where they display rare and specialty fruits, vegetables, flowers and herbs.
Bypass the pruners and take my journal and my camera with me into the garden.

This Garden Cooks!: Thoughts of the Garden in Winter

2012-01-13T20:06:00.000-08:00

This Garden Cooks!: Thoughts of the Garden in Winter: This time last year, the snow was blowing and an entire panel blew off the greenhouse. But this winter has been different. We've had sev...

Thoughts of the Garden in Winter

2012-01-13T20:01:00.000-08:00

This time last year, the snow was blowing and an entire panel blew off the greenhouse. But this winter has been different. We've had seven weeks of incredibly mild temperatures. The male cardinals are starting to sing and it won't be long until the great horned owls are hooting. They start raising their young in the woods across from us in February.

The winds are still howling and it's -4 degrees with the windchill, but in today's mail, we've received so many more seed catalogs that we must be close to 25 or more since November. What to order? Whom shall we order from? Are the seeds really all that different?

All I know is that I want new annual salvias for all the hummingbirds that spend their summers in our garden. Raised beds. Some deer-resistant fencing. And a little more time to spend with the flowers and veggies. That's all I want for 2012. More time.

OCCUPY 2012 -- Monday's Musing

2012-01-09T13:55:00.000-08:00

In the garden of the glass blossom. From last year's garden walks....

The Pot Garden Revisited

2011-12-22T07:54:00.000-08:00

The Pot Garden Year in Review--Containers that I'd plant again....

Angelica gigas (above). Not the edible variety, but even so, this was a great biennial plant for a container during summer. Yes, a flower in my favorite color--aubergine. Not quite burgundy, not quite purple.

Salvia guaranitica (right) -- the best annual for attracting hummingbirds in the midwest. Perhaps my favorite annual.

Caladium in the raised planter in the foreground. Red-leaved fountain grass (Pennisetum) to the left. And a hibiscus trained as a standard in the center back. The hibiscus is another wonderful plant for hummingbirds (and Japanse beetles--grrr). It's underplanted with petunias, calibrachoa and vines.

What are YOUR favorite annuals for container gardening?

Vintage Magazine Covers -- House & Garden

2011-12-05T19:50:00.000-08:00

A valuable source of period garden design ideas are gardening magazines, books, catalogs and photographs--especially the old ones. Although I'm particularly fond of (and collect) 19th Century publications because they provide a peak into what was going on in the lives of gardeners and farmers back then, it's the covers of early 20th Century home and garden magazines that I find really intriguing right now.

Love the illustrations on these WWI-era House&Garden magazine covers. It's all about the art. No slamming captions or headlines or anything. Everything that needs to be said is portrayed in the illustration, i.e., a picture is worth a thousand words.

Or in this case, sighs.

Also love the Art Deco effects of later issues. Notice how the typefaces have changed in an effort to stay "up-to-date" for readers. No matter how many times they changed the typeface, House&Garden magazine covers in the 'teens a century ago are the ones that I find most comforting and interesting.

Back to Basics: Design a Great Container

2011-11-26T10:15:00.000-08:00

Whether you garden on a sprawling suburban lot or on a small urban balcony or patio, in full sun or in shade, you can design and plant a pot with stunning results. That’s the great thing about gardening—as long as you know a few basics, you can flex your artistic side even if you can’t draw a straight line.
First the basics. You’ll need a pot with drainage holes to shed excess water, otherwise the roots will rot and the plants will die. Buy a good, all-purpose potting mix—one with fertilizer granules mixed in to save time. Choose a container that complements the style of your home. For example, a classic iron urn looks great with a Victorian home, while a tall, contemporary glazed pot can enhance sleek architectural lines.

Create impact with color. Pick a pot in a color that enhances your garden, patio furniture or backdrop. Many garden centers carry new lightweight resin pots in a range of Crayola-like colors—red, blue, chartreuse, grey, or purple, for example—and in many sizes. Pots smaller than 14 inches across will require frequent watering, so the bigger pot you choose, the better. Last, determine where the pot will go and how much light that space receives during the summer, and select plants based on their light requirements (shade, part shade, sun).

Next comes the fun part—choosing the plants. I use the terms ‘monopot’ and ‘combopot’, says Ray Rogers in his new book, “The Encyclopedia of Container Plants: More than 500 Outstanding Choices for Gardeners.” (Timber Press, 344 pages, $34.95). A monopot contains one type of plant while a combopot includes two or more different plants. Garden designer Patti Kirkpatrick of Joliet plants several containers of monopots and combopots for her deck. A container filled with one type of coleus or an ornamental grass, such as Pennisetum ‘Prince’ (purple fountain grass), can give you a very dramatic and contemporary look, she says.

One easy formula for a mixed container planting is to use a thriller, filler and spiller, as shown here. The striking shade-loving caladiums are the thrillers, the tallest plants in the pot, which add visual interest with their coarse, colorful leaves. The fillers are the New Guinea impatiens with their rose-colored flowers and light yellow streaks down the center of the leaves. And the spiller is a variegated Plectranthus, ‘Troy’s Gold.’

What works well here: the plants offer leaves with contrasting shapes and textures—broad and pointy, oval, and long and slender. There’s a limited color palette—green, rose, white and golden-yellow. (Adding a few orange or pale blue flowers would surely take away from this put-together ensemble.) The container’s color and shape are neutral. And, perhaps most important, all of the plants prefer the same type of culture—light shade, good drainage and occasional watering with a liquid-soluble fertilizer.

Use the same formula to create a full-sun planter with some red fountain grass, dragonwing begonias and sweet potato vines—a thriller, spiller and filler. Or, for a contemporary look, plant a monopot using only begonias or petunias or calibrachoa. The possibilities are endless. On your next visit to the garden center, pick up a pot, some plants and start designing in your cart. Becoming a garden artist was never easier.

Season of Thanks

2011-11-21T10:08:00.000-08:00

“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” – Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (January 28, 1873 –August 3,1954)

There are many things to be thankful for but sometimes you can’t see the forest for the tree ferns. I’m revisiting an interview I did with landscape and horticulture experts last Thanksgiving holiday.

The trowels and shovels have been cleaned and stowed and the summer garden is now just a memory for most of us. In this quiet time of autumn, we asked gardeners, plant breeders, horticulturists and designers to reflect on what they are thankful for when it comes to gardens, among other things.

“Plant-wise, I am thankful for Black Scallop Ajuga and golden Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’ [groundcovers] as they are a ‘living mulch’ and the Black Scallop is truly black,” says garden designer Patti Kirkpatrick of Joliet who, as a long-time volunteer, helps design and plant the hummingbird garden and indoor displays at Joliet’s Birdhaven Greenhouse and Conservatory. “I am thankful for the great volunteers who help with plant sales there, too. But most of all I am thankful to be working with Mother Nature as an artist’s medium. It is ever-changing, always challenging, most rewarding. Just to enhance her work, be it for a short time, is such an opportunity. And the appreciation of others who enjoy it is beyond words.” Birdhaven Greenhouse is located at 225 N. Gougar Road in Joliet and is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day, closed on holidays. Check out www.jolietpark.org or (815) 741-7278.

Landscape architect Scott Mehaffey is thankful that he picked up a garden magazine while in college. “I had been designing and building sets, setting lights and running sound boards when I realized that I wanted to make real places that would last longer than a few weeks,” says Mehaffey. “I picked up the debut issue of Garden Design magazine and I was hooked. I do think my tech theatre background still influences me--I pay a lot of attention to scale and perspective, architectural style and site furnishings--and to lighting of course.” One word of wisdom from Mehaffey’s designing side--get the garden on paper before planting. He says the adage “’it's easier to move a plant with a pencil than a shovel’ rings as true as ‘measure twice, cut once.’ A good gardener must also be a good planner.” Check out Garden Design magazine at http://www.gardendesign.com/.

“I am thankful for the large size container of red pepper flakes that they sell at Costco,” says Lora Lee Gelles, whose garden received first prize in this year’s Orland Park garden contest. “When we are at the height of ‘bunny’ season, I sprinkle it all over the tender emerging perennials and the newbie annuals that I have planted. ‘Ahhh chooo.’” For more pest-deterrent ideas, visit the University of Illinois Extension’s Web site at http://web.extension.illinois.edu/state/hort9.html.

Jim Ault is thankful that he discovered the many fascinating aspects of the genus Lilium. “My wife and I stumbled on the lily show at the Botanic Garden and we were blown away,” says Ault, plant breeder and director of ornamental plant research at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe. He has since joined the North American Lily Society and the Wisconsin-Illinois Lily Society and has read everything about lilies from garden magazines to scientific journals. The couple’s backyard in Libertyville, Ill., has become a breeding ground featuring hundreds of lilies in different sizes, shapes and colors as well as fragrance. “The whole plant breeding thing gets under your skin and I can’t walk away from it at the end of the day.” Learn more about lilies at the North American Lily Society’s Web site, http://www.lilies.org./

“I am very thankful for having had the chance to work at The Morton Arboretum because of all the work the scientists, employees and volunteers do to ensure the conservation of our natural world, “says horticulturist and designer Sue Miller of Geneva. She credits the Arboretum’s former landscape architect, Tony Tyznik, as a source of inspiration for her gardening style. “While we were working in the Fragrance Garden and the Hedge Garden, he would often be with us pruning trees, placing plants, telling stories and making comments about plants such as, ‘look at how the dew drops cling to the leaves of the Alchemilla mollis. Isn’t that beautiful?’ Or, ‘Look how the leaves shine on that Viburnum prunifolium?’ He taught me to notice little things like that when I design a garden. In so many ways, it’s those little things that make a huge difference.” The Morton Arboretum is at 4100 Illinois Route 53 in Lisle. Visit www.mortonarb.org or call 630-968-0074 for your own bit of inspiration.

Tim Wood is thankful that he spent summers working in his dad’s nursery in Michigan, which specialized in growing unusual plants. “I would take care of it after school, weekends and during the summer. In many ways I hated it--hard work, dirty and long hours,” says Wood who now works for Spring Meadow Nursery in Grand Haven, Mich. “But what I loved was learning and growing new and unusual plants. He gave me an appreciation and love for all types of plants,” When he’s not breeding or developing plants, such as the new Hydrangea ‘Incrediball,’ Wood searches out new, promising selections. Follow him on his plant hunting blog at http://plant-quest.blogspot.com/.

Garden book author Stephanie Cohen of Collegeville, Pennsylvania, is thankful she found vegetables boring as a kid. Her parents gave her a small section of their WW II Victory Garden in New York City where she grew petunias, marigolds and geraniums. “This was the start of my long-term romance with ornamentals,” Cohen says. Since then, she’s written three books, provided hundreds of articles and lectures, and has spent 21 years teaching horticulture.” I never found the cure for this obsession and probably never will.” Check out her latest book, “The Nonstop Garden: A Step-by-Step Guide to Smart Plant Choices for Four-Season Designs,” by Cohen and Jennifer Benner. (Timber Press, 248 pages, $19.95.)

Happy Thanksgiving holiday to you and yours...

Winter Classes at The Clearing

2011-11-08T13:04:00.000-08:00

The winter solstice is several weeks away and there's still plenty of time to procrastinate over holiday shopping, family get-togethers and other events. But once the holidays are over and we're faced with those bleak mid-winter days, a workshop or two up at The Clearing Folk School in Door County, Wisconsin, sounds pretty good. This unique school, the genius of landscape architect Jens Jensen, offers more than 100 day classes in January and February.

In the summer, you can sign up for a week-long class—there are dozens of offerings from quilting and yoga to writing and painting, weaving, photography and woodwork—and stay at The Clearing (or find housing nearby). These photos were taken when I attended a writing workshop one summer. Lovely as it is in summer, winter in Door County is enchanting and magical. A great place to reflect and renew in the coming New Year.

It was a pleasure to see these three pine trees, planted by Jensen, decades earlier--a look back in time and a connection to a fascinating man.

So plan ahead for an interesting winter get-away. January will be here before you know it.

A book for the holidays: Armitage’s Garden Perennials

2011-11-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

If you’ve grown ‘Margarita,’ the chartreuse-leaved sweet potato vine, or the Sunlover coleus series, or the red-leaved fountain grasses, ‘Prince’ or ‘Princess,’ you can thank Allan Armitage, plant guru and professor at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, for introducing them to the garden trade. Armitage is the author of several gardening books, including the newly revised, “Armitage’s Garden Perennials,” (Timber Press, 348 pages, $49.95). This detailed reference book, sprinkled with a little plant history, suggestions for plant combinations, and his quirky humor, covers more than 1250 of the best perennials, including garden mainstays and new introductions, along with zone hardiness and cultural recommendations.

“I can’t write about this stuff without growing it,” says Armitage, who has evaluated perennials in Montreal, Canada, East Lansing, Michigan, and in Athens, Georgia, where he oversees the university’s research gardens, evaluating new plants from flower breeders around the world.
He took a break from plant research, travel and lectures to talk by phone recently about his latest book.
Did you drop any plants since the first edition was published in 2000?

As I was writing the book, a dozen new cultivars of echinacea [coneflower] and epimedium were hitting the trial garden. The new cultivars tend to push out the older ones, but I didn’t want to throw out all the old plants that were still good. Let’s face it, in a five-year period there may be 1000 new plants of which 100 stick. For example, I still recommend some of the older coreopsis, like ‘Zagreb,’ which is spectacular. And ‘Goldsturm’ Rudbeckia, which is planted at just about every corner gas station—it’s one of those plants with staying power that I couldn’t drop. The rudbeckias in general are great, and there are a lot of newer ones that are very nice, like ‘Herbstonne,’ and the taller ‘Henry Eilers,’ a Rudbeckia subtomentosa, which has very narrow petals and is an attractive plant.

So, which perennials are your top picks?
How can I do that? Well, my favorites are different today than they were six months ago or last year. I’m looking at new perennials every day and it’s impossible to try every single one. Breeders are doing a lot of interesting work with native plants, which we call “nativars,” [a combination of native and cultivar]. Beyond perennials...what I love right now are Japanese maples, hypericum (St. John’s Wort), hibiscus, vines—I’m a vine guy.
What’s a workhorse perennial for full sun?
False indigo [Baptisia] is definitely on my list. It’s a native plant that, once established, is a consistent performer that will persist for 20 years or more. There are at least a half-dozen colors and new hybrids and more are coming. It’s really a classic perennial that grows 3 to 4 feet tall and wide and has few insect or disease problems. However, it’s a plant that has very little joy in the retail setting because it looks like a stick in a container, so few people know what it has to offer. I’m also enamored with hardy hibiscus this year. There are so many fine [hibiscus] out there and breeders are working on some so they’re more compact at 3 to 4 feet tall. ‘Cranberry Crush’ is a good example at 3 feet tall and wide with bright rosy-red flowers. It’s reliable year after year and the only downside is that Japanese beetles occasionally bother it.
What’s your favorite plant for shade?
Well, that could change tomorrow, but today it’s epimedium. There are so many [epimedium] to choose from. They have handsome flowers in spring, they’re drought-tolerant and they make a great groundcover. Pulmonarias are a big deal for the shade garden, too. They’ve been around a long time and they’ve got really handsome foliage. Hellebores, too, are definitely one of the ones I love for shade. They have always been good plants, but the flowers were hard to see. ‘Ivory Prince’ was the first with upward facing flowers and there’s ‘Pink Frost,’ both very good. They just may be hard to find. And, Northern maidenhair fern—you can’t do much better than that in the ferns.

What made you include things like cannas and dahlias, which aren’t really perennial?

Yes, they have to be dug up and stored and replanted in the spring if you garden north of zones 6 or 7, but they’re outstanding plants, many with new colors and eye-catching, bold foliage that make a great contribution to perennial garden design.

You recently moved into a smaller house with a much smaller space for a garden. How are you whittling down your collection?

I had a spectacular garden at the old house and was growing a lot of tiarellas, lungwort and other shade plants, but this new garden is tiny and has more sun. The ‘before’ was pretty awful but it’s been fun--I stuff things in. I have absolutely no design in my yard, but I know enough about plants to know what they need and where to place them. The new place is already overrun. That’s what gardening is about. Don’t take it too seriously—it should be a pleasure, not a pain.

Check it out at http://www.timberpress.com/

Thinking outside the pot--Squash and Sweet Potatoes for the Holidays

2011-11-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

Simple. Straightforward. And, the “oh, I can do this” kind of recipe that tastes good and doesn’t need multiple hands to produce something that looks like a ‘Picasso on a Plate.” That’s Penny Newkirk’s philosophy when it comes to cooking, whether it’s for family and friends or for students at Country Garden Cuisine (www.countrygardencuisine.com), her cooking school, located in an 1847 Greek Revival-style house in St. Charles, Ill.

Holiday meals can be tasty, effortless and palate-pleasing instead of the usual run-of-the-mill—watery sweet potato casserole, wedges of head lettuce or mashed squash.

“Good food is grown locally and prepared with love,” Newkirk says.” It’s a simple concept and that’s the direction I’ve chosen to take.” For Newkirk, that means getting back to basics with uncomplicated recipes that let the savory flavors of autumn stand out. Much of the produce she uses comes from her own herb and vegetable gardens but local farmers markets and farm stands are good sources as well.

Butternut squash and sweet potatoes represent some of the season’s most savory flavors in Newkirk’s kitchen. Both vegetables are a staple when her family sits down to celebrate Thanksgiving.

But, you won’t find Newkirk using a bag of mini marshmallows to gooey up the typical sugar-filled, sweet potato dish. Instead, she suggests using sweet potatoes in other ways, such as a hearty soup that can be served as a first course. “The sweet potato soup is a recipe I’ve used for 25 years,” she says. “It’s a great way of using them even if you’re not a sweet potato fan and it’s fast to whip up and tastes yummy.”

Cooked butternut squash stands in for croutons in her spinach salad. “Our family loves butternut squash,” Newkirk says. “I use it in soups, casseroles, even lasagna. Using that bit of squash in a salad brings it to life.” Butternut squash also appears in her hearty potato-and-butternut gratin, a colorful, satisfying and creamy dish. “Even new cooks will find these recipes easy to do and good to eat,” Newkirk says. “And, it’s all about spending time with your guests rather than in the kitchen.”

Sweet Potato Soup

3-4 sweet potatoes, baked

3 cups chicken stock or broth*

1 cup heavy cream (or use ½ cup fat free half and half, ½ cup heavy cream)

½ to 1 cup grated Swiss cheese

Salt to taste

Freshly grated nutmeg

*Stock and broth are often used interchangeably in recipes, although they are slightly different. Broth is a more concentrated form of stock. Newkirk uses whichever one she has on hand for this recipe.

Puree the sweet potatoes in a food processor and pour into a saucepan. Add the chicken broth and cream and simmer for 20 minutes. Stir in the grated Swiss cheese, taste and adjust with salt as needed. Pour into serving bowls and garnish with grated nutmeg.

Penny Newkirk’s Tip: I like to cut out Swiss cheese shapes using a miniature cookie cutter shaped like a turkey or maple leaf and float on top of the soup in the individual serving bowls. Serve it hot for a great “first course soup” or a light dinner option.

Butternut Squash Salad

1 2-1/2 pound butternut squash (cut into quarters)

1/3 cup vegetable or olive oil

1/3 cup apple cider

1/4 cup cider vinegar plus 1 tablespoon

2 Tbs. sugar (1 for dressing and 1 for onion/leek dressing)

1/4 tsp. salt

Pepper to taste

1 - 2 pounds of spinach leaves

For dressing:

3 green onions (white and green portions chopped)

1 leek (white portion) rinsed and sliced thin

Fresh spinach greens (For large leaf spinach remove thick stems and tear the leaves into bite-size pieces. For baby leaf spinach, use entire leaf and stem.)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place the squash with the cut sides down on a foil-lined baking sheet. Roast the squash until barely fork tender (about 20 minutes); don’t overcook. Cool squash on a rack. Next, prepare the dressing. Sauté the onions and leek in olive oil over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of sugar to help brown them, stirring to prevent burning. When the onions and leek are golden, remove from heat, splash a little balsamic vinegar (about 1 tablespoon to add a contrast in flavor) and cool. Peel and cube the cooled squash and dress with 2/3 of the dressing. When ready to serve add remaining dressing to spinach greens, add squash and onion mixture, and top with apple slices or sweetened dried cranberries, such as Craisins®, for additional color and fall flavor.(The onion leek mixture is for extra flavor it can be tossed into the greens or used as a topping with the apple and squash for color.)

Penny Newkirk’s Tip: The idea is to not overcook the squash and make it mushy, but to produce a vegetable crouton with less carbs and more fall flavor. Non-cooks may find it easier to peel and cube the squash into 1/2 inch squares, then toss in olive oil and spread on a baking sheet to be roasted in a 400 degree oven for 15 to 20 minutes. Roast them until barely tender.

Potato and Butternut Gratin

2 pounds peeled butternut squash

3 pounds peeled potatoes (red, white, baking or Yukon gold potatoes)

1 tsp each fresh thyme, sage and marjoram finely chopped

Salt and pepper

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 cups heavy cream

4 ounces sharp Swiss cheese

Cut squash and potatoes 1/8 inch-thick. Lightly butter or use cooking spray to coat a 2-quart glass or Pyrex casserole dish. Layer the slices of squash and potatoes, alternating the colors. Sprinkle minced garlic with herbs, salt and pepper over each layer. Press down with the back of a spatula and add cream. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 minutes. Remove foil, top with cheese and bake uncovered another 25 to 30 minutes. Add more cream if necessary to keep it creamy as the ingredients will absorb liquids.

Penny Newkirk at her Country Garden Cuisine Cooking School in St. Charles, IL

Penny Newkirk’s Tips: I use a mandolin to slice the peeled potatoes and squash so they’re all the same thickness and they cook evenly. You can cut down on the fat by splitting the amount of cream called for in the recipe so it’s half fat-free cream and half regular cream. That way it’s not fully loaded. Use a glass or ceramic casserole baking dish rather than a dark metal pan so you can see the colors of the vegetables.

Red Hots

2011-10-17T20:53:00.001-07:00

Summer Break

2011-07-05T09:05:00.001-07:00

Vacation season is upon us but for diehard gardeners, it’s often difficult to tear away from the garden. At the extreme, there’s the pal who has a one-acre suburban garden filled with sweeping perennials beds, vegetables and herbs, ornamental trees, exotic tropicals, countless containers, a sweeping lawn and a pond. Except for the grass, she took care of everything. Her husband one summer suggested they take a two-week vacation to Australia, but she declined. “Oh, I could never leave my garden that long,” she told me.

You, however, can take a break from your plants with a little careful planning. “Most things survive for a week,” says Stephanie Cohen, co-author of “The Nonstop Garden: A Step-by-Step Guide to Smart Plant Choices and Four-Season Designs,” (Timber Press, 248 pages, $19.95). “It’s on extended stays that you need a friend or neighbor to help you out.”

Cohen moves all her container plants to one spot so that anyone who waters while she’s away won’t miss a pot. “Otherwise, they have to have a keen eye and not all teenage children have this gift.”

This is where a quick demo to the uninitiated comes in handy, especially if you’re relying on your neighbor’s son or daughter to care for your posies. Case in point: another gardening acquaintance was furious when she returned from vacation only to find that her tomato plants were wilted beyond recovery. She had hired a high-school kid to water the vegetable garden. And, he did. He turned on the hose for a few minutes, sprayed all the leaves and that was it.

“You have to show them what you want done,” says Lauren Springer Ogden, author of “The Undaunted Garden: Planting for Weather-Resilient Beauty,” (Fulcrum, 293 pages, $34.95). “It’s about standing there and holding the hose but many people just don’t know how to water.”

Detailed written explanations along with how much to water and for how long can help keep you r plants healthy and keep your sanity intact on your return. Place a one-gallon bucket next to the faucet, too. For newly planted trees or shrubs, instruct your substitute gardener to soak each plant with the entire bucket once a week. Other than watering, you can hold off on having your stand-in gardener fertilize or remove spent flowers.

Ogden doesn’t grow “a lot of fussy things” in her Fort Collins, Colorado garden, where agave, native grasses and other drought-tolerant plants thrive. For those of us who grow water-chugging petunias, basil, cucumbers and other plants, Ogden insists that good prep work is necessary before we head for the beach or campground.

“Make sure the garden’s not stressed and full of weeds,” Ogden says. “Get it ready as if you were getting it ready for a party.” In other words, clean it up and give it a good soak so that by the time you return, you won’t have nearly the number of weeds or weed seeds blowing around.

Because she splits her time between Colorado and Texas, Ogden’s containers are planted with water-thrifty succulents and cacti, which spend the winter indoors. It’s the herds of mule deer that are the problem for Ogden, who is more concerned about their browsing than the lack of rain while she’s out of town. “The deer are a huge issue. I use [deer repellant] spray and put up black netting.” When she’s home, she usually shoos them away.

A sprinkler system and soaker hoses help Cohen’s garden get by when she’s out of town. “I extend the amount of times per week and the length of time it’s on when I’m gone.” When it comes to hot, dry weather, well-established plants, particularly trees and shrubs, are less of a concern to Cohen than perennials and annuals. For those things, she relies on soaker hoses and other watering devices.

“Gardener's Supply Co. [www.gardener.com] has these great nozzles that attach to large plastic containers, like milk cartons, that let them slowly drip the water into the ground,” Cohen says. “They are cheaper than ‘alligator’ bags that contractor's use for new installations.” Before you pack your bags, stop in your local garden center to check out digital timers for the watering system along with self-watering window boxes and containers and drip systems that can be placed on a timer. Or, save some clean empty milk cartons, place a few tiny holes tine bottom, place them next to a plant and fill them with water, which will help keep the soil moist.

Mow the lawn before you leave and consider hiring someone to cut it while you’re away. Invite friends and family over in your absence to harvest tomatoes, peppers, squash, herbs and other edibles so nothing goes to waste. Regular harvesting encourages vegetables to keep producing so there will be plenty still there on your return. Now go pack those bags.

Call of the garden center brings wild, bleary-eyed gardeners

2011-05-06T09:48:00.000-07:00

Buy. Buy. BUY!!!!

It's 5:16 a.m and spring migration is in full swing. A male robin, hopped up on hormones, sits on a branch near the bedroom window whinnying like a loose stallion. In the woods across the road, thousands of other birds--mostly males--slowly join in the non-stop series of twittering, cackling, pleading, wailing, cascading calls.

A fox sparrow repeatedly croons what sounds like, "All I have is what's here dear, will-you-will-you take-it?" And there's a house wren trilling from the top of his newly discovered birdhouse--and his lungs--also too close to the house. Wrens have been clocked warbling the same melody more than 600 times. Each morning. Over and over.

The sun is nowhere to be seen when the performers begin their warm up.

Ornithologists have a word for this early cacophony: dawn song. There's another word for it: not printable. (Just kidding, all you ornithologists armed with your big honkin' binoculars, spotting scopes, bird calls, sunscreen, notepads, digital cameras, pencils and 3-pound field guides.)

I like the bird alarm clock. It's early and I can chug back some coffee and peruse seed catalogs before heading out to the garden center to get my post-winter fix. It's a sickness. I have enough plants. I even wrote in my garden journal: Don't Buy Any More Plants. Less is More. Mass things. Get rid of one-sies. Simplify.

And, to scare myself into a plant austerity program, I recently penned a three-page list of garden chores that must be done this spring: Move the dawn redwoods. Move the katsura. Give away the pagoda dogwood and the deer-chewed paperbark maple.

These trees are small--5 feet or so--and easy to move if you get them dug and transplanted before they leaf out. They were impulse buys from springs past. Schlepping the plants to the car, I decided that they'd grow in my yard whether they liked it or not. When I saw them all bloomy and green, I wanted them. It was spring and I was overtaken with Plant Lust.

I'm turning over a new leaf this year--impulse plant purchases must stop. Besides, there are 328 packets of seeds that I snapped up for only a dime each last fall. They were arranged alphabetically in the garden center's sale aisle. I couldn’t believe my luck, everything from Ageratum and Aconitum to Cinderella pumpkins and coral-colored cactus-flowered Zinnias.

It was November and the cashier was a bored, gum-popping high school kid who asked if it wasn't too late to plant zinnias so close to Thanksgiving. Oh, no, I said, waving several packets of hollyhocks, cosmos and ornamental chard under her nose. These are next year's garden--they'll be great.

I practically skipped out of the store with my Beautiful New Garden, all for a measly $32.80 plus tax.The seeds are stored in several boxes next to my desk. I suppose I could plant some of them but I'm too busy looking for Really Big Plants. Big bloomers like cherry-red ‘Knockout' roses and that new ‘Endless Summer' blue hydrangea.There's something about spring that sends a gardener's hormones into a raging imbalance that says Buy Plants, Buy Lots of Plants.

Perhaps it's the lengthening days. Or the smell of the earth after a rain.Most likely it's the sight of fresh new trees and shrubs waiting for a home. They represent my Ideal Garden, filled with hope and possibilities.

Creeping Charlie is staging a spectacular takeover of my beds and borders. It's recently hooked up with another insurgent--crab grass. They are closing ranks to form an impenetrable ground cover. But who cares? Those little irritations disappear with a trip to the local garden center where forsythia and roses are blooming alongside pots of magnolias, honeysuckle, serviceberry and pansies.

By early March, I'd already stopped at one nursery and bought a few tree-peonies-in-a-box, six elephant ear bulbs, some bare root purple asparagus, sets of red and white onions, white tuberous begonias and seeds of heirloom lettuce. Tree peonies are great. Their softball-size flowers look like crumpled crepe paper. Every gardener needs one. Or three.

And at this year's Chicago Flower and Garden Show at Navy Pier I just had to buy some tiny chartreuse-needled conifers from Rich's Foxwillow Pines--evergreens--Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Mops' to be exact. And a few new coral bells, a golden-tipped hemlock and a hosta.

There are plenty of fancy places where you can buy plants you don't need. I check out all the garden centers from Northwind in Wisconsin to Possibility Place Nursery down in Monee to Planter's Palette in Winfield and all points in between. I'll brake for plants a Kmart, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Menard's, Lowe's and Jewel.

I found a lovely bald cypress on my sister's driveway last week. She bought it (on impulse--it's in our genes) and I convinced her it would perform much better in the wet spot in my yard. So home it came. I'm trading the paperbark maple for it if I can get it out of the ground.

In a few weeks, migrating whippoorwills will stop in nearby trees, their haunting calls heard long after dark, long past the 9 o'clock news. As I unload the car, neighbors sometimes hear the sad, plaintive call of My Mate as he chirps: "What? Another plant? What? Another plant?"

It's usually followed by the more insistent melody: "I'm not moving any more trees. No more trees. What, another tree?"

The spring equinox has passed and gardeners must yield to the siren call for more plants. After all, gardening is a Hobby. An Art Form. An Obsession.

I'm going to make a real effort at restraint the rest of the year.

There's a new product called Sucker Stopper. It's used on crab apple suckers to prevent them from sprouting once they're cut. It's too bad they don't make a Sucker Stopper for Gardeners. I'd keep a bottle in the car and spray it on myself each time I got close to the garden center.

When Fido meets Flora

2011-05-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

Can Fido find happiness among the fuchsia? Will Fluffy stay out of the plant pots long enough for that flush of flowers you’ve been waiting for? Yes, with a little planning, dogs can coexist peacefully with your garden.

Kay Mangan is living proof that tending both a garden and dogs teaches one patience and tolerance. On a quiet corner lot in Olympia Fields, she has been growing climbing roses, ornamental trees, conifers, hostas and scores of other perennials for more than 25 years. She’s an avid plant collector and a dog-lover who has always had one or two Great Danes by her side over the years.

“None of my 12 dogs were ever diggers,” Mangan says “Danes are much more inclined to be a quiet dog, but they run like a racehorse along the fence after each and every squirrel, or they gallop around the perimeter of the grass for exercise, all the while with a soccer-size ball in their mouth.” Her garden is none the worse for the wear because it also gets a break when the dogs get walked around the neighborhood for a workout.

Given their own designated area and some training, dogs can comfortably share space with backyard flora and fauna, says Wauconda gardener Nancy Skeffington, co-founder of Prevent the Bite, a non-profit organization dedicated to educating children about dog safety. “Having the dog behave in the garden is part of a bigger training program--like training them not to jump over the fence,” she says.

Temporary fencing around planting beds can designate “off limits” areas during the training period. “Dogs are surprisingly visual and sensitive to barriers,” Skeffington says. “It’s helpful to have a visual aid to show them what’s off limits, like a chicken wire fence--a physical barrier that’s hopefully temporary.”

Nancy Kuhajda, extension program coordinator for the University of Illinois Extension, knows what it’s like to try and protect posies from rambunctious Shelties in her Joliet garden. “The configuration of the multitude of fences in my backyard made Stateville Prison look like a resort,” she says, joking.

Hot, diggity dog

Whether you have a Great Dane, a golden retriever, Jack Russell terrier or other canine, those four paws on soil, plants or turf can cause problems. Digging and pacing in one place can compact the soil or tear up the grass. Turn your dog's favorite route into a decorative path and line it with raised beds or ornamental fencing. A gap between fence and garden beds, lined with gravel, pavers or mulch, provides dogs a place to run without tearing up the beds. Don’t use coca mulch, however. Chocolate products can be toxic to dogs.

If you have the space--in an out-of-sight side yard or behind the garage or vegetable garden--dedicate a small spot, even a sandbox, where the dog is allowed to dig. “You can initially bury bones, a toy or treats to entice them there. You might even scoop or show them,” Skeffington says. “If your dog is a digger, he or she may kind of copy you when they see you digging in the garden. It’s a natural instinct for them.”

Scents and Sensibility

Some plants are calling cards for male dogs looking to mark their territory. “People are often unaware of the perfume exuded by certain plants,” Kuhajda says. “They can smell like incredibly strong cat urine, especially newly pruned boxwoods.” Some salvias and Russian sage exude similar scents. “You’re better off to choose an area to ‘go to the dogs’ and mulch it or gravel it for easy ‘pick up’ duty,” she says.

To minimize damage on shrubs and lawn, Kuhajda suggests watering the spots thoroughly to dilute the urine. And although it may be tempting to use dog and cat repellants, she cautions that some contain toxic ingredients. Read the labels carefully.

When Mangan is gardening, both of her dogs seem quite content to lie in the grass and watch. “The warm months are always a joy in the garden and the dogs make more work, but not having a dog would be hard,” she says. “I believe they give us more than they get.”

Happy Gardeners, Happy Pooches

Here are a few more tips on protecting your garden and your pup.

Compost piles are tempting places to dig or find a scrap to eat. Move them out of reach or enclose them.

Stop or correct the dog when you catch him in the act of digging or romping through plants. Use positive training methods and teach your dog good behavior. Dogs may dig to warm or cool themselves, to bury or uncover things or to pursue small critters. Digging is an instinctual part of life for some dogs, like Jack Russell terriers and beagles.

Play with your dog and provide safe, engaging toys outdoors. Don’t leave dogs unattended outdoors for long periods. Provide them with water and shade.

Thorny, prickly plants such as barberry, roses, yucca and holly may discourage a dog, but sharp thorns and points can cause injury. For info on toxic plants, visit http://www.aspca.org/pet-care/poison-control/plants/

For information on dog care and behavior, visit the American Animal Hospital Association’s web site, www.healthypet.com

Paint your garden with plants...new classes at the Chicago Botanic Garden!

2011-04-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

Saturday, April 30 classes at the Chicago Botanic Garden

Painting Your Garden with Plants: Designing the Sunny Border 10 a.m. - noon

The well-designed border wears a combination of perennials, annuals, and shrubs that provide three seasons of color and winter interest. This class will discuss how to artfully combine plants with an emphasis on the use of color, texture, and form. Whether you are a new gardener or you have an established border that could use updating, this class is for you.

Painting Your Garden with Plants: Designing the Shade Garden 1 – 3 p.m.

A garden shaded by trees or buildings is often a challenge for the gardener who is faced with low-light levels, tree roots, and soil that is often dry. This class provides solutions and ideas for artful plantings that can help you create effective combinations that consider color, texture, and form. Ideal for those who want to enhance an existing shade garden or plan a new one.

$29 for CBG members/$37 for non members for each session or register for both session at $52/$65 for a 10 percent discount. For more information, check here.

Eating Locally—From your own Garden

2011-04-11T10:00:00.000-07:00

That incredibly warm weather that dropped into northeastern Illinois has gardeners itching to get going. Even though the soil is still pretty cool--a soil thermometer can give you the exact reading--there are plenty of vegetables that you can sow in the garden right now for harvest in the coming weeks.

Staggering your plantings every few weeks will give you a non-stop crop of leaf lettuce, spinach, radishes, spring onions, beets and more. If you’d like to learn the basics of growing vegetables and herbs, attend a free program--"Growing Edibles: What you need to Know to Harvest Your Own Food” by Chicagoland Gardening writer, Nina Koziol. The program will be held at Sid’s Greenhouse locations:

Friday, April 15 at 6 p.m.

Bolingbrook Store

550 S Naper-Plainfield Rd

Bolingbrook, IL 60490

630-904-1007

Saturday, April 16 at 11 a.m.

Sid’s Greenhouse

10926 Southwest Hwy

Palos Hills, IL 60465

708-974-4500

Freeze, Frost, Frozen...

2011-04-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

This is the time of year when the weather forecasters turn up the talk about night temps that can dip down into frost territory. Either way, it’s a crucial time for gardeners who are itching to plant outdoors. Plenty of the big-box stores already have annuals for sale and that’s a dangerous thing for anxious gardeners. There’s a good chance that these plants will succumb to a frost or a freeze before May 15.

There’s a subtle difference between a frost and a freeze. You can have a freeze without frost and vice versa. Here’s why: A freeze occurs when the air temperature drops below 32 F. Sometimes we get frost (a deposit of ice crystals) when it’s above freezing and we can have a freeze without frost. It all has to do with the amount of water in the air. There are two different ways to measure humidity, the amount of water vapor in the air. The one that weathermen (and women) use is “relative humidity.”

Warm air holds more water than cool air. The relative humidity changes throughout the day as the temperature rises and falls. If the temperature drops low enough, the amount of water in the air is more than it can hold at that temperature. The air is saturated and water vapor in the air condenses as water on cars, lawns, sidewalks--and voila--dew.

The dew point measures the absolute amount of water in the air. It is the temperature at which the air is saturated and the relative humidity is 100%. For a given volume of air, with a set amount of water vapor in it, the relative humidity varies with the temperature but the dew point is always the same.

What does that have to do with frosts and freezes? It all has to do with the dew point. If the dew point is much above freezing, a frost is unlikely. The higher the dew point is above freezing the less likely we’ll have freezing temps. If the dew point is below freezing then a frost becomes more likely.

If a dry air mass moves into the region at this time of year in the Chicago area, a freeze is likely. Dry air has a low dew point and a low relative humidity. The dry air warms quickly during the day but also cools quickly at night. When there are clear calm conditions, the ground cools rapidly at night, losing heat to the open sky. As the ground cools, the air next to it also cools. On windy nights, the cool air mixes with warmer air above and the warm air helps heat the ground. On calm nights, the ground continues to cool and can be colder than the air.

Water condenses on the ground and other surfaces as dew. If the dew point is near freezing, the water vapor condenses as ice, freezing as frost. So the air can be above freezing and the surface of your car is colder than freezing causing a frost even thought the air temperature is above freezing. That is how we get a frost without a freeze. If the dew point is much below freezing then we can get freezing temperatures cold enough to freeze plants without any frost. When frozen plants thaw, they are blackened and die. This is sometimes called a black frost, a freeze without a frost.

Slow Food City's Edge - Spring Garden Events!

2011-03-16T13:26:00.000-07:00

Would you like to learn more about Organic Gardening in small spaces? How about apple grafting techniques? Or learn how to prepare and preserve what you grow at home? Slow Food City’s Edge is a local chapter of Slow Food, an international organization with members worldwide who celebrate local and seasonal food traditions, support sustainable agriculture, and embrace the pleasures of eating good food.

Slow Food City’s Edge is a local chapter that is sponsoring two new events in March and April. If you have the time, check them out. There's plenty to learn and it's a fun group.

“Apple Grafting Workshop” will take place at Cantigny in Wheaton on March 20 at 1:00 PM. Presented by Oriana Krajewski, expert orchardist, member of the Midwest Fruit Explorers and a market fruit grower who specializes in Asian Pears. Oriana will explain how to graft the wood of Pixie Crunch (scion wood) while it's dormant onto the root stock of a dwarf tree or a small tree. The graft will have time to knit together before the growing season starts. Cost: $45.00 Price includes admission to the workshop and the Pixie Crunch tree. Attendees will have access to additional trees for grafting at a nominal fee.

(Thanks to Cameron Cross via his father-in-law Cliff Whall for this cool photo. Cameron grew these beauties, which are so artfully arranged on the family's kitchen counter in the south of France. Tomatoes galore!)

“Let's Grow at Home” is presented by Vicki Nowicki landscape designer at Liberty Gardens in Downers Grove on Sunday, April 30 from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM. Vicki will give a hands-on blueprint for organic vegetable gardening in her own garden in Downers Grove where she and her husband Ron have gardened in for 30 years. Cost is $15. Find more on these programs here.

-- Nina A. Koziol http://www.thisgardencooks.com/

Thoughts on Bugs, Birds and the Benefits of Native Plants

2011-03-08T20:12:00.000-08:00

I often wondered why the hordes of Japanese beetles that mobbed the ornamental grasses, roses, basil and other plants in our garden often went unnoticed by the chickadees, wrens and other birds that are regular visitors. When those beetles launched themselves from the ground one warm day in June--in an event that was somewhat like the old TV thriller, The Twilight Zone, I was certain that the birds would feast on them just like they do on cicadas. Wrong.

Doug Tallamy explains why that's not going to happen any time soon in his book, Bringing Nature Home. Japanese beetles didn't evolve with chickadees or wrens. But the beetles did evolve with the weeping Asiatic cherry that I planted in the front border. Each year, the leaves looked like Swiss cheese come July, absolutely decimated by these voracious little monsters. And so the cherry came out and was replaced with a native witch hazel.

Tallamy's book is a call for planting more natives in suburban gardens. Plants that support native insect populations, which in turn support the birds and other creatures that rely on them as part of the food chain. His book is a great read for any gardener. You need not plant your entire yard with natives. But my goal this year is to have at least one third of our acre dedicated to paw paw trees, sweet gum, Joe Pye weed and others that will bring in butterflies, moths, bees and other beneficial insects. Check out his book...it's a good read for spring.

Thoughts about Spring

2011-03-02T12:21:00.000-08:00

“Spring is the inspiration, fall the expiration. Both seasons have their equinoxes, both their filmy, hazy air, their ruddy forest tints, their cold rains, their drenching fogs, their mystic moons; both have the same solar light and warmth, the same rays of the sun; yet, after all, how different the feelings they inspire! One is morning, the other the evening; one is youth, the other is age.” -- American Naturalist John Burroughs, 1876

The Garden of Good and Evil Plants

2011-02-10T20:45:00.000-08:00

A peak through old garden photos and journals made me realize that The Thugs were back. I'm talking about those extra-vigorous plants that, given an inch, will take a mile. Bishop's weed (Aegopodium, aka goutweed), for example, which I first admired outside a little art gallery in Door County some 20 years ago, has spread in several beds. I liked the way its variegated leaves lit up the ground in a shady spot around the gallery's doorway. So I planted some in front of the yews. And then discovered that by mid-summer, the leaves had become tattered and dried out. I had to cut them all down.

Bishop's weed (left) and Artemisia 'Limelight' (right).

Then there's Artemisia 'Limelight', a perennial that has the most delightful colors—chartreuse and green—in the spring. I planted it in a border of lime-green and merlot-colored foliage and discovered that it's quick to suffocate nearby plants.

Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea', the lime-colored groundcover, has skipped out of the bed where I planted it under 'Tiger Eyes' sumac and is running willy nilly through the lawn.

There's pipevine (Artistolochia), which I pictured cloaking an arbor and attracting pipevine swallowtails to lay their eggs on it. It has crept away from the arbor and has managed to clamber 18 feet up a purple weeping beech.

And golden hops vine planted on a purple arbor—also sending up shoots several feet away as the trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) is doing elsewhere.

All high maintenance plants to say the least. Pulling, cutting, cursing and, yes, chemicals, have become part of this gardener's artillery. The moral of this story is to investigate before buying (or accepting freebie plants from friends).

What thugs are growing in your garden and how have you controlled them?

—Nina Koziol

The Shape of Good Things to Come

2011-01-26T14:25:00.000-08:00

One group of plants brings in more hummingbirds, bees and other pollinators than practically anything else in our garden. It’s the genus Salvia—a group of perennials and annuals that produce flowers in red, blue, purple, violet, white and bi-colors. Their tubular flowers are well-suited to a hummingbird’s long straw-like tongue. Bees, even smaller ones, that can’t fit inside the flowers, take the easy way out by chewing a hole at the base to access nectar.

Besides the common culinary sage (also a Salvia), there are many different species. One that is particularly lovely is the new Salvia coccinea ‘‘Summer Jewel Red.’ This species is also called hummingbird sage, scarlet sage and Texas sage.

The folks at All-America Selections chose Summer Jewel Red as one of their 2011 winners. It was rated superior and above average because it flowers early (50 days from sowing seeds) and it’s covered in blooms through autumn. It works in containers and in the ground in a sunny spot with well-drained soil. Flowers are about ½ inch long on plants that reach 20” tall and 16” wide. I think this one is going to place the older standby, Lady in Red, which, for me, had a somewhat lax habit. Thanks to those hard working breeders at Takii & Co., Ltd. I’m looking forward to buying seeds at my local garden center.

I plan to pair it with blue-flowered ageratum and white sweet alyssum. Or perhaps turn it into a hot-colored container with some Gaillardia and Cosmos ‘Bright Lights.’ Or maybe I’ll put some in the 80-foot-long perennial border with prairie dropseed (Sporobolus), liatris, Coreopsis 'Zagreb', white daisies and celosia. A plant that provides this much bloom power through our northeastern Illinois summer is worth starting from seed.

A Backward Glance in Winter

2011-01-21T14:38:00.001-08:00

Over the past 30-odd years, I slowly amassed a large collection of gardening books, seed and plant catalogues, some dating from the 1880s, photographs of American gardens from the Civil War onward, old seed packets and other ephemera. While there are blogs, tweets, Web sites, and still an amazing assortment of horticultural magazines—yes, print is alive, and for some publications, like Organic Gardening and Fine Gardening, doing quite well--I find myself turning to the gardening magazines and journals published more than a century ago for inspiration.

While stuck in the Information Age, where bytes rule, there is something about peering into the past and examining what plants, structures and other elements made up the American landscape during the Industrial Age, perhaps a parallel to our current cultural condition. It’s a challenge to put yourself in that place—considering the events and technology that were available—and trying to give your mind’s eye a 19th Century viewpoint.

This photograph, ca. 1862-1863, is from the U.S. Library of Congress, from the series, “Photographs of the War of the Rebellion.”1 It’s a view “from above of an overgrown large garden, crossed with paths, small buildings, arches and flower beds. Officers and African Americans stand in the pathways.”

Of course, not everyone during this period had magnificent gardens—either home gardens or public gardens. However, many home gardens—whether urban or rural--of the time were quite unique. One of my favorite photographs was taken in Bureau County, Illinois in 1868 and shows a gingerbread Gothic-style farmhouse with an ornamental fence and a few ornamental trees, a barn with an extended decorative pergola and vines growing on it. It was an incredible early garden on what was still untamed and almost endless prairie that stretched for miles behind the farmstead.

That doesn’t mean that everyone could afford an ornamental garden such as that, or that they even had the inclination to create one given all the other worries of survival on the Midwestern prairie.

Just like today. Not everyone down your street has a spectacular garden, I would wager. Gardeners are a unique bunch. And the stories, photos and other details of gardens and gardeners long gone make a fascinating read during these cold winter months.

¹From "U. S. Navy. Edisto Island. Morris and Folly Islands. Fort Warren, Mass. Andersonville Prison, Miscellaneous." photographic album, p 61 (Edisto Island). Accession source: Library of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, Commandar of the State of New York

Walk this Way: Two Good Design Pointers

2011-01-13T18:07:00.000-08:00

If you own a house, there’s a good chance you have a side yard. And you pay taxes on that side yard because it’s part of your property. Even so, many homeowners figure the side yards are an afterthought. In a crowded city, the side yard is likely to be quite narrow and shady. In the bungalow where I grew up, the sides of the house were cloaked with hostas and a slim ribbon of cement walk that lead from the street pass the side entryway and to the alley.

Stand across from any house with side yards and notice how they frame the building. They are part of the curb appeal. What’s planted there? How do the owners access their back yard? What are the focal points--what draws your eye first? And second?

In our ex-urban one-acre setting -- we’re not quite in suburbia and not quite in farm country -- our side yards are quite large and filled with shrub borders and flanked by lawn and steps, planting beds around the foundation and arbors on each side of the house.

I like arbors because they provide a sensation of leading one through a doorway and into the next garden room. All the better if the style and material of the arbor honors the architecture of the house. This incredible arbor-and-fence combination enhances the turn-of-the-century frame house. What a bore this side yard would be with no flowers, no arbor, no path, just lawn. There’s be nothing to stop your gaze.

But here your eyes are drawn to the arbor and then the sweep of plantings, curving around and hugging the lawn to the front walk. It’s a stunning scene even in winter when the plants are dormant.

There’s something else here that works particularly well but you may not notice immediately. It’s the color palette. And a very English one at that with pinks, chartreuse (lady’s mantle flowers), blue salvia, catmint, silver-leaved lamb’s ears, variegated dogwood and white daisies. It’s a limited pastel palette--no hot-lips' reds, oranges, or other warm tones. Oftentimes when a perennial border or even a container combination is not quite right, it’s the color palette. Stick with a triad of colors or a monotone combination of one color and you can’t go wrong.

For more on effective color combinations, see Painting Your Garden with Plants classes, coming this spring to the Chicago Botanic Garden.

What are your favorite colors in the garden?

Eating Locally....Just a Cluck Away?

2011-01-10T20:06:00.000-08:00

Winter eggs...pale pink, green and ivory

Chickens. Should we or shouldn’t we? One neighbor keeps pet ducks in what we call the Falling Down Highly Aromatic Duck Condo. Other neighbors down the road kept a rooster, but they had a flimsy 2-foot-tall chicken wire fence around its pen and a coyote soon made quick work of it. No more 5 a.m. wakeup calls from that yard.

A cat that clucks?

We toured the poultry barn at the Sandwich, Illinois, county fair two years ago, marveling at the fluffy-furry look of the ribboned champs--they were positively catlike. We have flipped through the chicken-covered pages of McMurray’s, a specialty catalog that offers everything you could possibly need for raising fowl.

To harvest those warm eggs on a summer morning, or prepare all those egg-enriched baked goods, or ponder over our ability to become truly self-sufficient, green, sustainable, and maybe even artistic--knitting a sweater or making some jewelry circa 1975 and incorporating those plentiful chicken feathers...these are the things that entice.

But back to reality...do we need really need eggs every day and how many can we possibly use? Do we have time for two-legged outdoor “pets?” Will we look “trendy?” I hope not.

There was a time in Chicago when butchers had live poultry that they slaughtered on the spot for customers. Now, according to every fashionably "green" magazine, Web site, book and newspaper, it's time for every city and suburban gardener to acquire a chicken. Or three.

So, if we get a few chickens, will I have to give them names? And what about salmonella? I’ll never make a raw-egg dish without worrying that someone will fall ill. But then there’s all that potential chicken manure we could use. Maybe we’d be better off with another wacky Golden Retriever.

My friend Lou tends chickens, a pot-belly pig and other critters on her farmette northwest of Chicago, along with a very large organic vegetable garden and extensive flower gardens. That’s when she’s not working at her 40-plus hour job in information technology, in addition to her grueling commute. Her potatoes--fingerlings, heirlooms and others--grow like weeds in a mix of composted pig manure and hay. She occasionally bring to work cartons of eggs from her free-range chickens. During winter when egg-laying slows down, her hens produce a few eggs in the most delicate pastels--pale pink, taupe and mint green.

Hawks or coyotes have occasionally picked off a chicken here or there on Lou’s property, but for the most part, the chickens amble around her garden in summer, pecking at bugs and plants, seemingly happy. For now, I think we will stick with this chicken, one which stood guarding the flowers in my mum’s former Chicago garden for many years.

Thinking about chickens? Check out the rare breeds and supplies at McMurray’s Hatchery catalog.

Already have chickens? Do tell--post a comment or email me at info@thisgardencooks.com

The passing of time in the garden

2010-12-30T10:00:00.000-08:00

It's December 30. The rain is slowly melting all the snow and two robins--from the flock of 50 or so that did not head south--are in the trees outside my window. It's hard to say when autumn ended and winter began. However, notes from my autumn "sketchbook" tell otherwise...

The dark clouds and the strong, persistent winds. The rain as it briefly dashes at the kitchen window. The pair of hummingbirds at dusk, darting around the back patio. The glow of the red salvia, thriving in the cool autumn weather and more vibrant than at any other time of the growing season.

The lantana, sending up bushy flower-packed stems as if it lived in California, not knowing the frost will blacken its leaves in just a few weeks. The half moon glowing through wispy clouds after the rain. The large black turkey vultures, soaring on the winds, a sign that they will be migrating south. The sharp contrast of the gaillardia's red and yellow petals as they spill over the retaining wall.

The honeysuckle berries, red orbs that hug leafy branches with leaves that are turning chartreuse. The deep red and rust leaves of a purple ash across the street in the woods. The constant song of crickets, even outside the workplace along a busy urban street.

The way most of the trees and shrubs still remain green but knowing that it won't be too long before their trunks and branches are bare and exposed. The raucous cry of bluejays as they travel back and forth over the oak woods hugging our road for a good two miles. The bright chrysanthemums in orange, yellow, deep rust and violet--splashing color in front of shops and on porch steps. The deep burgundy-leaved Pennisetum rubrum, planted in the border, much larger than its brethren in containers.

The castor bean plants, bowed to the ground by the damaging winds. The crispy, delicate leaves of the Japanese maple, Waterfall, as it begins to brighten with its autumn color. The striking pinks, reds and orange of the dragonwing begonias that spill over their containers.

The hundreds of feathery dill seedlings that are carpeting the potager. The handful of white Queen Anne's lace blooming along the roadside. The feathery needles, soft and delicate, of two Austrian pines, planted by the old horse corral near the farmhouse once owned by Milt, a printer who spent his retirement grafting and planting fruit trees on his seven acres. The way Milt once casually said to us, "Oh, you should be grafting your own. Just use RootStock number A Something-Or-Other," and the way he made it sound so simple.

The walnut trees yet to be, planted by Milt in the adjoining old farm field. The dead burr oak tree in front of his farmhouse--a quiet giant that sprouted more than two centuries ago--doomed since it cracked in half, withstanding high winds not much longer, and likely to crash on a very still, sunny day when least expected. The handful of leaves that cling to corky twigs on those behemoth arms in an upper section of the tree that's barely alive. The story he told of a young girl--a member of the first family that owned the house--who sat swinging from the tree until she saw three Potawatami Indians on their horses riding toward the house. The log cabin that sits snugly inside the house, enclosed with 20th Century amenities like wallboard.

###

Pondering the Poinsettias

2010-12-21T20:28:00.000-08:00

Quiet Contemplation in the Greenhouse

There are many things to be thankful for and to reflect upon as the year grows to a close. Garden designer Patti Kirkpatrick, who helps design and plant the hummingbird garden and indoor displays at the Bird Haven Greenhouse and Conservatory in Joliet, is grateful for the "Black Scallop" ajuga (Ajuga reptans "Black Scallop"). It's a "living mulch," she says, "and the 'Black Scallop' is truly black."

Kirkpatrick also is thankful for the great volunteers who help with plant sales, and, she adds, "Most of all, I am thankful to be working with Mother Nature as an artist's medium. It is ever-changing, always challenging, most rewarding. Just to enhance her work, be it for a short time, is such an opportunity. And the appreciation of others who enjoy it is beyond words."

Take some time this holiday to visit your local greenhouse or conservatory, take a deep breath and sit down to contemplate.

For those in the Chicago area, consider visiting the Bird Haven Greenhouse, 225 N. Gougar Road, Joliet. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily; closed holidays. Check out jolietpark.org or call 815-741-7278.

Good Reads for Winter

2010-12-16T01:01:00.000-08:00

Garden books may come and go but one of that will always have a place on my bookshelves is Elements of Garden Design by landscape designer Joe Eck. He and Wayne Winterrowd (who passed away earlier this year), co-wrote A Year at North Hill. They transformed North Hill, their garden in Vermont, over the last 30 years into an incredible setting. Eck has written other books, but this one, published in 1996 in paperback, is 164 pages, sprinkled with black and white illustrations of his garden and divided into simple, short chapters on style, color, structure and so on. It’s something you can read at night before dozing off to dream about your garden. My copy has yellow highlighting throughout.

One sentence in particular hits home:

“Tentative and spontaneous additions to a garden space can often become its most serious liabilities.”

Many gardeners can relate to that experience. Especially in spring when, after a cold, miserable winter, we long for anything green. And buy it on impulse. This arbor was one of those spontaneous purchases that I later lamented. Made of white plastic resin, it stood out at night like a searchlight. It glowed even without moonlight. During the day, it caught one’s eyes no matter what else was in the garden so I moved it. And painted it. And then plunked two smokebushes on either side.

With a little paint I had transformed what had been a jarring liability into a “doorway” leading to the side yard. This spring I’m going to restrain myself from such purchases. Maybe.

—Nina Koziol

Annuals Make Good Planting $en$e

2010-12-15T10:20:00.000-08:00

One way to rein in your plant purchases next spring without putting a damper on your dream garden is to use annuals-especially those you can start from seeds sown directly into the garden. For 15 to 25 bucks--the price of one or two flats of flowers or hanging baskets-y-ou can buy a fistful of seed packets that will produce hundreds of plants in a rainbow of colors and shapes.

Some annuals, such as morning glories, hyacinth bean, cardinal climber and moonflower, climb by leaps and bounds. Sunflowers, in shades of red, cherry, gold or white, turn their “faces” throughout the day to follow the sun. Some annuals are fragrant, like the night-scented tobacco flower, and others can add zing to a flower arrangement.

Chives, kale and strawflowers from seed

Unlike perennials, which typically return every spring, but usually flower for just a few weeks, annuals tend to bloom their little heads off from late spring right up until frost. When they finish flowering, they produce seeds and then head for that garden in the sky. You can collect the seed for freebie flowers next year and rearrange where you use them for a new look.

By sowing annuals from seeds, “your world opens to plants you never knew existed,” says garden designer Patti Kirkpatrick of Joliet, Ill. “My advice to newbies and other gardeners is to just try it.” Each spring, she sows seeds of Chinese forget-me-not (Cynoglossum), which offers shades of blue and pink and will bloom in full sun to light shade. “It’s a must for those tiny little flower arrangements.”

Some annuals, such as four o’clocks (Mirabilis jalapa) will self-sow in spring if you let the seeds drop in the ground come fall. “Four o’clocks are excellent for nighttime pollinators, like the hummingbird moth,” says Nancy Kuhajda, Master Gardener coordinator for the University of Illinois Extension in Joliet. Among her favorite annuals for sowing each spring are zinnias, larkspur, love-in-a-mist (Nigella), cosmos and cleome, also called spider flower for its wispy petals. “Cleome is great for sunny places where nothing else will grow,” she says.

And there are annuals to suit every garden style. The uniform shapes of marigolds, begonias and salvia make them excellent edging plants in a formal or geometrical planting bed. But the more willowy and wild-looking annuals, such as cosmos, sunflowers and amaranthus, are best for a loose or more natural-looking flower bed.

“A lot of annuals look garish in a natural border,” says Jill Selinger of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Ill. “You see geraniums or petunias in a natural planting and they just don’t jibe.” In her own garden in the conservation-minded Prairie Crossing subdivision in Grayslake, Ill., Selinger sows seeds of the tall, fragrant tobacco flower (Nicotiana sylvestris) and Italian White sunflowers. The heirloom morning glory, called Grandpa Ott reseeds on its own each year, with a slight vengeance. “It comes back great and they were coming up everywhere, but you can get your little trowel and flick out the ones you don’t want.” Or give them away to those other gardeners who are watching their wallets.

Successful Sowings

Many gardeners who try seed-sowing outdoors for the first time get frustrated when few or no plants germinate, says Nancy Kuhadja, Master Gardener coordinator for the University of Illinois Extension in Joliet. Here are her tips for getting seeds off to a good start.

“Wait for soil temps to warm,” Kuhajda says. “Seeds planted in cold soil often rot or succumb to disease before they can germinate.” The last frost date for the Chicago area, for example, typically takes place about May 15, so in that region plant mid-May or later.

Prepare the planting area. Loosen the top few inches of soil with a trowel and rake it smooth before planting.

Read the seed packet. “Most people plant seeds too deep. The depth should be only double the size of the seed,” Kuhajda says. Some seeds need light to germinate, so simply sow the seeds on the soil surface and press them down lightly with the palm of your hand.

Show ‘em the light. Most annuals require six or more hours of summer sun. However, many will tolerate light shade-the result being fewer flowers.

Water gently, deeply and slowly. “Just like a baby, the tiny seedling is vulnerable,” Kuhajda says. Use a water-soluble balanced fertilizer once the plants are 4 inches or taller.

Thin out seedlings. “Either mix seeds with sand for better spacing or prepare to pull some seedlings out. Crowded plants are not healthy plants,” Kuhajda says. Mark the area with a labeled stick or seed packet so you don’t accidentally pull out the new seedlings.

-- Nina A. Koziol thisgardencooks.com

Rodent Patrol

2010-12-14T20:16:00.000-08:00

This little guy (or gal) is one of several that have come and gone through our garden the past few years. For almost two decades we rarely saw a fox. And then one spring there were pups, born under a neighbor's garden shed.

They lounged under the birches like young cats, yawning, stretching and chasing one another around the garden. The coyotes have now been chasing the fox and that is troubling. I'm hoping they can share the habitat, but only time will tell. When the fox are present, the mouse, vole and chipmunk population is under control.

Seed Catalogs Galore!

2010-12-14T12:09:00.000-08:00

The winter solstice hasn’t quite arrived but the seed catalogs are piling up. A few arrive every day. For the most part they are packed with glossy photos of stunning vegetables in rainbow colors. Many, like Johnny’s provide exceptional horticultural information, as good as most vegetable gardening books. There’s Seed Savers Exchange and Shepherd’s Kitchen Garden Seeds…all delightful with their own assortment of goods. But I like to look at old seed catalogs.

They have a charm like none other. Old line drawings, lithographs, some with watercolors. This one from 1917, meant to get people interested in their “War Gardens” offers a wonderful peek back into the world of home gardening almost a century ago.

So what catalogs have you received and what seeds will you buy for the coming year?

Oh, Dear.

2010-12-13T19:53:00.000-08:00

Sometimes we feed the birds. And then there are the four-legged birds. Bambi. Outside the kitchen window the other side of the snow-laden window box eating off the plywood platform we set on top of the birdbath to keep it from freezing. In the morning, there are nuthatches, chickadees, downy and hairy woodpeckers, gold finches, English sparrows, a fox sparrow, a pair of winter wrens, blue jays and cardinals.

Not all at once, but visiting sporadically as they make their way from the suet feeders, from the tall seed feeder next to the 60-foot spruces and then this platform feeder. In the afternoon, the deer come to finish off the seed. Later the field mice are no doubt out there and at dusk, the fox, coyote and raccoons dine on the slim pickings. How do YOU protect your plants from four-legged critters?

Winter Whites: What the Fashionable Squirrel is Sporting

2010-12-13T19:37:00.001-08:00

My friend Jan lives several miles east in another suburb south of Chicago. While Olney, IL claims to be the White Squirrel Capitol, there is a small population of albino squirrels that enjoys hanging out in Jan's many oak trees. This fall, they were chowing down and storing acorns. Although their white fur makes them stand out like sore thumbs in summer, it's a great camouflage once the snow is on the ground.

There are four squirrel species in Illinois:

The fox squirrel, red squirrel, eastern gray squirrel and the southern flying squirrel.

The gray squirrel's fur typically is gray on the back and white to light gray on the belly. Melanistic (black) or albinistic (white) variants occur in Illinois. Black-furred gray squirrels are found in Fisher and Gibson City, IL, and albinistic individuals are common in Olney and in northeastern Illinois. Especially in Jan's backyard...

Paths of Desire

2010-12-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

This is a wonderful book that would make a great gift for any gardener. Here’s my interview with Dominque Browning that ran in the Chicago Tribune a few years back.

Of paths, passions and ponderings

Dominique Browning follows the road less gardened to discover what really matters in her personal landscape

Into each garden, a little turmoil must fall. Disasters happen. There were turf-digging, grub-searching skunks. Marauding teenagers. Obstinate neighbors. Dying trees. And a collapsing retaining wall that eventually crushed a hefty perennial border. Dominique Browning has experienced them all in her garden in Westchester County, N.Y. , and carefully chronicles each in her new book, "Paths of Desire: Passions of a Suburban Gardener" (Scribner, 256 pages, $24).

She observes these mini-tragedies along with ethereal events -- hordes of fireflies ascending after a thunderstorm. Flickering candles casting shadows as birds settle in for the night. And, in the front yard, a small forest of sassafras with leaves that light up the autumn sky.

But this is not just an account of one woman's gardening joys and woes. It is a journey -- sometimes bittersweet -- that slowly reveals the importance of family and friends, lost love and renewal. "We get so caught up in the right plant, right place, we forget what it means to walk or sit in the garden. What do you discover? What is it about?" Browning asks.

Editor in chief of House & Garden magazine for nearly a decade, Browning is not your typical gardener. She keeps no logs of what's been planted where or what should be moved. She spends more time pondering than planting. She says she's hopeless with plant names and disorganized in the garden.

"Sitting and thinking are as valuable a sort of industriousness as kneeling and digging. No one needs to prove, yet again, that a garden is labor intensive," the 48-year-old Browning says. One of the pleasures of her job, she says, is the opportunity to snoop into other people's lives -- through their gardens, kitchens, dining rooms and living rooms and the objects they reveal.

But not long after Browning joined the magazine, her garden was snooped upon -- by someone curious about what she might bring to the magazine's content. The perpetrator slinked around back and discovered Browning's set of aluminum lawn chairs with plastic webbing (they cost 40 bucks at a yard sale and brought back fond childhood memories). The news was promptly blabbed at a hoity-toity dinner party, where it got back to her that the chairs were pronounced, well, tacky. Old. Cheap. A disgrace.

She shrugs it off with a laugh. "You can never say that one style is in good taste or not. Good taste has more to do with how things are put together. Tasteful is when there's unity. Things don't jar. It's interesting and comfortable," Browning says.

A serene place

Her house and garden, which is just shy of a half-acre, are an anomaly. The house sits on a street lined with neatly cropped lawns and tightly pruned shrubs. It's hard to spot, nestled behind the quarter-acre woodland filled with tall, thin sassafras, a thick understory of rhododendron, white-flowering azaleas and English ivy.

"She's left the front yard very wild. There's a beautiful feeling when the wind whistles through the trees," says Stephen Orr, special projects editor at House & Garden. "The main feeling you get is a sense of enclosure and serenity in a very pretty place."

The garden languished along, with Browning, in post-divorce flux, for several years. When the retaining wall finally crushed a row of frothy-flowered tree hydrangeas, Rose of Sharon bushes and perennials, Browning began the slow process of restoration and discovery -- of herself and the garden.

The New Back Bed, as she calls it, now features lavender, hollyhock, phlox, foxglove, mint ("Oh, the mistakes I made," she writes in the book), sedum and daisies. She crammed, moved, tended, lost, yanked and killed a variety of plants. "You can never know what will work until you try it. And there's a value to wandering around and contemplating" before acting, Browning says.
The side yard, called The Wandering Garden, was transformed as more than two dozen declining hemlocks were replaced with flowering shrubs, more evergreens, hostas, Solomon's seal and other wildflowers and a winding path.

In a far intimate corner, two Chinese bronze dragons with ferocious grins -- snapped up when Browning felt the "magnetic rays" of a local consignment shop calling her -- flank two comfortable wood chairs. Layers of viburnum, laurel and hydrangeas front tall evergreens nearby. "It's not fussy. I tend to be informal inside and out. It's a place to relax and think," Browning says.

Steppingstones and mulched trails meander through the yard. They are Desire Paths, as landscape designers sometimes call them, places that draw you along to someplace special.
Perhaps the best parts, Browning says, are the garden's scents, sounds and textures, deciding what to plant where and watching as the garden matures.

Sit a spell

Places to sit and reflect are abundant indoors (there's a couch in the kitchen where her sons prefer to dine a la coffee table) and outside (she dragged a chair around to different spots where she could leisurely muse over the placement of permanent benches, beds, borders and a little Buddha statue). Plastic jungle gyms, uncontrollable eyesores (courtesy of the aesthetically challenged neighbor and his dead Volkswagen bus), all are the stuff of suburbia, she says.

"It's a book I read with a pen in hand, ready to underline the telling phrases that I wished I had written," says Carolyn Ulrich, editor of Chicagoland Gardening magazine. "There are two types of garden books -- those that tell how to do things and those that tell us why we bother. I prefer the latter, which is why I took such pleasure in her book."

A self-proclaimed procrastinator who enjoys nothing more than considering all the possibilities, Browning finally brought in the Helpful Men -- electricians, masons, carpenters, a landscaper, plumbers. They fixed a badly crumbling asphalt driveway (only after she twisted her ankle on the way back from a fancy fete in gown and heels); the century-old concrete retaining wall (which collapsed as she stood before it one morning garbed in a nightgown with coffee cup in hand); and a variety of other calamities.

Browning's journey has taken some 15 years or so and was first revealed in an earlier book, "Around the House and in the Garden: A Memoir of Heartbreak, Healing and Home Improvement" (Scribner, 208 pages, $12).

About time

Contemplating instead of weeding or pruning has its benefits. Some time ago, Browning decided to compartmentalize her life -- work really hard at her job but make sure her weekends were free for family, writing, reading, playing the piano, puttering with perennials or just sitting and watching.

"I realized that my young son was talking to me one day, and I hadn't heard a thing he said. I was losing time with my kids. When I was at work, I was thinking about the kids. And when I was home, I was thinking about work. I was never where I'd need to be."

“What people can learn from her is not the practical or how-to, but an attitude," Ulrich says. "You learn that gardens take time, at least the ones you create yourself and are truly yours."

SNOOP PATROL: What’s on Dominique Browning's nightstand?

Like Dominique Browning, we, too, enjoy the part of our job that gives us entree (and poking-around rights) to people's homes and lives. We enjoy it so much that we have formed our own Snoop Patrol to peek inside medicine cabinets, in really private spaces or under dinnerware for makers and markings. We unveil our crew's first report with our findings from Browning's Westchester, N.Y., home.

1. One thing on your nightstand: A little teddy bear abandoned by one of my children. (It sits next to a stack of books including "Peter Pan," Marie Antoinette's biography and "Great Expectations.")

2. One thing on a living room wall: A sepia photograph of a pristine white bird by Jack Spencer.

3. Something in your house from your childhood: A couple of stuffed animals lying hopelessly somewhere.

4. Three condiments in your refrigerator: Mustard, mustard and horseradish. I love mustard.

5. Three things in your medicine cabinet: Perfumes -- Joy, Chanel No. 5 and Vacances, which means vacation.

6. Where do the dirty dishes go? I hardly ever use the dishwasher and I'm tidy -- I do the dishes right away.

7. Color of your living room sofa: A pale buttery yellow chintz with lilac and blue flowers.

8. Maker of your everyday dinnerware: Stangl.

9. Maker of your fine china: Royal Worcester collected in college (and much more). I have a china fetish.

10. What is the one "thing" you would opt to save from your house: My piano.

© Chicago Tribune and Nina A. Koziol

Get out the hose or buckets!

2010-11-17T06:38:00.000-08:00

The Morton Arboretum issued this urgent press release recommending that folks in northeastern Illinois water their evergreens Now! Our hoses were stowed for the winter, but I'm definitely hauling a few buckets of water out to the young 'Gold Coin' pines and a few others. I wish it would rain already!

LISLE, IL (November 16, 2010) – As leaves dropped off trees this fall, something else dropped too: soil moisture. Amid the continuing dry spell, The Morton Arboretum urgently recommends that property owners water their evergreen trees and shrubs right now to maintain their health and vitality, and to guard against winter injury.

O'Hare International Airport received only 2.46 inches of rainfall since September 6, compared with the normal 6.59 inches, a deficit of 63 percent, according to National Weather Service (NWS) figures. The Arboretum, the NWS station for Lisle, IL received 2.95 inches of rain since September 6; a 57 percent deficit compared with the normal 6.8 inches. “The soil is extremely dry,” says Doris Taylor, who heads the Arboretum Plant Clinic, which provides free advice to the public on tree and shrub care.

Evergreen trees and shrubs “exhale” moisture 12 months a year. They require adequate water, even after other trees drop leaves, right until the ground freezes. A lack of proper moisture in the soil can leave plants without proper energy reserves for healthy growth next year. Also, as sun and winds dry out leaves (including evergreen needles) in winter, they are susceptible to winter-burn, which shows up in the spring as brown and scorched leaves.

The Arboretum recommends property owners ensure that the top 12 inches of soil around evergreens is kept moist until the ground freezes. To help determine a soil’s moisture level, a homeowner might find that a metal rod or stiff wire is the most

convenient tool. As the homeowner attempts to push the rod or wire into the ground, very dry soil will provide a great deal of resistance, and indicate the need for watering.

Certain types of evergreen plants are particularly drought-sensitive, including hemlocks, boxwoods, arborvitae, rhododendrons, hollies, and to a lesser extent: white pine.

Mulch is very helpful for conserving soil moisture. Organic mulch – such as long-lasting hardwood bark, composted hardwood chips and leaves – should be spread up to 4 inches thick around the tree. Keep the mulch from directly contacting the trunk. Avoid recycled plastic or rubber mulches – they do not provide nutrients and may create a barrier preventing oxygen and water from penetrating the soil.

The Morton Arboretum is a world-renowned leader in tree science and education, working to save and plant trees. The 1,700-acre outdoor museum features magnificent collections of 4,117 kinds of trees, shrubs, and other plants from around the world. The Arboretum's beautiful natural landscapes, gardens, research and education programs, and year-round family activities support its mission – the planting and conservation of trees and other plants for a greener, healthier, and more beautiful world. Check out www.mortonarb.org,

The Long Goodbye

2010-11-15T18:35:00.000-08:00

Fall back. The clocks were set an hour earlier when daylight savings time changed the first weekend in November. Dusk now settles in long before dinner is on the table. It was finally time to pot up and bring inside the last of the dragonwing begonias, some purple, green and white-striped Rhoeo and a pot of sedum. The workshop is filling up in spite of my mantra, “don’t bring in so many plants this fall.”

There’s the giant jade plant my mother bought more than a decade ago. A purple-leaved oxalis is planted at its feet. Pots of purple tradescantia and cordyline line the top of a bookshelf in front of a sunny window.

There are pots of coleus, including Radical Raspberry, picked up for a buck at a Michigan farmer’s market in September. And numerous cuttings of the mother plant rooting in water, alongside sweet potato vines, all of which must be potted up. But that’s nothing compared to my brother Greg’s indoor garden this fall. “He must have at least 200 coleus cuttings under lights,” my mum said. “You should see them.” I can only imagine. Especially after he transformed a spare bedroom into the Plant Room, where come deep winter, he will begin sowing seeds of annuals, tomatoes, herbs and more.

I want to say goodbye to the summer gardening season, stow the tools and forget about digging, pruning, weeding, fertilizing, watering, deadheading, pinching, mulching, composting...but it’s too difficult. So, in come the plants and on go the lights. Maybe not 200 annuals to brighten our workshop, but a few dozen. I'll do that as soon as I plant the 400-plus tulip and daffodil bulbs and some Asiatic lilies. And then there will be rest. Until seed starting begins in earnest come March. Yes, time to fall back...into the easy chair.

Where do you go for garden inspiration?

2010-11-02T06:59:00.000-07:00

Where do you seek inspiration for your garden?

Oftentimes, in spring, we are "inspired" at the local garden center or nursery--caught up in the color and textures of spring flowers after a long winter.

But come autumn and through winter, I draw inspiration for both my garden and my writing from natural areas--whether it's a walk in the woods surrounding our home, or to this nature preserve in Michigan--a stand of dying red pines, which will give way to native trees and shrubs through the careful hand of the DNR's naturalists.

It could be our local prairie, where red-tail hawks glide high on a current in search of lunch. Or plantings at the botanic garden and the arboretum. Or perhaps it's at the water's edge where trees cast their autumn reflections while fish surface to grab an insect.

Maybe it's a book. The writings of John Burrough's, an American naturalist from the late 19th Century, and of Wendell Berry, provide insights and feelings about land both natural and cultivated. And soon it will be a walk or a cross-country ski across the fields after the first few inches of snow falls. Fulfillment comes not just in planting a few containers or snapping up a new variety of perennial or shrub. It's about observing nature around us, both in our own gardens and in public places.

Waiting for a bus along Chicago's very busy Michigan Avenue in the past few weeks, I've spotted brown creepers, moving from the base of the honey locust trees, in search of insects during their migration south. The temperatures have dipped below freezing in our garden, yet the next day, there are golden skippers--butterflies looking for nectar on the still-blooming salvias. And honey bees doing the same thing. Observe. Reflect. And bloom.

Made in the Shade: Designing a Shade Garden

2010-09-24T21:20:00.000-07:00

This is an Oldie but a Goodie....

Nina A. Koziol

The Victorians had the right idea. On hot summer days, they retreated to chairs and benches under a leafy canopy of spreading trees, surrounded by a living room filled with cooling ferns, shrubs, vines, and wildflowers. Come high summer, when sweltering heat and humidity are enough to wilt most gardeners, the shade garden continues to offer a welcome respite. With its dappled sunlight and morning dew, the shaded nook is a delightful place where gardeners can focus on plants that thrive on limited amounts of light.

Unlike their showy counterparts -- zinnias, day lilies, and roses -- the unusual, variegated foliage of shade-loving plants offers a display of muted greens and blues that lasts longer than many flowers. Shady gardens are often a fact of life for those who dwell in old houses, from residents of urban row houses with courtyards cast into deep shade, to the owners of venerable homes enfolded by mature trees and shrubs.

While some folks lament the fact that they must garden in the shade of towering trees or nearby buildings, others recognize the wonderful possibilities such sites offer. The Victorians, for instance, were so fond of ferns that they created ferneries -- collections of lacy, delicate-leafed fern specimens -- that thrived in shady spots near the house. Similarly, in the early years of the 20th century, trellises, loggias, and pergolas were a favorite means of establishing shady spots to the rear or side of an Arts & Crafts bungalow or Colonial Revival home.

If your house is blessed with an abundance of shade, bear in mind that not all shade is equal. Shade varies in degree from partial (or open) shade to full (or dense) shade. When tall trees allow a great deal of bright light to reach the ground, the result is partial shade. Walls, fences, and other solid structures in close proximity to the garden tend to create full shade.

While full sun generally means six hours or more of direct sun each day, partial shade provides direct sun for only three or four hours. Plants in full shade get bright, reflected light, but little or no direct sun. Paying close attention to where the summer sun crosses your property at midday will help you determine how much shade you have.
Mature trees with large, spreading crowns -- maple, oak, hickory, and elm, for example -- are the dowagers of the shade garden. Trees with finely textured leaves, like honey locust and the silk tree, send more dappled light to the ground than the dense canopies of sugar maples.

If you are starting from scratch and your garden has space for a shade tree, select one that grows well in your locale. Medium-sized ornamental trees, such as dogwood or serviceberry, provide a suitable canopy for smaller sites. You can also create a shade-garden version of a forest understory with small- to medium-size shrubs, such as stephenandra, viburnum, variegated dogwood, or holly. An arbor, loggia, pergola, or high fence can create shade when there is no room for trees or large shrubs.

Where adjacent structures shade urban gardens, cloak the walls in vines that thrive in limited light. Choose from climbing hydrangea, with its fragrant white flowers and peeling bark, or old standbys such as English or Boston ivy, or Virginia creeper. Some flowering vines, including silver lace vine and a few varieties of clematis, will take more shade than other climbers -- although they produce fewer flowers than when in full sun. In small urban gardens, you can prune a large shrub such as witch hazel, pagoda dogwood, or Japanese maple to resemble a small tree with an arching canopy.

For smaller gardens or shady sideyards, use a combination of unusual plants rather than just one or two species. For instance, the delicate, showy stems of corydalis mix well with native bleeding heart, shooting stars, or miniature hosta. In moist areas, add a splash of red with scarlet lobelia or coral bell -- both favorites with hummingbirds.
Create visual interest by combining plants with contrasting leaf forms. For example, the delicate fronds of the maidenhair fern pair nicely with the coarse leaves of pachysandra, a groundcover. The large blue crenellated leaves of the fragrant, flowering heirloom hosta 'Elegans' contrast well with the soft delicate sprays of astilbe flowers.

Think of the shade garden as a small forest complete with a carpet of groundcovers such as periwinkle, hosta, epimedium, and ivy. The white- and silver-splashed leaves of lungwort and lamium 'White Nancy' light up a shady spot, as will hostas with variegated or chartreuse leaves. The shade garden is a restful place where the tracery of shadows, whether from trees or manmade structures, makes for an interesting play of light on your own private forest floor.

Tips for the Shade Garden

Other than moss, few plants will grow in very deep shade. In places where no direct sunlight reaches the garden, you can paint nearby fences or walls white to reflect all available light.

To increase the amount of light reaching your garden, consider limbing up a tree. Use a long-handled pruning tool (available at garden and home supply centers) to thin lower limbs or inner branches.

Plant carefully beneath a mature tree. Poking too many holes near the base may disturb the tree's shallow root system. Instead, mulch the entire area with shredded wood chips to conserve moisture and help keep weeds to a minimum. Gradually add groundcovers underneath the tree's outermost branches.

Ferns, iris, and other shade-loving plants need plenty of moisture. If rainfall drops below 1 per week in summer, water your plants regularly.

Few shrubs require full sun to thrive, but many will do well in full shade. The deeper the shade, however, the more difficult it is to grow plants that prefer full or partial sun.

Plant spring-flowering bulbs, such as daffodils, under trees where they will bloom before the trees leaf out. Intermingle them with hosta, which will conceal the leaves in midsummer.

Add native woodland wildflowers, such as bluebells, trillium, or Solomon's Seal, to a shade garden.

For a low-maintenance garden, use shade-tolerant groundcovers and perennials and incorporate a few annuals -- impatiens or tuberous begonias -- for spots of color.

Adding a birdbath or fountain to your shady retreat will bring wildlife up close. And, like the Victorians, furnish your leafy outdoor room with a bench or chairs for full enjoyment.

A Plant Collector's Sanctuary

2010-09-23T10:11:00.000-07:00

A visit to the yin-yang garden of Judy Kloese

Photos (c) 2010 http://www.shirleyremes.com/

Plant Collector. Master Gardener. Native Plant Enthusiast. Composer. Transformer. These are just a few of the labels that Judy Kloese wears. In the 34 years since she and her husband Lee moved to Batavia, she has developed an exquisite garden that began as a blank slate around their new home. The only hint that this sprawling 1 2/3-acre garden was once farmland is the old milk house that sits behind the pumpkin patch.

“My grandfather had said ‘if it doesn’t provide fruit, don’t plant it’ so I started with an orchard,” Kloese said. Although the apple, cherry and apricot trees she planted in the 1970’s have slowly declined or died, she has added hundreds of new trees and shrubs, many, such as bur oak and red bud, that she started from seed or grew from seedlings. Two bur oaks and a scarlet oak are now more than 25 feet tall and the arborvitae seedlings, planted as an English-style evergreen privacy hedge tower over a border of perennials.

“The kids were young and trees take little care,” Kloese says. “It was a learning experience. As soon as I got a house, I discovered these latent botanical tendencies.” By the 1990s, with her three children grown, Kloese, a pre-school teacher, had time to pursue a Master Gardener’s certificate, take additional gardening classes and for 12 years, she’s worked at Midwest Groundcovers in St. Charles.

“This is a learning process—every year we make the beds bigger,” she says. The bucolic setting is filled with English bluebells, snowdrop and allium in spring to coneflowers and prairie grasses in summer. Her tree collecting has produced a Korean maple with great fall color—“a tough tree as an alternative to the tender Japanese maples,” she says—to Carolina silverbell, striped-bark maple, dogwoods, hickories, sweet gum, katsura and tulip tree. Although she begins designing the gardens in her minds’ eye, she eventually puts the designs on paper.

In some ways, she has designed a yin-yang garden, where formal meets informal and native prairie plants rub stems with cultivated perennials. The fine-textured fountain-like leaves of prairie dropseed provide a sweeping edge to a flower border that includes Joe Pye weed, prairie dropseed, ‘Blue Heaven’ bluestem grass, helenium, prairie smoke and amsonia. Elsewhere, tightly pruned boxwood is used for the same effect as an entry way to another garden room flanked by two European beech trees.

Ponderosa pines, Swiss stone pines and white pines—started from seed in a cone—provide color and texture in winter. Striped-bark maple is growing under an ash tree that will be replaced.

She and her husband cut the grass together with two small mowers but the lawn is slowly shrinking to make way for more plants. “We do it for exercise twice a week,” she says.

“What I particularly appreciate about Judy Kloese’s garden is her love of trees, says garden coach Shirley Remes (http://www.shirleyremes.com/) of South Elgin. “She plants trees every year with an emphasis on natives.”

Last year, Kloese was one of 18 candidates from across the state who received a certification in perennials from the Illinois Certified Nursery Professional program. “She is a plant collector extraordinaire,” says co-worker Kevin McGowen of Midwest Groundcovers in St. Charles . “She has pretty much everything under the sun.”

Although garden is low-maintenance in summer, needing just a few hours care a week, Kloese says, “I’m hoping I can let things go as we get older and just maintain the edges of the beds. There are plenty of native and [spring] ephemerals so the trees will grow into woodland.”

But, after casting a critical eye across the garden, the plant collector in Kloese says, “I just need more places for plants.”

Plantswoman Judy Kloese of Batavia shares these tips:

Good Read. “If you only could have one garden book, it should be a reference book and my favorite is the ‘American Horticultural Society A to Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants.’” (DK Publishing, 2004, 1,104 pages, $80.)

Start Small. She starts many trees from seed in pots and then transplants them into prepared areas of the garden.

Room with a View. “I plant almost everything so I can see it from indoors.” Her next project is a pergola that will provide a shady spot to sit. “It will be placed so I can look out and into the sunny areas of the garden,” she says.

Recycle. “We never throw anything away, we reuse things.” When they replaced the patio, the stones became the base of the fire pit. The milk house-turned-garden shed was rescued from the developer’s wrecking ball and a dead apricot tree was transformed as a trellis for a climbing hydrangea vine.

Favorite Sources:

Midwest Groundcovers, 6N800 IL Route 25, St Charles. 847-742-1790 or http://www.midwestgroundcovers.com/

Possibility Place Nursery, 7548 W. Monee-Manhattan Road, Monee, 708-534-3988 or http://www.possibilityplace.com/

Time for a new Yew? Foundation Planting for Today's Homes

2010-09-22T18:17:00.000-07:00

How to choose foundation plantings that suit your home

By Nina A. Koziol

For many homeowners, a house without an edging of greenery around the perimeter is like a painting without a frame. Throughout the Midwest there are countless home landscapes that typically flaunt a row of evergreens — usually junipers or yews — that were planted decades ago and now are often overgrown, sickly or sheared into tight little balls and cubes.

"It's like parsley around the turkey," says landscape architect Scott Ogden, who, with his wife Lauren Springer Ogden, wrote "Plant-Driven Design: Creating Gardens that Honor Plants, Place and Spirit" (Timber Press, 2008).

Ogden's family moved from Texas to south suburban Flossmoor during his high school years, and looking back now, he says, "I remember being shocked at the landscaping. In Texas, houses don't have basements so people don't hide the foundations the same way."

It hasn't always been fashionable for houses to don green skirts. Like lawns, foundation plantings are a relatively modern concept in residential landscape design.

Until the late-19th century, many physicians actively discouraged the use of foundation plants, warning that dark, damp shrubbery pressing against the house invited the dreaded scourge of tuberculosis. By 1870, the high stone and brick foundations of increasingly large Victorian homes were softened and cloaked with fragrant, showy shrubs that provided delicate, sweet-smelling breezes inside and out on warm summer days: Mock orange, summersweet, lilac, viburnum, roses and fothergilla were some of the popular shrubs planted under windows, at the corners of the house, and flanking doorways.

Then as now, the key is to keep plantings in scale with the home and choose lower-maintenance plants that will thrive in the available light, soil and moisture conditions.

Revamping that planting

Junipers planted more than 25 years ago — and clipped into a rolling wave of green — cover the entire front of Sharon Vojtek's town house in Palos Heights.

"They look tired, they're prickly and they collect every leaf and branch in the fall," Vojtek said. And they're slowly engulfing the window. In this instance, it's often easier to remove the shrubs — trunks, roots and all — and replant from scratch, says landscape designer Marcy Stewart-Pyziak of The Gardener's Tutor in Manhattan, Ill. "Plants don't last forever and if you get 20 or 30 years out of a planting around the house, that's pretty good."

A good place to start analyzing your home's landscape is from across the street. Consider replacing declining or overgrown shrubs with dwarf or slower-growing specimens that are more in scale with your house.

"From a design standpoint, a foundation planting can be part of a composition that extends right out into the lawn or up to the sidewalk," Ogden says. "You don't have to do the ‘line-'em-up-and-shoot-them' kind of thing. The [light] exposure creates a lot of planting opportunities."

On the north side of the house, Ogden suggests using plants that appreciate the extra shade and cool temperatures. In the Chicago area, that could include hydrangeas, ferns, hostas and boxwood.

"On the east exposure, plants like roses, which enjoy protection from the hot afternoon sun, might be an alternative," he said.

On south- and west-facing exposures, ornamental grasses, witch hazel, viburnum, butterfly bush and sun-loving perennials will offer multi-season color.

Keeping it green

Many homeowners are not eager to part with their evergreen foundation plants because they want some color during winter. Picking slow-growing replacement plants with interesting needles can sometimes help solve that problem.

"The most common error is to plant too much, too close to the house and too close to each other," says Rich Eyre of Rich's Foxwillow Pines Nursery (richsfoxwillowpines.com) in Woodstock. "Dwarf conifers (evergreens) extend the life of the planting bed because the growth rates are slower than the species and there is less maintenance and pruning needed."

Two of his favorites for full sun include Picea pungens ‘St. Mary's Broom', a flat, low-growing blue spruce that grows about 1 foot in 10 years, and Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Lemon Thread', which grows about 3 feet in 10 years and produces bright yellow foliage on graceful, drooping branches.

"In a shaded spot that gets morning sun, you can grow ‘Jeddeloh' hemlock (Tsuga canadensis ‘Jeddeloh')," Eyre says. It's another bright green spreading mound that also grows about three feet in a decade.

There are environmental considerations as well.

"I expect any landscape elements that deserve a place in our living environment to deliver some level of real performance and benefits," says landscape architect Marcus de la fleur (delafleur.com) of Chicago. "The whole concept of foundation planting — or any other pure decorating scheme of planting — makes my neck hair stand up. People would never buy a car with only two or three wheels just because it's pretty, but that is what they are doing with their landscapes."

He notes that homeowners should think about landscape treatments that could help with moisture management around foundation and basement walls rather than simply selecting plants on merits of their looks alone.

Moisture-loving plants, such as hydrangea, Siberian iris and astilbe and some native plants work well in planting beds where the downspout drains, Stewart-Pyziak says. Her native choices include sweetspire (Itea virginica), elderberry (Sambucus), turtlehead (Chelone) and spicebush (Lindera benzoin).

"In areas that have morning sun and afternoon shade, hydrangeas do very well and look good when planted in groups of three or more," she says. Depending on the style of a home, she may use Annabelle hydrangeas and rugosa roses around entrances to evoke a cottage garden feeling. Around midcentury modern homes, she opts for ornamental grasses, including the native prairie dropseed, which she combines with perennials and low-growing shrubs.

Scott Ogden also adds a more subjective consideration when choosing the plants that surround your home.

"Plants should mean something to you or you'll never have a relationship with that place," Ogden says. "Consider using plants that have a special meaning, like grandma's lilac, peony or a clump of iris, and think about how to incorporate those kinds of plants into the planting."

Edible Encores

2010-09-14T13:31:00.000-07:00

If you want fresh herbs, vegetables or flowers for your table, you could make a run to the store. But it would be a lot faster and much more satisfying if you could simply step outside to pick what you need. And, if you sow seeds rather than buy plants, you can save some big bucks this summer.

”People often think that sowing seeds is more complicated than it is,” says Renee Shepherd of Renee’s Garden (www.reneesgarden.com), a specialty seed company in Felton, CA. “It’s really not that hard and it’s fun.”

It’s all in the timing. Although many Chicago-area gardeners wait until Memorial Day to plant their vegetable gardens, there are many cold-weather crops that can be grown from seed just as soon as the soil can be cultivated.

Jeanne Pinsof Nolan of The Organic Gardener (www.theorganicgardener.net) in Glencoe started sowing vegetable seeds in midsummer and will continue into September. “My heavy hitters in spring are peas, spinach, radish, arugula, kale, collards, lettuce and turnips,” says Nolan, who sows these cold-hardy specimens in early April. Cold-hardy crops can withstand some freezing temperatures and hard frosts without injury. They prefer cool growing temperatures—once the soil reaches 45 degrees, lettuce seeds will sprout. Early spring planting and harvest is a must because these robust plants tend to lose their flavor and quality once warm weather arrives.

Late April through mid-May is the time to plant frost-tolerant vegetables, such as beets, carrots, cabbage and chard, which are not as cold-hardy as the others but can withstand light frost. Their seeds sprout in soil that’s 50 degrees or warmer, so they can be planted 2 to 3 weeks before the average last spring freeze, which usually occurs about May 15 in the Chicago area, give or take a week.

Some Like it Hot

Tender vegetables, such as snap beans, corn and summer squash are injured or killed by frost and should be sown after May 15. Last are the real heat lovers, such as lima beans, cucumbers, herbs, winter squash and pumpkins, which need very warm soil--70 degrees or more--and warm air to sprout and thrive and do best when planted after June 1. (Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant fall into the heat-lovers category, but because they take a long time from germination to harvest, the seeds are best started indoors about mid-April.)

Sowing lettuce and radish seeds every 10 days during spring offers a nonstop harvest. “If you buy a six-pack of arugula or cilantro plants, you’re going to be disappointed because they bolt [flower] quickly,” Shepherd says. And once arugula flowers, the leaves become bitter. It’s less costly to pull the spent plants and sow more seeds. ”And, there’s nothing worse than having a million beans for three weeks and then none,” she says. “There’s a good reason to plant them again and again.”

Landscape designer Vicki Nowicki of Liberty Gardens (www.libertygardens.com) in Downers Grove sows bush beans, beets and chard once a week through June and July. As she harvests a row of beets, for example, she sows more seeds. “I also plant more summer squash throughout the growing season because after a certain point, squash vines start to peter out and I like to have new, fresh plants coming along.” Peas are planted again in late July and she sows spinach through August for fall harvests.

Petal Power

Veggies aren’t the only thing you can pick at the end of summer. Sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, marigolds, celosia, strawflowers and asters are some of the annual s that can be sown from seed weekly from May 15 through September for an ongoing supply of cut flowers. Dill and fennel flowers also add fragrance to an arrangement.

”The health of your garden is improved by introducing flowers,” Nolan says. Blossoms bring in beneficial insects that prey on the destructive ones. Some, such as nasturtiums, borage and chive blossoms, are edible, Nolan says, and can be used to garnish a salad. Before you dine on any blooms, make sure the seed packet notes that they are edible.

Gear up

Choose a spot that gets at least six hours of direct sunlight. Vegetables, herbs and most flowers do best in soil that’s easy to cultivate, fertile with organic matter such as compost, and drains well after watering. For sowing in pots, choose containers that are at least 14” wide and deep and fill them with good quality potting mix. And study the seed packet. The “days to harvest” generally refers to how long it will take from the time the plant sprouts leaves to when the fruit is ready for picking. As much as 7 to 14 days may be added from the time you sow the seeds until germination. The average autumn freeze date occurs about October 15, so if a vegetable needs 40 days from sowing to harvest, you can count backwards to determine when to plant for autumn harvests.

“Seeds need moisture from below so start out with a planting bed that’s been very well hydrated,” Nowicki says. ”You don’t even need to make a row. Use your thumb and make an indentation according to spacing on the seed packet.” She places 4 to 5 seeds in each thumbprint and, when they have a few leaves, she cuts down all but the largest, healthiest one. That may seem like a waste of seeds, but if you don’t thin the plants to the recommended spacing on the packet, you’ll have a tangle of stems and leaves and little to harvest.
And make it a family affair. ”Direct seeding is a great thing to do with kids,” says Nolan. “It’s an absolute miracle for them to see a carrot seed and then see the carrot. Don’t get too discouraged if seeds don’t sprout--try again. Seed isn’t that expensive.”

Seed Sources

Stock up on seeds at your local garden center or check out these seed catalogs:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seed, 866-OLD-SEED, www.rareseeds.com
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, 860-567-6086, www.kitchengardenseeds.com Renee’s Garden, 888-880-7228, www.reneesgarden.com
Territorial Seed Co., 800-626-0866, www.territorialseed.com
The Cook’s Garden, 800-457-9703, www.cooksgarden.com
Thompson & Morgan, 800-274-7333, http://www.tmseeds.com/

Keep it Growing

The following planting dates can help you develop a succession plan for your harvest:

April 15: Kale, Kohlrabi, Leaf Lettuce, Onion, Pea, Spinach, Turnip
April 23 to May 15: Beets, Carrots, Chard, Mustard, Parsnip, Radish
May 15: Snap Beans, Sweet Corn, Summer Squash, New Zealand Spinach, Annual Herbs
June 1: Lima Beans, Cucumbers, Okra, Pumpkin, Winter Squash, Annual Herbs
June 1 – July 30: Keep sowing Snap Beans, Beets, Carrots, Endive, Annual Herbs
August: Sow Lettuce, Radish, Chinese Cabbage, Turnips, Peas
September: Sow Lettuce, Chard, Mustard Greens, Radish, Spinach

This Garden Cooks!: The Passing of Summer

2010-09-13T20:31:00.000-07:00

This Garden Cooks!: The Passing of Summer: "Tonight, in our 'exurban' garden well outside of Chicago, four hummingbirds sat at different feeders in the front yard taking their last sip..."

The Passing of Summer

2010-09-13T18:45:00.001-07:00

Tonight, in our "exurban" garden well outside of Chicago, four hummingbirds sat at different feeders in the front yard taking their last sips before they headed off to sleep in the surrounding woods. During one fall migration, I watched as a ruby-throated hummingbird, having drunk all it could, flew up a few feet into the weeping cherry tree outside the kitchen window. There it sat very still and eventually put its beak straight up in the air. It was sleeping. I called My Mate to warn him not to come up the front path so he wouldn't wake it. At 5;30 the next morning, it was gone. Hundreds of thousands of ruby throats are heading south from their summer breeding grounds.

Our summer garden residents are likely gone now, heading south. But dozens of other hummingbirds, along with scores of monarch butterflies, are in the garden on these warm days filled with bright blue skies. These winged wonders are signs that summer is passing. The zinnias that I sowed in July are in full bloom and excellent nectar plants for butterflies. The Salvia guarantica 'Black and Blue' and 'Indigo Spires' are wonderful annuals that offer nectar to hummingbirds, clear-winged moths, night-flying moths and crafty bees that manage to get nectar by biting a hole at the base of the flower since they can't fit into . Summer is coming to an end, but as the flowers dry, I'll be saving the seeds of many annuals, taking cuttings of coleus and sweet potato vine and potting up the herbs to bring indoors.

Summer is taking its leave but now is the time -- before you start raking the leaves, to watch what's going on in your garden--from watching the warblers and other birds make their way through your flower beds and borders on the way to their winter grounds to the hordes of late-season hordes of dragonflies that suddenly appear, darting around as they pick off mosquitoes and other miniscule insects. Summer may be passing, but this is the time of reflection for the gardener. Happy gardening...

Nina at This Garden Cooks

Questions or comments? Email me at info@thisgardencooks.com

In the Garden of Good and Evil Plants

2010-09-07T19:25:00.000-07:00

In the Garden of Good and Evil Plants

Why is it that some of the most coveted plants -- pricey heucheras (coral bells), euphorbias, sedges, hostas and other perennials -- never seem to seed? Anywhere. Many of the coral bells I’ve planted in recent years don’t even make it through our Midwest Zone 5 winters because they’ve hurled themselves out of the ground with the first few January thaws.

Strolling through our garden in late August made me realize that The Thugs were back. I'm talking about those extra-vigorous plants that, given an inch, will skip into the next county.

Bishop's weed (Aegopodium, aka goutweed), for example, which I first admired outside a little art gallery in Door County some 20 years ago, has spread in several beds. I liked the way its variegated leaves lit up the ground in a shady spot around the gallery's doorway. So I planted some in front of the yews. And then discovered that by mid-summer, the leaves had become tattered and dried out. I had to cut them all down. The yews are long gone with a home makeover, but the goutweed persists, here, there, everywhere.

Then there's Artemisia 'Limelight', a perennial that has the most delightful colors--chartreuse and green--in the spring. I planted it in a border of lime-green and merlot-colored foliage--the Lemon Lime Merlot border -- and discovered that it's quick to suffocate nearby plants.

Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea', the chartreuse leaved groundcover, has skipped out of the bed where I planted it under 'Tiger Eyes' sumac and is running willy nilly through the lawn.

There's pipevine (Artistolochia), which I pictured cloaking an arbor and attracting pipevine swallowtails to lay their eggs on it. It has crept away from the arbor and has managed to clamber 18 feet up a purple weeping beech.

And golden hops vine, Humulus, planted on a deep magenta arbor, is also sending up shoots several feet away as the trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) is doing elsewhere. (That’s not all of them, but it’s too exhausting to contemplate.)

All high maintenance plants to say the least. Pulling, cutting, cursing and, yes, chemicals, have become part of this gardener's artillery. The moral of this story is to investigate before buying (or accepting freebie plants from friends).

What thugs are growing in your garden and how have you controlled them?

2010-08-04T07:08:00.000-07:00

Words can't adequately express how much Jim Wilson meant to me and my mother when we watched the Victory Garden on PBS in the 1990s. What a wonderful soft-spoken horticulturist, a true Southern gentleman with a sense of humor about gardening. He passed away over the weekend at age 86. His role as an author, speaker and educator was a gift to gardeners of all ages.

See Felder Rushing's obit at: http://www.clarionledger.com/article/20100804/COL0702/8040315/1020/feat/Jim-Wilson-leaves-a-bountiful-legacy

Elements of Design

2010-05-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

Garden books may come and go but one of that will always have a place on my bookshelves is Elements of Garden Design by landscape designer Joe Eck. He and Wayne Winterrowd, authors of A Year at North Hill, have transformed North Hill, their garden in Vermont, over the last 30 years into an incredible setting. Eck has written other books, but this one, published in 1996 in paperback, is 164 pages, sprinkled with black and white illustrations of his garden and divided into simple, short chapters on style, color, structure and so on. It’s something you can read at night before dozing off to dream about your garden.

My copy has yellow highlighting throughout. Many gardeners can relate to that experience. Especially in spring when, after a cold, miserable winter, we long for anything green. And buy it on impulse. This arbor was one of those spontaneous purchases that I later lamented. Made of white plastic resin, it stood out at night like a searchlight. It glowed even without moonlight. During the day, it caught one’s eyes no matter what else was in the garden so I moved it. And painted it. And then plunked two smokebushes on either side. With a little paint I had transformed what had been a jarring liability into a “doorway” leading to the side yard. This spring I’m going to restrain myself from such purchases. Maybe. —Nina Koziol, www.thisgardencooks.com