Lilacs and Roses

The February 2011 Blizzard

2011-02-02T10:19:00.015-06:00

40 mph winds pushing snow into 5-foot drifts across roadsways.

Off work today. Enjoying (and I'm using that term in a humorous way) the effects of the fourth worst blizzard in this county's recorded history. Luckily I wasn't around for the first three.

A weather emergency has been declared. Police are asking everyone to stay off the streets. The snowplows are clearing the roadways but the 40mph winds are driving the snow back onto cleared roads very quickly. Hundreds of motorists were stranded in snow drifts overnight, many had to be rescued with snow mobiles. Neighboring Boone County, which is very rural, has closed its roads. Anyone driving in Boone County will be issued a $200 ticket. Sounds harsh but the police just don't have the resources to rescue any more drivers stuck in drifts. Tow trucks are out pulling abandoned vehicles out of ditches and taking them to Woodman's parking lot to be picked up later by the owners.

Tonight the temperatures will be dropping to 10 degrees below zero. Things can't get much worse--I hope.

Trucks are loaded with salt and sand and ready to go.

As soon as it was light enough to see, I ventured out to feed the birds. The weatherman wasn't kidding when he said there were 5-foot drifts out there. Two feet of snow piled against my back door made it a challenge open.

Had to push Aggie out the door, she wasn't going out there if she could help it. Now she is watching me with huge, accusing eyes, afraid I'll make her go outside again. I'll let Toby out in a little while. He will love it. Wish I had Toby's outlook on life. He sees every day as a gift and finds fun in every situation.

Later today or tomorrow, Mark from the shop will come and plow me out. Meanwhile, I'm stocked up on comfort food and good books. Maybe a nap this afternoon...

Offline for a while

2010-08-18T07:22:00.003-05:00

Due to an illness in the family, I will remain offline for a time. I miss all my blogging friends and hope to be back soon.

Marnie

2010-08-09T06:59:00.002-05:00

The only good thing about high humidity is foggy mornings. I know, fog is dangerous if you're driving but it's also very beautiful. It changes the landscape, makes familiar scenes look strange and other worldly. Beyond a visible circle, things become mysterious. Anything is possible.

Today, I'm in the middle of a bathroom remodel so I set blogger to publish this post automatically. Fingers crossed blogger works. And fingers crossed that the remodel goes well. In the past I've found that doing anything to an old house can result in disaster and chaos. We'll see.

Flowers always make people better, happier and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the soul. ~ Luther Burbank

2010-08-04T07:55:00.001-05:00

I planted Joe Pye in my garden three years ago. This year it has finally come into its own. The first two years, it made a disappointing showing and I considered taking it out. This year, it has more than made up for the failings of the past.

Maybe I better qualify that statement. I have two Joe Pyes, one is Little Joe pictured above. Right now, Little Joe is the star of my garden. I also have Chocolate Joe Pye which was planted at the same time. So far, Chocolate hasn't done much to repay my investment of time and real estate. For now, I'm forgetting about Chocolate and concentrating on Little Joe.

Joe Pye is usually a very large garden plant reaching eight feet in height. Tina at IN THE GARDEN featured the taller Joe Pye on her blog Wednesday. Little Joe is a smaller cultivar, which tops out a little over four feet tall and about four feet wide in my garden. I like its compact and rounded habit. There is at least one other dwarf cultivar called Phantom which is supposed to be around three feet tall. The photo below shows Little Joe blooming behind the rudbeckia and cleome.

Airy clusters of tiny lavender flowers remind me of a cross between lilacs and a smoke tree. So far there have been no pests or disease problems with my plants. I debated with myself for a while before adding these plants because of their moisture requirements. Over the last five years, I've tried to eliminate water wasters and concentrate on more xeric plants but every now and then something slips past my better judgment. Our weather was pretty dry in late May and June and Joe, who is planted in full sun, showed some wilting and required watering once a week.

Even though Joe Pye is not xeric, it was a good choice. It is both beautiful and loved by butterflies. Joe Pye begins to bloom just as the agastache and the purple coneflowers are fading so the butterflies can remain in my garden for a longer period.

The photo below is Little Joe in tight bud in early July.

Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,
Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.

Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,
That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,
With those great careless wings,
Nor yet did I.
~ Robert Frost from this Butterfly poem

Spotlighting Agastache

2010-08-02T09:10:00.000-05:00

Can't say enough good things about agastache or anise hyssop. It's one of the most important plants in my garden. Beautiful, carefree and extremely popular with many varieties of butterflies. Its muted lavender spires make a lovely contrast to any of the brighter colored blooms like rudbeckia, heliopsis, helenium, etc.

I have experience with two cultivars of agastache. Both seem to be hardy in my zone 5a-4b garden. Blue Fortune has recently become very popular with gardeners everywhere, and with good reason. I see it locally in most garden centers. No pests, drought tolerant, licorice scented foliage, with an extended bloom period, these plants requires no care at all and butterflies are the big bonus. There are many other varieties of agastache but most are not reliably hardy in my cold winter zone.

Golden Jubilee is the only other agastache I grow. It is very similar to Blue Fortune but has red tinged, chartreuse spring foliage. In my garden, both are middle of the border plants reaching about three feet tall (can be cut back in spring to reduce height). Golden Jubilee can be started from seed.

On my July 26 post I showed a photo of Blue Fortune with about 50 Clouded Sulfur butterflies nectaring on the blooms. Agastache blooms from late June through July and into August.

Agastache prefers well drained soil but it does not seem to be bothered by my heavy clay even during some very wet springs and summers we have had in the past. It is perfect for hills and slopes and raised beds that drain too quickly for many plants.

The long, hot summer

2010-07-28T08:32:00.001-05:00

"Dirty hands, iced tea, garden fragrances thick in the air and a blanket of color before me, who could ask for more?" ~ Bev Adams

We had a very dry month sandwiched between a wet spring and a flood in late July. The heat began in March and has continued to grow worse with no end in sight. It's very surprising that the garden is not suffering a lot more than it seems to be.

The phlox are all dead headed and getting ready for another bloom cycle. The coneflowers are looking shabby so the swallowtail butterflies are finally noticing the pentas in the butterfly pots. This is a black female Eastern tiger swallowtail. Thanks to the folks on GardenWeb's Butterfly garden forum, I learned to easily tell the difference between her and her Eastern black swallowtail cousins. My July 19 post shows an Eastern Black Swallowtail male.

In the photo below Mardi Gras, a hot colored and long blooming plant that thrives in hot weather--as long as it gets plenty of moisture. In my garden it's surrounded by Rozanne which helps cool down its hot colors. So far none of the butterflies in this area have been at all interested in Mardi Gras.

This was a good year for lilies both Asiatics and Orientals. The last Oriental to bloom is always Stargazer. This year Stargazer is over six feet tall, a little unusual since they usually top out at about four feet in my garden.

This is the first bloom of Siloam Peony Display which was planted last fall. Lots of ruffled petals packed tightly into this golden daylily.

The more austere Joan Sr's first blooms create the illusion of cool. Rozanne geranium makes a good backdrop for the white flowers. Judging by the number of buds on Joan in her first year here, she will be a prolific bloomer. There aren't many blooms left on the daylilies. I always hate to see them go, the absence of their bright colors will leave holes in the late summer garden.

White Waves aren't bothered by heat or dry conditions. Petunias make the most of their brief time in the garden, never complaining they always give a hundred percent. This is my first year using Wave Petunias. They are tireless flowering machines but the colors are uninspired. Hopefully in a few more years the hybridizers will introduce some pretty shading, veining and variety.

The swamp milkweed beetle below has somehow gotten several miles from the nearest swamp:) His coloration is called 'milkweed mimicry" and it is shared by butterflies (monarchs and viceroys) and other insects that eat milkweed. Predators such as birds learn early in life that this color combination is poisonous and will make them sick if eaten.

OOPS, just realized I published this a day ahead of my usual Thursday posting day. Oh well:)

Hope you are having better gardening weather than we are here in northern Illinois. Have a great weekend.

Summer of the Sulfurs

2010-07-26T08:13:00.000-05:00

Click on this photo to see her pretty face

This has not been an especially pleasant summer. Extreme heat and now flooding over much of the area has made life a challenge for most of us. Still, this summer has brought many wonderful moments. When I look back on the summer of 2010, I want to remember it as the summer of the sulfur butterflies.

In her own mysterious way, nature somehow brought together just the right series of events to create the perfect conditions for the clouded sulfur butterfly. I have never seen anything like the number of sulfurs in my garden this year. Hundreds! Three or four butterflies on the tops of each coneflower, more on each spire of the agastache. They are on every flower and the air is filled with their yellow fluttering.

Sulfurs always keep their wings folded showing only the undersides when at rest. When in flight, the pretty black markings on the top of the wings can be seen. In the first photo, the sun shining through the delicate wing tissue gives us a hint of the black pattern.

Not the largest or the most brightly colored butterfly sulfurs are often overlooked, but when their numbers reach into the hundreds, they are an amazing sight.

2010-07-22T07:57:00.000-05:00

Heat, ma'am! it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones. ~Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir

The silver spotted skipper spends hot summer days on the Blue Fortune blooms.

Cool blue sea holly makes a nice contrast to the hotter colors of the summer garden.

While web surfing for cage ideas to hold up my new baptisia, I found a really cute photo on a GardenWeb forum. The poster used old chairs with seats removed for peony cages. I know it sounds strange, but check out her pictures to see how well it works. Do a quick scroll down the page for the photos.

Another idea I've been researching is trellising for gourds. Found a page of photos on GardenWeb with lots of cattle panel tresses. My gourds are taking up way too much room. Next year they will be grown vertically to save space.

Below is the largest gourd on my birdhouse vine. There are lots of small gourds on this vine and there should be--the thing is 15' x 15', thats 225 square feet. It's climbing the viburnums and lilacs and threatening to cut off the driveway:) This weekend I will definitely have to muscle this bully back under control.

If you are trying to garden organically, you know that this little wasp is your friend because he kills caterpillars that eat your crops. But if you're trying to attract butterflies and growing plants that host butterfly caterpillars, take precautions. The wasp is public enemy number one for butterfly caterpillars. I noticed yesterday evening that my bronze fennel blooms have attracted hundreds of wasps. This would be great if I had problems with tomato hornworms or sawfly larva eating my roses. At the same time I noticed that I have no caterpillars on my butterfly weed. One or the other should go and I will be removing the blooms from the fennel tonight.

I would recommend growing fennel and letting it bloom if you have caterpillar problems. Fennel is perennial even in my zone 5a/4b garden so one plant near your tomato garden should take care of the hornworms. Butterfly host plants should be far away from the fennel or the fennel blooms should be cut off.

Finally, the long awaited tomatoes are turning red. Last year was a disaster for tomatoes all over my area but this year my plants look better than ever. For the first time in ten years I didn't plant a single heirloom tomato because they have less resistance to disease than the newer hybrids. This tomato is Celebrity, not the best tasting tomato but one of the most disease tolerant and a heavy producer. So far the leaves are perfect, no sign of spots or wilting. I have a few cut up paper leaf bags covering the ground under the tomatoes to prevent the soil from splashing onto the leaves when it rains. It's debatable if this technique helps prevent disease but it doesn't hurt and serves as a barrier against water evaporation on hot, sunny days.

Speaking of hot, sunny days.

My father is suffering from dehydration. A very serious condition that creeps up on you and makes you very, very sick. Our bodies need a lot of fluid to keep us going through this heat. Don't take chances, please drink large amounts of fluid and stay well.

The shepherd tended her phlox

2010-07-19T07:40:00.000-05:00

Every year more tall garden phlox find their way into my garden. Hybridizers have done so much with phlox in the last few years. No longer do we need to put up with the mildew that plagues the species and earlier cultivars. The reason I like phlox so well is its long bloom period, drought tolerance, impact, and of course butterflies.

I was thrilled to find this black swallowtail in my garden Sunday afternoon.

Here are some of the phlox blooming this summer.

Volcano White

Volcano Purple

Volcano Red

Volcano Pink

Blue Paradise

Unknown

And David who is a four foot tall four foot wide, snow capped presence in the garden.

There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothng is a miracle. The other is as if everything is. ~ Albert Einstein

2010-07-15T07:15:00.000-05:00

There is a garden where lilies
And roses grow side by side;
And all day between them in silence,
The silken butterflies glide.
~ Francis Turner Palgrave

Yesterday the county to the west of us had some bad storms and a tornado siting. Our county's emergency managers got ready in case the storms came our way. Someone got a little carried away and turned on the tornado sirens. There was no storm on the horizon so some people thought we were under attack. Could have been a dangerous situation if people had panicked.

Meanwhile, as the sirens were blaring, I was following this Tawny Emperor butterfly. I have a couple hackberry trees on the farm which are the hosts for these butterflies. I've read they almost never visit flowers but this one obviously didn't read that memo.

I was told by the butterfly folks at Garden Web (who know a whole lot more than I do) that these and other butterflies will come to a plate of rotting fruit (set atop something to discourage ants and other insects). Thought I'd try setting out a plate of fruit in some sunny spot. I usually have overripe bananas, strawberries and apples.

Daylily Moses' Fire caught my eye showing some blazing red color in the late afternoon sun. This is one of those daylilies that is a little hard to place in the garden. I have it with purple coneflowers now and I can certainly testify that those two do not make a good combination:) Next year I'll move it into an area of yellows and golds to see if that is more pleasing to the eye.

About one third of my double daylily blooms, including Moses' Fire, are opening as single blooms this year. I've read other daylily growers are having the same problem but no one seems to know exactly why.

Found a garden center with three varieties of blue sage. Thought I'd try them all and see which I like the best.

Blue Frost and Black and Blue are being used as fillers in containers. They don't require a lot of space and they drape gracefully over the container rims. Last year Victoria Blue was planted directly into the garden and seemed to fade into the background. Not enough presence to stand out among the other garden plants.

So far I have seen very few bees or butterflies on any of these sages or pentas which makes me wonder... Do the growers treat their plants with systemic insecticides? They don't want chewing insects making holes in the leaves of the plants they plan to sell. They also probably don't want bees hanging around the garden centers and frightening the customers. Has anyone else noticed pollinators avoiding annuals grown and sold at large garden centers?

This is an unusually good year for coneflowers. In the past a few of them have been plagued with some type of wilting disease but this year they are healthy and thriving. Coneflowers, phlox and agastache are the three main butterfly attractors in my garden so I wouldn't be without any of them.

These tomatoes have been just sitting like this for weeks. I always get so impatient for homegrown tomatoes this time of year. Every morning I carefully study them for signs of blushing. I'm buying some at the local farmer's market tonight. Can't stand this waiting any longer.

Could it be true a watched pot never boils and a watched tomato never ripens:)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone and try to stay cool.

Everything looks better with moonbeams

2010-07-12T07:15:00.021-05:00

A good friend gets up with you at 6am and follows you out to the garden just to keep you company.

Everything looks better with moonbeams.

One of my favorite garden plants is Moonbeam coreopsis. I like its short height and long blooming period to cover bare spots and hide the ugly ankles of taller plants. It blooms over such a long period that it can be counted on to keep the garden interesting while other plants come into and go out of bloom.

Don't know what's up with this aster. Last year it bloomed in September.

Thank goodness for telephoto lenses! Who would want to get down eye to eye with this fellow to get a good closeup.

Yesterday one of his tiny relatives jumped under my foot as I steped down onto the walkway and I almost lost my balance trying to avoid stepping on him. I won't claim to like toads but I'm trying hard to tolerate them because they're good little organic bug catchers.

This monarch butterfly's wings are showing her age. Hopefully she left some eggs on my butterfly weed.

2010-07-06T07:12:00.009-05:00

Morning is the best of all times in the garden. The sun is not yet hot. Sweet vapors rise from the earth. Night dew clings to the soil and makes plants glisten. Birds call to one another. Bees are already at work.
- William Longgood

Dawn in my garden.

Much too hot to work outside in the heat of the day but the hours between 5 and 9 am are perfect in the garden. Hope we can all remain relatively comfortable thru this heat wave.

2010-07-01T10:38:00.000-05:00

For most of us who are intimidated by theories of garden design,
the cottage garden provides immediate appeal, since it is a
horticultural rather than an architectural solution to a limited area.
~ Patricia Thorpe

Yesterday Tina at IN THE GARDEN mentioned how handy these blogs are for looking back at last year's photos and plant lists to help us remember what was where and what was new.

Last year I planted six new daylilies and this year, couldn't remember the names of four. Luckily, I did a post about them and so was able to look back and see what I ordered.

So far only two of my newest daylilies have bloomed. The fans were pretty small when I planted them so there aren't a lot of blooms this season, but enough to get some idea of how they look. The first is Sabine Bauer, very striking with a dark eye and well defined edging around the petals. Sabine has several awards plus I found her on a couple growers "Top Picks" list. Here is her first bloom in my garden.

Not as crazy about the second new daylily to bloom. Sixth Sense is cream and gold with a cherry eye and an unusual reddish wired edge. There's just something about this one .... the colors don't look well together. (I should have brushed off the pollen before taking the photo.) SS fades out in strong sunlight and may do better in partial shade.

This year I ordered Calico Jack a bright yellow with a plum eye and edging.

(All photos are from Gilbert Wild 's catalog where I placed my order and Stardreamer Daylilies.)

Spacecoast Scramble, sunny yellow with a heavy texture and a delicious scrambled edge.

Spiritual Corridor, lovely lavender with a lighter eye and edge. I love this one and think it will fit with almost all the colors in my garden.

I can entertain myself for hours just reading the descriptions in the daylily catalogs. Looking at some of the newer ones I could almost, almost justify spending $200.00 for one daylily.
Listen to this:

Glamoureyez "Dramatic, gaudy, and stunning are some of the words that come to mind when you see this flower. The deepest burgundy purple fills the overpowering eye and hugely ruffled edge with a butter cream base." You can have it for $175.00

I especially like the daylilies with teeth: Twice the Bites - "This cutting edge (no pun intended) daylily sets the new standard for doubles with teeth . This daylily has the largest teeth on a beautifully clean rose violet background, that I have yet to see. TWICE THE BITES is a complex flower with many beautiful traits such as the large green throat, excellent substance, and gold teeth everywhere." $150.00

I'm waiting for these to go on sale, but you can see them and others at the Auction.

Wishing everyone a great forth of July Weekend!

"The Best Plants Come with a Story." ~ Maria Rodale

2010-06-28T07:27:00.000-05:00

I have no talent when it comes to design. I couldn't even manage to put together a little basket garden that satisfied me. This is the end result and it still doesn't look the way I envisioned.

The first two plants were easy (the two on the right). After that, I kept bringing home plants that just weren't right. After trying out about 12 plants, I settled for the two on the left but still don't like the look.

All my leftover rejects went into other pots and more were added to create little butterfly gardens.

Pentas, strawflowers, three annual salvias, zinnias, this wonderful tiny phlox, and some silver accents. Even a little wooden hummingbird in case the real thing doesn't show up.

A little song sparrow with a big voice kept me company. I'm not sure if he is nesting somewhere nearby but he is in the garden all the time. It's unusual for song sparrows to spend much time singing when they have chicks to feed. Wish I knew how to add sound to this blog. You would enjoy hearing his song.

Found several hornworm pupae as I planted some cosmos in the garden. This little pupae will one day be a sphinx moth if I haven't damaged his temporary home. They seem to like nicotiana so I grow a little patch for them. Hope to get some photos but they usually fly very late in the evenings, past the time for good photos.

A pile of cats waits inside. Hocus is 18 and Miss B is about three years younger. Neither is interested in helping me garden anymore. Napping is their main activity.

Wild flower Wednesday -- a day late

2010-06-24T08:20:00.002-05:00

"We shall never achieve harmony with land, any more than we shall achieve absolute justice or liberty for people. In these higher aspirations the important thing is not to achieve, but to strive." ~ Leopold, Aldo: Round River

Apologies to Gail at Clay and Limestone for posting Wild Flower Wednesday a day late.

What a good idea to celebrate wild flowers with a special monthly posting.

I got together some recent photos of wildflowers I had taken and realized most of them are not native plants but introduced species. Interesting, but not in a pleasant way.

These plants were all growing in my pasture or along the lane leading to my farm.

Spiderwort, one of a few native flowers I found. What a pretty color of blue. I've seen many improved strains of this plant at garden centers.

Fleabane is also native to this area. Another plant that can be found in garden centers in various colors.

I wish this lovely patch of butterfly milkweed was in my garden. It is growing in the front yard of master gardeners Jey and Pat Flick. No grass in the Flick yard, it is entirely planted in flowers (mostly wild flowers) and vegetables.

In my garden, butterfly weed is the preferred host plant for the Monarch butterfly. Every year the Monarch caterpillars eat the flowers first and then the leaves of this plant.

This velvety mullein plant also grows in the Flicks front yard. A very attractive plant with silver leaves and yellow blooms.

Another native milkweed, I see this common milkweed growing all over the prairies of Illinois and other states. Milkweeds are the only host plant for the Monarch butterflies. The leaves on this particular plant don't look especially healthy.

Yarrow flowers are very attractive to predatory wasps and flies. I have yarrow in several colors in my garden but mine are a gentler, kinder strain that don't spread aggressively like the wild ones do.

Wild parsnips just beginning to open. It's somewhat toxic to livestock and has become a real problem in this area invading pastures and fields. Many people are sensitive to the psoralen contained in the leaves and stems of this plant and have reactions almost like burns. I believe this is related to the carrot family and the root is edible.

Queen Ann's Lace is a common plant found all over my area and another carrot relative. This one is just opening. Very lovely but an aggressive spreader with a serious tap root.

The lovely elderberries are almost finished blooming. Every year, early in the autumn, the church just down the way from my farm has an annual dinner topped off by elderberry pie. The recipe probably goes back many, many years. Elderberries seem to have fallen out of favor with modern cooks.

Squirrel tail grass, cute but farmers hate it. Those feathery looking plumes contain awns that inflame the mouths of horses and other livestock and cause ulcerations. I've actually seen seeds available for sale.

An improved variety of the native purple coneflower that once covered our prairies.

2010-06-21T08:25:00.001-05:00

Gardening is something you learn by doing — and by making
mistakes.... Like cooking, gardening is a constant process of
experimentation, repeating the successes and
throwing out the failures.
- Carol Stocker

The bridge of my nose is sunburned and I’m peppered with mosquito bites but my lawn is mowed, three containers are planted with annuals, and most of the weeding is finished. I guess that’s a fair trade off.

In June there is such an abundance of blooms. There doesn’t seem to be any way to include all of them on my blog. Here are some favorites.

The daylilies have begun blooming.

Siloam Double Classic is my favorite today. I love the pale apricot color and the vivid yellow center that looks like it is lit from within.

Prairie Fire is a pretty red but the bright color streaks. It seems to be a common trait in the dark colors.

Clear yellow Hyperion, the old faithful standby.

Oriental lily Mona Lisa.

Here are a few of the shrub roses I didn’t include in previous posts.

Westerland

Autumn Sunset, a sport of Westerland.

Hybrid Tea Double Delight

Meideland Magic

Hybrid Tea Tiffany

On the ground wrens run through the garden like mice. This spring they are nesting in three of my birdhouses. The parents are in constant motion, frantically searching the garden to provide enough bugs to keep the growing chicks satisfied.

I found the first Japanese beetle Friday afternoon. So far there are just a few but by the first week in July there will be hundreds. I’m enjoying my roses now. When the beetles begin to destroy the blooms I will deadhead all the bushes and prevent them from blooming for the rest of the season. Sad but there is just no other way to battle these beetles.

The blackberries and strawberries are ripe. I think I’ll have a bowl of icecream with blackberries while sit on the porch and watch the last cardinal visit the feeder and the lightening bugs begin to flash one by one.

“I eat like a vulture. Unfortunately the resemblance doesn't end there.” ~ Groucho Marx

2010-06-17T08:10:00.000-05:00

I spent a rather Edgar Allan Poe-esque Saturday gardening with a vulture. Even for a lover of birds, gardening while a turkey vulture sits above and watches you is a little creepy. As he sat on my barn roof looking at me, lines from Poe's poem 'The Raven' kept running thru my head.

`Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! - Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore...

Apart from the ugly head--which does look like a turkey's, I think they're very handsome birds. Their wingspan is six feet or more. I often see them gliding over the house and fields and they look magnificent. I believe they nest nearby, probably in an outbuilding or barn loft.

(Apologies for the extremely poor photo quality.)

After eating, vultures rest in the sun. My new friend must have just dined because he sat there on the barn roof, shaking his head. This is to rid his face of pieces of his lunch which contain bacteria. The sun's heat helps kill the bacteria. I could hear a large flock (or do they call it a murder?) of crows in the field so there must have been a dead animal there and the smaller crows were finishing what the vultures had left.

Things I learned about vultures: Vultures are not buzzards. Buzzards are European birds related to the hawk family. Vultures are new world birds related to storks and ibises. They don't kill their food, they eat only dead things they find with their excellent sense of smell. They cannot carry their food away and must eat it where ever it was found. In addition to meat, they will eat pumpkins and other vegetables.

Turkey vultures are masters of the air. They can glide for six hours without ever flapping their wings. They venture out as the day warms, quickly finding pockets of rising warm air, or thermals. Once they find a thermal they are uplifted and circle finding other rising warm air currents to sweep them across the skies at speeds of up to 60 mph. What a truly great engineering accomplishment this bird is. Nature never makes mistakes.

Later in the day a small blackbird, probably a redwing came and attempted to drive the vulture off. I think the vulture was willing to make an exception and eat this live pest but the blackbird was too quick. When the vulture finally flew away, I could see the blackbird pecking at his back and head.

From vultures to roses. Bloggers don't have to follow the 'rules' other writers are bound by. We can veer off course and combine any number of odd things in one post.

My English roses are blooming now. These are elegant roses having the look and often the scent of the old heirloom roses. The advantage of these modern Austin English varieties is that they bloom all season and not just once in the spring.

Abraham Darby

Charles Austin

Pat Austin always looking downward.

2010-06-14T07:41:00.000-05:00

Gardeners are - let's face it - control freaks. Who else would
willingly spend his leisure hours wresting weeds out of the ground,
blithely making life or death decisions about living beings, moving
earth from here to there, changing the course of waterways? The
more one thinks about it, the odder it seems; this compulsion to
remake a little corner of the planet according to some plan or vision.
~ Abby Adams

There is so much to be done in the garden and never enough time. Oriental lilies need staking , sedum must be cut back, more mulch needs to be spread after I top dress with alfalfa. The edging is looking ragged, bearded iris need to be dug and thinned, the trees all need cutting back, and on and on. I doubt I’ll ever get to it all.

Sunday afternoon I stopped worrying about chores and just enjoyed the garden. The roses are blooming. I overlooked the chewed leaves. My roses are never sprayed and they do surprisingly well. They may get some holes in their leaves and a little blackspot, still it seems better than a residue of poison left from spraying for inperfections. The poor gallicas got moved every year for four years and always had mildew. The unsightly white powder bothered me more than it effected the roses. This spring the gallicas did not get dug up and transplanted and they have no mildew.

(Gallica rose Surpasse Tout)

The annuals got planted late this spring and haven’t filled out much--disappointing. On the other hand some plants are performing much better than hoped for. The Jupiter’s beard has been blooming for two months, what a great little plant. The dicentra still have pretty hearts dangling from their stems and phlox pilosa is still covered in pink blooms. Geranium Rozanne is decked in pretty blue flowers. If she does as well as she did last year, she will bloom non stop through September.

I think my Griffith Buck roses deserve a tribute. These are some of my favorites and almost as easy and carefree as Knockout roses. Dr. Buck devoted his life to breeding beautiful roses that were both hardy and healthy.

The pale apricot Golden Unicorn.

Country Dancer with big bunches of blowsy pink blooms.

Different Drummer, the prima donna of the group but with lovely blooms.

One more photo. Sweet William--loved by butterflies. I enjoy the spicy, clove like fragrance. Sweet William seems to bloom for quite a long period and is never bothered by pests or disease.

The peonies have just finished blooming

2010-06-10T08:30:00.000-05:00

There are a handful of flowers I look forward to every year, lilacs are one, peonies another. Both have delicious fragrance as well as beauty, but both have very short bloom periods.

Three years ago I found Shirley Temple as a tiny root at one of the box stores. The photo above shows how she has flourished in my newest lasagna garden.

I've never had six foot tall foxgloves. This year they are huge, leaning this way and that and finally falling over. Note to self: foxgloves do better in leaner soil.

The peony below is Festiva Maxima, quite an old bush that gets too much shade. Hopefully this fall I will have time to move her to a better spot.

The photo below is an unknown red.

A subtle, heartening fragrance
Comes piercing the warm hush,
And from the greening woodland
I hear the first wild thrush.
They move my heart to pity
For all the vanished years,
With ecstasy of longing
And tenderness of tears.
~ William Bliss Carman

2010-06-07T14:45:00.004-05:00

A reminder of how dependent we have become on modern technology. Sunday a squall roared thru the area driven by wind gusts of almost 60 mph. The power went out and stayed out all afternoon. No water, no lights or electricity, couldn’t read, couldn’t watch TV, couldn’t even clean house. About 8 pm , when the ComEd truck finally drove up and a little Howie Mandel-looking guy jumped out, I almost ran out and hugged him.

This morning a reminder of a different kind. This time it involved my border collie who had a close encounter with the call of the wild. I let her outdoors at 5 am and as usual, she made her rounds investigating the scents of animals passing thru her yard over night. About ten minutes later I heard her bark. I walked outside expecting to see some raccoon in a huff waddle across the lawn, instead a coyote jumped out from under a spruce and made a run at Aggie. I jumped off the porch and poof, the coyote disappeared like smoke. Aggie wasn’t upset, nor was she injured but I was upset and still am. This is the first time in 21 years a coyote has ever threatened one of my pets. I know they do attack pets in other areas but seldom do they attack female dogs or dogs as large as a border collie.

Note from Blogger: Monday, June 07, 2010

We're aware of isolated access issues in certain regions within the US. We're investigating this now and will follow-up as soon as we have more information to share. Thanks for your patience in the meantime.

Apparently I am in ‘certain regions within the US ’ because I couldn't post a comment on any blogs nor publish my own blog on today. My week is not off to a good start! Hope the entire week won’t be like this:)

Today’s photos are of oriental poppy, Allegro. I haven’t had an oriental poppy for years but have been admiring the ones I see on blogs. I found Allegro, red with a black center, locally last June and decided to add it to my garden.

This spring the foliage put an a pretty amazing growth spurt and suddenly I have super-poppy eating up a three foot by three foot hunk of garden real estate. The second shock comes when Allegro blooms in bright orange instead of red. Orange isn’t my favorite color, not even close.

May your blooms be floriferous and in good form. ~ Georgia Gudykunst

2010-06-03T08:00:00.006-05:00

The garden with its little gate of green,
Invites you to enter, and view mysteries unseen,
Its vine laden bowers and overhanging trees,
The air filled with sweetness, the hum of the bees,
The flagged walks with Iris galore,
Of most beautiful coloring, unknown before,
Pink, white, purple, yellow, azure blue,
Mixed and mingled of every hue,
You come away wondering, can more beauty be seen
Than in the garden with its little gate of green. ~ Winstead.

The pink iris above is currently my favorite, Beverly Sills. This has been a good year for tall bearded iris. They don't mind the lack of rain. In fact, the spring storms that nature frequently schedules for iris season, usually damage the tissue thin ruffles and falls.

The yellow iris with the white falls above is Magic Rainment.

After two years of searching, I've finally found a name for my NOID. This is King Tush (who thinks up these names?) This is how Shadowood describes King Tush: ...azalea pink with pinkish white stripes, infrequent splashes of indian lake and spinel red; beards bright medium orange; ruffled; slight fragrance.

Their descriptions sounds so much better than mine: Muddy lavender with streaks and splotches and an orange beard:)

A few late yellows and faithful old Superstition are still blooming into June this year.

Siberian Iris Caesar's brother.

Haven't mastered the art of collage making yet. Joey at the Village Voice does such beautiful collages, I thought I'd give it a try. I need more practice:)

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone.

Oops, Tales of a traveling phlox

2010-06-01T07:43:00.000-05:00

I want to apologize to Gail at Clay andLimestone and to everyone for my mistake in yesterday's post. An incomplete post was actually automatically published--my error, I did not pay enough attention. The post that was meant for yesterday had the same topic but was much more complete. Sorry.

If PPP could talk, she would have quite a tail to tell. Dug out of the ground, stuck in a little box and jostled and bounced around for a week. Finally the box opens and here is an unfamiliar landscape.

PPP took the US Mail in stride and settled into her new home in my woodland garden. She remained mostly evergreen under last winter's snow and this spring she is at least four or five times the size she was last year. I needn't have worried she was planted in too much shade, that hasn't fazed her either. Her job is blooming and she does that really well.

Gail at Clay and Limestone sent PPP to me last year. Gail has become a good will Ambassador for native plants in general and PPP in particular. A lot of gardeners around the country would never have heard of PPP or had it growing in their gardens if not for photos and stories from Gail's GOBN (garden of benign neglect:). Lately I've seen PPP featured on garden blogs from Florida to Chicago. All these little plants courtesy of Gail. Thank you Gail for introducing so many of us to PPP.

A little something about PPP, known to sticklers for botanical nomenclature as phlox pilosa. It is a native of dry, open woodlands, meadows and prairies over most of the US. It reminds me a little of woodland phlox, p. divaricata, but blooms over a considerably longer time period. A great plant for a woodland garden but also perfect growing among hybrid perennials and shrubs.

Tales of the traveling phlox

2010-05-31T07:16:00.000-05:00

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones. ~ Albert Einstein

2010-05-30T07:11:00.009-05:00

Every year we have set aside a day to remember the men and women who have fought and died to keep us safe and free. Every year we pray that soon the world will change and become a better place where the bravest and best no longer fight and die. Somehow, things never change. War continues to rage and men continue to die.

“It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.”
-- General George Patton

In World War II, General Patton made a decision to send troops to the left instead of to the right. In doing so, he saved a small group of airmen trapped behind enemy lines, among them my father. I honor Patton for that but can't completely agree with his sentiments on the death of soldiers. As much as we have gained from their sacrifice, we have lost much and should remember and mourn the loss.

God bless everyone who has fought and died for our homeland and bring our troops home safe and whole.

Ornamental onions and a soap box rant about puppy mills

2010-05-27T07:40:00.003-05:00

Some onions are pretty enough to plant in the flower bed. Chives for example are very attractive when blooming. I like their tubular, bluish leaves even after bloom is finished. My onion chives have pale lavender blooms and garlic chives bloom in white.

Garlic looks a lot like chives. I planted one garlic bulb about 4 years ago and now have a nice little patch.

Most of my allium flower in mid spring.

Allium Purple Sensation is not edible but it certainly is attractive.

The unusual allium karataviense. The best thing about this allium is the foliage.

A. karataviense are very low to the ground. They aren't particular about soil except that it drain well. In my garden, allium has no pests or disease.

Another Purple Sensation beginning to bloom. PS seeds freely, the seedlings look like grass. It takes at least three years from seed to bloom.

Wednesday morning the Associated press broke a truly heartrending story about the death and suffering of puppies in puppy mills. This topic always disgusts me. Seems that the USDA inspectors who are charged with protecting the welfare of animals in puppy mills haven't been doing their jobs. They've been ignoring violations, waiving fines, allowing repeat offenses, and turning a blind eye to neglect and cruelty. The result has been the death of several hundred puppies in various kennels around the country. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack admits to these charges and promises to make some big changes. Right, isn't that what they always say? We can all be absolutely certain that nothing will change and that these helpless animals will continue to suffer and die.

If you have a little extra time, I would urge you to write to your congressman and demand the Dept. of Agriculture do a better job of protecting companion animals. If you are thinking of getting an animal, please adopt from a rescue organization. Don't buy from a pet shop, breeder or kennel. There are already far too many dogs in need of homes, none of us want to encourage breeding for profit.

Conversations in a garden

2010-05-24T07:35:00.002-05:00

Sunday was a furnace, 90-degrees and pretty much the same is expected all this week. That is a drastic change from last weeks 60-degree temperatures. The soil is dry and my garden is pretty much in shock. Even the tough-as-nails sedum was limp and wilting in yesterday's heat.

I've seen very few bees so far this season. Yesterday two red admiral butterflies and one skipper were busy in the dames rocket.

To take my mind off the miserable heat, I sat outside and watched a pair of chickadees discussing the good and bad qualities of a bird house. One of them peeked into the entrance and studied the carving above the door while carrying on a conversation with the other who sat on a branch above.

Mrs. Chickadee: What a lovely little cottage this is.

Mr. Chickadee: It’s a wren house, precious, much too small.

Mrs. Chickadee: Not too small, dear, cozy.

Mr. Chickadee: Sweetest, the door is too small.

Mrs. Chickadee: Are you saying I'm fat?

Mr. Chickadee: No, never, my love, you are perfection. I’m just saying, there are holes in the wall.

Mrs. Chickadee: Those are decorative windows, dear.

Mr. Chickadee: Yes my little pumpkin, but it looks shabby. It needs painting.

Mrs. Chickadee: Shabby Chic, dear, and the house you liked was cedar with no paint. I love the view. From here, I can look through the door and see the bleeding heart and the foxgloves across the garden.

Mr. Chickadee: Before we decide, can we just look at a few more houses, love.

Mrs. Chickadee: We can look, but I really like this one.

Hosta

2010-05-20T07:15:00.001-05:00

I like hosta, especially this time of year. In May the leaves are still perfect. No tears or holes from wind and slugs. No brown sunburned edges.

In August, I would happily waive my magic wand and have all the battered and tattered leaves disappear until next May.

Most of my hosta were give to me by friends and family.

I never knew their names and I'm not enough of a hosta fancier to worry over not knowing.

I like the ones with blended colors like a water color painting.

And the ones with textured, crinkled leaves.

The more white the better.

This was my first hosta. Very old fashioned and common.

2010-05-17T07:27:00.015-05:00

Gardening is a long road, with many detours and way stations, and here we all
are at one point or another. It's not a question of superior or inferior taste, merely
a question of which detour we are on at the moment. Getting there (as they say)
is not important; the wandering about in the wilderness or in the olive groves
or in the bayous is the whole point.
- Henry Mitchell, Gardening Is a Long Road, 1998

I wandered about in my garden yesterday and photographed a few of the blooms.

A stray seed dropped by bird or wind. This is just one Dame's Rocket plant that shot up like its namesake among the coneflowers and phlox.

Max Frei geranium. Give this one a pass, a very, very neat and tidy mound with very few blooms.

Columbines drift around my garden and turn up in different places every year.

Immortality has been blooming for weeks and will bloom again in the fall.

Jupiter's beard almost blooming.

This clematis blooms among the English roses.

NOID

Old faithful viburnum opulus

Spiraea vanhouttei was one of the first things I planted just after I moved here.

One of our native dogwoods, Cornus alternifolia or Pagoda Dogwood, has a very graceful horizontal, layered habit. Two of them shade my porch on summer days.

2010-05-13T10:40:00.000-05:00

How amazing these delicate beauties. In spite of their fragile appearance, columbines are very tough. They often grow from cracks in the rocks in their native environment.

I have no memory of ever planting this pink columbine so it may be a hybrid cross between the Alpine blues and some other variety growing in my garden. Columbines hybridize easily and reseed well.

Alpine blue can also be white or have white petals. Mine are all the solid blue and don't show up very well against the green background.

Two more tough plants that thrive on neglect, allium and tall bearded iris. Both tolerate drought, have few pests, and multiply rapidly.

I'm getting really impatient to get my annuals planted but I'm afraid it will frost again, so I wait. It was much warmer here in March than in either April or May. We actually had several days of 80-degree heat in late March. This month the daytime highs are hovering in the 40's and 50's.

We finally got caught up on our rain. After getting almost none in April, we have had over five inches in the last two days.

Weather is a great metaphor for life - sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, and there's nothing much you can do about it but carry an umbrella.
~Terri Guillemets

2010-05-10T07:50:00.001-05:00

Saturday was Klehm Arboretum’s annual fund raising plant sale. Déjà vous, exactly like the 2009 sale day—damp, cold and windy.

Last year I remember walking across the parking lot, the wind cutting through my light weight jacket, making me shiver. This year I'm more prepared in a heavy winter coat. The sale begins at 9:00 but the volunteers aren’t ready so we must stand in the lobby for a half hour.

While we wait we chat a little about plants and previous sales. I tell them about two new favorites found here last year. It’s exciting, not like visiting a garden center (although that can be exciting too). Here you will find some unusual plants. Many gardeners specialize in native wild flowers that can’t be found in box stores or even greenhouses.

Last year I found rudbeckia triloba by accident. I had been talking with a volunteer who brought a box of plants to the sale. I followed her to a table in the corner where she pointed at a group of tiny plants and told me these were very nice. She didn’t know the name and just called them black eyed Susan’s. The little leaves didn’t look familiar, certainly not one of the more common rudbeckias. For a buck and a quarter, why not try one? (It was late July before these little leaves suddenly grew into a 28 inch clump and burst into a spectacular yellow display. The flowers lasted throughout the autumn season.

(Rudbeckia triloba native to the eastern US)

This year I picked up several more r. triloba.

Another great plant from last year’s sale was Fireworks, a hybrid goldenrod.

(Solidago Fireworks another native plant.)

Found another Fireworks at this sale. Also picked up a huge clump of chives, a white woodland phlox, a few miniature bearded iris, a jack in the pulpit, and a bloodroot.

(A few early gardeners check our the display tables)

(Crows in front of Klehm's visitors center.)

Oh, spring came to my garden And caught it unaware Wearing just a few old leaves And a dejected air. ~ Velma Bates

2010-05-06T07:40:00.002-05:00

I always buy annuals early, favorites and the more unusual varieties are gone by mid April. Since I’ve had terrible luck starting cosmos from seed, my only alternative is to buy a flat or two. Didier greenhouse grows a very limited number, so I grab them the minute they become available. I was never able to find any yellow or orange cosmos but love these pink.

Plum Crazy is my favorite petunia color. It sells out pretty quickly too so I pick mine up early. Our last frost date is May 15^th so plants, in their tiny cell packs, must be babied along until they can safely go into the garden.

I spent more than half an hour hovering around the flats of annuals and hoping this red admiral butterfly would land on one of the blooms and let me get his photo against a pretty background.

He was determined not to cooperate. He spent his time sunning on the ugly brown leaf mulch, on the concrete driveway, and on a torn dogwood leaf. He never went near the flowers.

Last year was so wet we saw almost no butterflies until August. This year is the opposite, very dry so butterflies are out early.

In addition to the lilacs and flowering fruit trees, viburnum x Burkwoodii is in bloom. This is the first viburnum to flower here. It isn’t the showiest but it has a strong, sweet fragrance.

While I work outside, Toby patrols, keeping me safe from marauding mice and gophers.

Hope everyone has a great weekend.

...full of sound and fury, signifying nothing ~ Shakespeare

2010-05-03T07:40:00.002-05:00

Shakespeare's quote seemed apt, our weekend was full of sound and fury as thunderstorms passed over us pushed on by 50 mph winds. Unfortunately we received almost no rain.

This morning the television news is full of stories about the torrential rains and flooding in Tennessee. My heart goes out to all the families caught up in this disaster. This morning I'm hoping our Tennessee blogging friends are online to let us know they are OK.

A few weeks ago I enjoyed seeing photos of cherry trees blooming south of here. So far, I have never been lucky enough to visit DC at cherry blossom time.

For the last three weeks northern Illinois has been blessed with a stunning display of crabapple blooms.

Driving around town, running errands, I snapped a few photos I hope you will enjoy.

I may be prejudiced, but to me, our crab apples look every bit as beautiful as the cherries. They bloom in every shade from pure white to almost red.

This year has been a great year for the crab apples. They like cool, sunny weather and we have had an abundance in April.

2010-04-29T07:50:00.001-05:00

I have never had so many good ideas day after day as when I work in the garden.
~John Erskine

At 6:30 Wednesday morning I picked an armful of lilacs to bring to work. My fingers were stinging from the frosty air as I cut the woody stems and stuffed them into a pail of water. It was a beautiful morning and even though a fine film of frost lay over everything, the clear sunshine and vivid colors couldn’t help but lift the spirits.

Something that always strikes me on cold mornings when the temperature is below freezing is that even lilacs have no fragrance. An hour after being placed in the warm offices the lilac scent is heavy throughout the building. For me, the fragrance is the best thing about lilacs. They are lovely to look at but noting compares to walking into the garden on a spring afternoon and smelling that teasing scent on every stray breeze.

Perhaps one of the most appealing things about gardening is that simple chores free the gardener's conscious to float out over a strange array of subjects. Outside in the fresh air, the mind is swept clean and tends to wander down seldom used thought paths.

I have some happy news. My father finally came home from the therapy center Tuesday. I can’t tell you how much the family worried about this event. We weren’t sure he was up to living without skilled help and supervision. At Cor Mariae, Dad seemed so helpless and frail, but home on his own turf, he has made a miraculous change. He was in and out his back door a dozen times just sitting in the sunshine and walking slowly along the edge of his woodland garden while one of us told him what was blooming and tried to make word pictures he could ‘see’ in his mind.

Thank you everyone for your good wishes and kind comments about Dad while he was so sick.

2010-04-26T15:50:00.001-05:00

I will be resuming twice weekly publishing starting today. I will try to maintain a Monday and Thursday schedule of posts.

I want to thank everyone who stops by even when plants in the garden are scarce. I can't tell you how much your comments and advice are enjoyed and appreciated. You have become very good friends over the seasons and I treasurer the time we spend sharing stories and photos.

Really looking forward to this season in the garden. Hoping for good weather and plenty of rain.

******

Tulip season is winding down. First the little species tulips bloomed with the daffodils. Next came the parrots and now the late doubles.

Late doubles are first.

Allegretto is a fire storm of color. This is one of those 55 mph tulips, as Brent and Becky's call them, a real standout. It was the last tulip to bloom so it may have a week or more before it's finished.

Toning down a few shades is Foxtrot a multi hued pink double.

And last, everyone's favorite late blooming double, the lovely Angelique. Angelique has been extremely long lived here. Every year I breath a sigh of relief when I see her foliage emerge and know she has come back once again.

Now the flamboyant parrot tulips. Below is Libretto, very similar to Madonna (Madonna can be seen on my header and in the previous post) but with a much less dramatic green flame. Libertto blooms about two weeks later than Madonna in my garden.

Opening wide during the day to allow the pollinators access and closing back in the evening.

This is Carmine, outrageously beautiful.

Now for a few blooms from the shade and woodland gardens.

I'm smitten with lamium Pink Pearl. The pearly silver and green leaves almost glow in a shady spot. It's a quick spreader so I'll be dividing and moving this clump around very soon.

These are Virginia blue bells and I can see a couple leaves of garlic mustard among them. How embarrassing, we all have weeds but we don't usually show them off! Garlic mustard is the bane of my existence. Hope you never get this evil weed in or around your property.

Saving the best for last. Isn't this just the loveliest and most romantic of plants. My father has two varieties, one like this and a more or less ever blooming cultivar. The ever bloomer does not have quite the perfectly defined heart shape and the color is pale but the foliage is ferny and very attractive.

The trouble with weather forecasting is that it's right too often for us to ignore it and wrong too often for us to rely on it. ~Patrick Young

2010-04-21T07:49:00.019-05:00

Last weekend's sun rises behind promising clouds but the promise never materializes. The clouds burn off later in the day and we still have no rain. The ground is very dry and the wind is constant. My woodland garden is quietly suffering.

Still hopeful that some rain my drift our way by week's end.

Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain.
~Author Unknown

The celandine poppies are beginning to bloom. To think, once not long ago, I did not like these plants.

Confederate violets are more persistent than the common lawn violets. To have one today is to have several hundred in a few years.

Couldn't resist these fringe tulips when I stopped at Didier's. Don't look too closely or the fringe begins to look like sharp white teeth.

Virginia blue bells blooming in a little pool of anemone.

Anemone is another plant I never cared much for until recently. It seemed so bland. Now I can't grow enough of it. My ideas about flowers and gardens have changed drastically over the years.

A large spot of whimsy I pass on the way to visit my father at the therapy center. This 15-foot tall tree has been completely uprooted and 'planted' upside down with the roots making a large nest at the top. It is decorated with bright spring colors.

The Resident Rodent Remover is on the job. Wearing his fearsome expression, doesn't he remind you of Clint Eastwood? No need to worry about moles, voles or gophers in his gardens.

An interesting bit of trivia. Last month was the warmest March in history, globally.

Spring bulb photos

2010-04-14T09:15:00.000-05:00

Our temperatures are still way above average. Eighties today and tomorrow before a cold front comes through and brings rain and cooler weather.

I took photos of my spring bulbs last night. These eighty degree days may spell an end to the bulb season. Fingers crossed that the cooler weather on Friday will rescue some of them.

My favorite Parrot Tulip came back--second year in a row. The color combination is fantastic.

These very short yellow and red tulips are Kaufmanniana Guiseppe Verdi. Very short with some red striping in the foliage.

Another very short tulip is Greigii Orange Toronto only about 10 inches tall with very nice red striped foliage.

Unknown daffodil, little faces turned toward the sun. Love the bright colors.

This daffodil reminds me of eggs, the center looks like yellow yolks;) Very small blooms but ruffled and pretty.

Another of my Parrot Tulips.

Do any of you dig your tulip bulbs after the foliage dies back? I've heard some people have success doing this to keep the bulbs going from year to year. A little extra trouble, but I would do it for favorite varieties.

2010-04-07T07:45:00.001-05:00

Though a country be sundered, hills and rivers endure;
And spring comes green again to trees and grasses
Where petals have been shed like tears
And lonely birds have sung their grief.
~TuFu

A lovely week past with temperatures ranging from the 70's to a record breaking 80+. Overnight the bulbs shot up inches and these daffodils burst into bloom. Signs of spring are everywhere. The grass is greening and will need a first mowing soon (my least favorite summer chore.) The first toad of the season hopped across my path late Monday evening and was almost stepped on, accidentally of course. They seem to like to hang out in front of the garage so if I manage to miss them with the car wheels, I may stumble over one in the dark. At night I hear the lovely music of the frogs and during the day the birds are full of spring songs .

This year plants are about two weeks ahead of the season. I checked the posts from 2009 and the little group of daffodils pictured here bloomed April 20th.

Last weekend brought gentle rains and now midweek, we are having thunderstorms. Thunderstorms are another sure sign of spring but, an interesting note, we had thundersnow a couple times over the winter. Temperatures are expected to plunge, today's highs will be in the 40's with a possibility of a little snow tonight. As much as I enjoyed the warmer temperatures, my flowers will actually last much longer if the weather is cool. Tulips especially seem to blow in a day or two of 70 degree heat.

This forsythia is not mine but I wish it were, it certainly is lovely.

The geese are seeking solitude to nest and raise their young. I knew that geese mated for life but did not know that they stay in family groups (even in a large migratory flock family members will remain close to each other). If a goose gets injured and cannot keep up with the migratory flock, it will land, often with family members. These geese will stick with the injured one until it gets better or dies, and then join a new flock.

Turkeys on the other hand are polygamists and seduce as many ladies as they can.

Turkeys and geese nest on the ground and require abut 6 weeks to lay and hatch their eggs. During this time they are very vulnerable to predation. It's estimated that less than half of nestings result in live chicks. After that the mortality rate increases and only 20 or 30 percent of the chicks reach an age when they can fly.

These photos don't show the lovely iridescent colors of their feathers. Groups of wild turkeys are becoming quite common in this area. Hopefully some chicks will soon appear following close behind their mamas.

Now that the winter’s gone, the earth hath lost
Her snow-white robes; and now no more the frost
Candies the grass, or casts an icy cream
Upon the silver lake or crystal stream:
But the warm sun thaws the benumbed earth,
And makes it tender; gives a sacred birth

**********************

Some of you may have seen this going around in emails. I got such a kick out of it I wanted to post it for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

How much does a house weigh?

How much weight can a two lane rural bridge hold?

Is this covered by my homeowners or vehicle insurance?

Garden update and a review of the mystery novel The Crossing Places

2010-03-31T07:20:00.006-05:00

Finally we have a week of beautiful weather. I tiptoe around the edges of the garden. I’m bent over, peering down, looking for signs of green, brushing away a little leaf mulch and then putting it carefully back. I have to time my garden activity perfectly. If mulch is raked away too early, it won’t protect the tender shoots from late frost, but if left too long, there could be injury to the new plants it protects. When the forsythia bloom is the general rule here. Cut back perennials, prune roses and remove mulch when the forsythia begin to flower. (Southern gardeners are probably wondering why anyone would try to garden in a place where the last spring frost date is May 15th:)

Every spring I regret not planting more very early bloomers like hellebore and crocus. It’s the high failure rate that always makes me hesitate. More often than not, early flowers are either buried under several inches of snow or ruined by hard freezes. The failure years always seem much harder than if I had nothing at all to anticipate.

I’m surprised to see how dry the upper layer of soil is. After the abundance of snow that just melted, I expected the ground to remain wet longer. Rain is predicted for this weekend and we really need it to give plants a good start.

The lamium leaves are limp but still hold that pretty green and white pattern. Lamium tries to be an evergreen, remaining leafed out all winter, protected by the snow. Strawberries too and heuchera keep their foliage. I’ve seen early daffodils blooming in other gardens but mine are way behind. Some of the distinctly striped species tulip foliage is showing--not much. I planted a dozen or more bulbs last fall and not nearly that number has emerged. Disappointing.

The pagoda dogwood leaf buds are swelling and the lilacs are just forming flower buds. Spring is always cautious in the north. In May the earth will explode, making up for time lost.

This is Hocus Pocus, the perfect friend to share a comfy chair or a pillow with while reading a good mystery.

Hocus and I recently spent a day reading The Crossing Places, a first novel by Elly Griffiths. Since my garden updates are so pitifully brief, we decided to include a book review. (Really, it was my decision, Hocus had no opinion either way. Another reason to love cats, they never argue:) My review follows.

Round the eastern coast of Norfolk, the North Sea creeps upon the land and leaves behind a desolate place known as the salt marsh; a landscape of oozing mud and deep pools hidden beneath rampant grass and reeds. Thousands of years ago, this hostile place may have held religious significance for primitive peoples. Upon it they built a wooden henge and set markers to navigate the quicksand beds.

Today, this lonely site is shunned by most, but Dr Ruth Galloway chooses to live here near where she first excavated the site of the ancient henge. Dr Galloway, archaeologist, anthropologist, and professor at Northern Norfolk University, views the salt marsh with a strange combination of fear and awe, love and loathing. Although the road to her cottage, one of only three houses on the marsh, is frequently flooded and impassible, she is determined to ignore these inconveniences and remain living with the history of the long ago people who dwelt here.

Her anthropology expertise makes her the logical person to consult when the shifting bog gives up the body of a child. Could this child be Lucy Downey, taken from her home ten years ago with never a trace or clue to her fate? The missing child has haunted Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson these long years. After the child went missing, the kidnapper taunted him with letters giving cryptic clues to Lucy’s final resting place. A brief examination by Dr Galloway results in the discovery of an Iron Age torc around the child’s neck and she determines this is not Lucy but rather an amazingly well
preserved corpse that dates to perhaps 600 BC.

Another crushing disappointment for DCI Nelson, but a career building discovery for Galloway. Still, the Inspector senses an ally in Ruth. Her ready knowledge of folklore and ancient myths may aid him in discovering clues in the letters written by the kidnapper (if they were indeed written by him and not some publicity seeker trying to gain attention from a high profile case). Thus, Ruth is drawn into the search for the long missing Lucy and her abductor.

Author Elly Griffiths creates a vivid picture of this desolate bog, a place of neither sea nor land that holds many secretes and must be coxed into revealing them. The British have a knack for writing dark and brooding atmosphere. I have a feeling that we Americans would look upon this place as a mostly sunny wetland full of wonderful birds and colorful plants, but that would not add to the sinister tone of the story. Instead, Griffiths paints us a landscape, lonely and unfriendly, dark and wet and always willing to

accept the sacrifices of man and hold them forever.

Ruth Galloway is an unusual main character. Neurotic, aging and overweight, struggling with a lot of anger and self worth issues, she isn’t at first a very likable heroine. We glimpse her thoughts and see mostly self absorption and repressed hostility. It was not Ruth’s character, but rather the romance of ancient legends that pulled me deeply into the story. DCI Nelson is a more compelling character. He is both intense and focused and the reader can’t help but sympathize with his frustration over his failure to resolve the

Lucy Downey case.

Familiar as we are here in America with police procedurals (we are bombarded by forensic shows such as CSI, NCIS and Law and Order) we may also wonder why the Norfolk police didn’t call in experts in the fields of mythology and religion to analyze the letters at the beginning of the abduction case rather than ten years later. All I can say is that most novels have these irritating flaws but if the author has already hooked her readers, minor problems can be overlooked.

For years I have been an avid reader of the novels of Beverly Connor and Kathy Reichs, both anthropologists. Elly Griffiths’ first novel The Crossing Place is different even though the theme is similar. Slower paced and featuring not the self assured professional women created by the first two authors, but rather a competent academic who is more comfortable with cats than police inspectors and who, every morning must deal with her own self image before she can face the challenges of the day.

This book lost points with me for the following reasons:

Animal cruelty. I know it’s just a book, but the cruelty was senseless.
Too much angst and self-absorption.
The ending was just too well tied up. All the puzzle pieces fell in place much too quickly and too perfectly.
I knew who the evil doer was from the beginning (but there were a few surprises in the red herrings Griffiths threw at us).

It was one of those March days

2010-03-24T07:30:00.023-05:00

when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.
~ Charles Dickens

Except for one little weather hiccup on the first day of spring, which brought a couple inches of snow, things are looking good here in northern Illinois. The snow was completely melted by the following day and the brutally cold wind of Saturday night had calmed to a pleasant breeze. On my way to Core Mariae to visit with my Dad, I saw my first big drift of daffodils covering a south facing bank along Spring Creek Road.

I took my camera with me Friday and got a few photos as I moved from place to place during the day.

A lovely sunrise greeted me as I drove down my little lane on the way to work. The ground fog sweeps along the low lying troughs like a frothy river.

This is the Kishwaukee River very near to where I work. Clouds building all day brought snow late that evening.

The Kishwaukee River views were taken using a new (new to me) type of photo editing called tone mapping. Both images are pseudo HDR from a single photo image.

Photographs have a limited dynamic range which is inadequate to reproduce the full range of light intensities present in nature and visible to the human eye. Tone mapping is one step in the HDR (high dynamic range) editing process. Tone mapped images have more luminescence and more of a three dimensional look. I know I'm not explaining this well but it's only because I don't understand it myself:) I'd like to thank Jennie at Views From My Camera for her advice on HDR photography. Thanks Jennie, this is fun!

Erin Go Braugh

2010-03-17T07:25:00.001-05:00

St Patrick's Day parade. Photo courtesy of Rockford Register Star

Wishing you all a happy and green St Patrick's day.

My mother's maiden name was Brennan. Her great-great grandfather immigrated to the US from county Galway in the 1800's to work on the railroads. The Brennan clan has a colorful history reaching far back into Ireland's past. Songs are still sung about one famous (or infamous) Brennan in the late 1700's. A harsh time when England invoked cruel laws on the country and Ireland relinquished its parliament.

This is the legend of William Brennan, Ireland's Robin Hood. Willie was the son of a tenant farmer on the banks of the Blackwater who witnessed his family's eviction from their home. His mother was forced from her sick bed and soon after died. Brennan resolved to protect the poor from such tyranny and revenge his family for the terrible injustice (or so the legend goes).

He gathered around him other men with similar tragic stories and took to the hills to begin robbing the rich and helping the peasantry. He was much beloved by the locals because of his aversion to killing and his generous character.

Tis of a famous highwayman A story I will tell;
His name was Willie Brennan, And in Ireland he did dwell;
And on the Kilworth mountains He commenced his wild career,
Where many a wealthy gentleman Before him shook with fear.

Brennan on the Moor,
Brennan on the Moor.
Bold, brave and undaunted
Was young Brennan on the Moor.

A brace of loaded pistols He carried night and day;
He never robbed a poor man Upon the king's highway;
But what he'd taken from the rich, Like Turpin and Black Bess,
He always did divide it With the widows in distress.

One day upon the highway, As Willie he went down,
He met the Mayor of Cashel A mile outside the town:
The Mayor he knew his features; "I think, young man," said he,
"Your name is Willie Brennan; You must come along with me."

Now Brennan's wife had gone to town, Provisions for to buy,
And when she saw her Willie, She began to weep and cry;
He says, "Give me that tenpenny"; As soon as Willie spoke,
She handed him a blunderbuss From underneath her cloak.

Then with his loaded blunderbuss, The truth I will enfold,
He made the Mayor to tremble, And robbed him of his gold;
One hundred pounds was offered For his apprehension there,
So he with horse and saddle To the mountains did repair

Then Brennan being an outlaw Upon the mountains high,
With cavalry and infantry To take him they did try;
He laughed at them with scorn, Until at length, 'tis said,
By a false-hearted young man He basely was betrayed.

We are finally snow free. Temperatures in the 50's, even reaching into the 60's on a few afternoons, have melted all but the monster piles of filthy snow in parking lots. Maybe the luck of the Irish will bring an early spring and keep those late season snow storms away. Wherever you are, hope it's sunny and warm and things are starting to green up in your gardens.

"Mom always loved you best."

2010-03-10T09:30:00.004-06:00

Do any of you remember that famous line Tommy Smothers used when he got into an on stage argument with his little brother Dick. This time of year I feel that way. Not about my mom or my brother and sister, but about Mother Nature and the gardeners in warmer climate zones. In the mornings, visiting my friend's blogs, I see photos of blooming crocus, daffodils, Lenten roses and sometimes annuals or even flowering trees. Looking out my own window I see snow and mud under a weeping sky the color of pewter.

In the northern states the daytime temperatures are getting into the 40's . The soil which is saturated from the melting snow turns to a quicksand like mire. Rural roads are closed to heavy vehicles because the underlying ground cannot support the weight and the pavement will crumble. When I kept horses here, I would walk behind the barns to fill the hay racks and my boots would be literally sucked from my feet. What a horrible sensation to stumble out of your boot and end up stocking footed in frigid mud two feet deep.

The deep snow is slowly melting from the garden beds.

Have I convinced you all that Mother Nature really does love warm climates best? After battling months of deep snow, treacherous ice, and brutal cold, it is this transition period that is hardest on us northern gardeners. The next month will seem like an eternity. We look with envy at the beautiful photos from southern gardens, we look outside at our own gardens and we think this doesn't seem fair.

The wild flower bed beneath the lilacs.

Yesterday, I walked down the drive looking at my garden. A lot of snow has melted in the last week so about half the garden is now visible. I would have liked to cut down some sedum stalks but didn't dare step off the pavement for fear of churning up mud and compacting the soil. Another month or more before I can start cutting back rose canes, removing dead foliage and thinking about moving plants. A minimum of two months before we dare to put out tender annuals.

Strawberries hidden under an insulating blanket of snow look pretty much the same as they did in November.

I'm hoping Mother Nature will relent a little this year and give us an early spring. It doesn't happen often but occasionally we will get unseasonably warm temperatures in April. Even in years when April seems almost perfect, we must be very careful. Nature has a way of playing cruel tricks in the north. A seventy degree week in late April spurs gardeners to rush their favorite annuals into the gardens. Then in May we get just one or two nights when the temperatures dip into the 20's and annuals and even the flower buds on shrubs are killed.

So back to the Smothers Brothers, I thought they were hilarious back in the 70's. I don't see them often anymore but still get a kick out of their off center humor. It helps to have a sense of humor if you are a northern gardener. If you can't laugh along with Mother Nature, she will surely drive you insane:)

I apologize for the snafu that caused this blog to show up on the blog rolls way ahead of the posting. Operator error:)

Everybody have a great week!

Khlem Arboretum

2010-03-03T08:10:00.001-06:00

I want to thank everyone of my friends who kindly wished my father a speedy recovery. Altho we still don't know the cause of his illness, he seems to be doing better. He is spending a few weeks in a therapy center getting his strength back. We hope he will go home soon.

The last of my stash of photos from the Council of Rockford Gardeners garden walk June 17, 2009. Khlem Arboretum my last stop on the tour that day.

If the name Khlem sounds familiar, you are probably familiar with the family that has maintained a presence in the nursery business in Illinois for over half a century. A little history about the arboretum. Landscape architect William Lincoln Taylor established this 155-acre site in 1910. My Taylor used the land to introduce and study rare trees he wanted to use in his landscape business.

In 1968 the Khlem family bought the land and maintained the plantings, then in 1990 they decided to donate the land to the Winnebago County Forest Preserve District with the stipulation it be used as a forest preserve. A team of arborists inventoried the site and determined that it contained an assortment of rare plant life unlike anywhere else in the US.

A singularly unattractive education center was built and a maze of roads, parking lots and paved paths now overwhelm the once natural landscape. In spite of the 'improvements' the arboretum still has much of it's original charm.

I was really taken with this birch birdhouse. I may try to copy it for my home garden.

When I think of Khlem's, I think of peonies. The family has hybridized some lovely varieties. The arboretum features a large formal peony garden.

The water features are my favorite. This is truly a lovely place to sit and soak up the restful atmosphere.

These shallow bogs contain some lovely plants. They are also a favorite bathing and drinking spot for birds.

Water rushes over the rocks and falls into the lily pond.

A bridge crosses the creek and enters the wooded area.

2010-02-24T07:09:00.000-06:00

Just a very brief message to say I will be off line for a while. My father has been in the hospital since Tuesday, February 16. The doctors seem baffled and his condition isn't improving.

Right now, I can't seem to work up much inspiration for blogging. Hope to be back with good news soon.

An interesting visitor

2010-02-17T07:27:00.001-06:00

This is Diddle, so named because of his scientific genus Didelphis virgiana. Diddle sometimes shows up in the evenings to vacuum the areas under the bird feeders. He cleans up the seeds and hulls the birds miss.

As a young child, I never remember seeing an opossum around our home which is odd since we lived in a very rural area. Probably our collie, who always had the run of the place, kept them away. My first encounter was at grade school. Somehow one had gotten into the coat room of the old country schoolhouse and our teacher promptly called the sheriff. The deputy walked up to it, grabbed it by the tail and handed it off to his partner in the patrol car. Holding the opossum by the tail out the open window, they told us they were going to drive it down to the woods and let it go. We all stood at the windows watching the little creature hang limply out the window as the sheriff's car drove slowly away. Some of us waived goodbye to it as children will do:)

Some very interesting things I learned about opossums:

They are usually nocturnal and seldom seen in warmer months but will come out to forage for food during the daylight in winter months.

From a health viewpoint, opossum's immune systems are better than most animals and they groom themselves like finicky house cats. They are unlikely to spread disease, in fact much more unlikely than dogs or cats. Opossums have a great natural resistance to rabies.

They are not territorial and tend to wander. They shift den sites frequently throughout their short lifespan (1-4 years).

Learning and discrimination tests rank opossums above dogs and and put them at about the level of pigs.

They will eat almost anything including rats and mice and they consider slugs and snails a delicacy. They are immune to viper venom and will sometimes eat snakes.

They don't attack and seldom bite. When confronted by an enemy they sometimes hiss and show 50 fearsomely pointed teeth. If that doesn't discourage the attacker, they go into a shock like state which often makes the attacker believe the animal is sick or dead.

Opossums have opposable 'thumbs' on their hind feet.

They are the only marsupial found in the US or Canada.

In a letter, Captain John Smith gave us the first English language description of the opossum in 1608. "An Opassom hath an head like a Swine, and a taile like a Rat, and is of the bignes of a Cat. Under her belly she hath a bagge, wherein shee lodgeth, carrieth, and sucketh her young."

According to some sources, the name opossum comes from "apasum" an Algonquin Indian word meaning "white animal".

Possum Crossing by Nikki Giovanni

Backing out the driveway
the car lights cast an eerie glow
in the morning fog centering
on movement in the rain slick street

Hitting brakes I anticipate a squirrel or a cat or sometimes a little raccoon
I once braked for a blind little mole who try though he did
could not escape the cat toying with his life
Mother-to-be possum occasionally lopes home . . . being
naturally . . . slow her condition makes her even more ginger

We need a sign POSSUM CROSSING to warn coffee-gurgling neighbors:
we share the streets with more than trucks and vans and
railroad crossings

All birds being the living kin of dinosaurs
think themselves invincible and pay no heed
to the rolling wheels while they dine
on an unlucky rabbit

I hit brakes for the flutter of the lights hoping it's not a deer
or a skunk or a groundhog
coffee splashes over the cup which I quickly put away from me
and into the empty passenger seat
I look . . .relieved and exasperated ...
to discover I have just missed a big wet leaf
struggling . . . to lift itself into the wind
and live

Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On

2010-02-10T07:32:00.008-06:00

Couldn't resist that old Jerry Lee Lewis song title:) In the midst of our latest winter storm, we had, of all things, an earthquake. Winter snow storms we get a lot, but earthquakes are rare here. I was asleep at 4:00 am when my bed started shaking and the drawer pulls on my old highboy began rattling. It wasn't long before the TV newsmen were on the air giving us details. A 4.3 magnitude earthquake was centered in Virgil, IL near Dekalb and NIU. The disturbing factor is that no one knew there was a fault in Virgil even though NIU has very sophisticated seismology equipment. Luckily, a relatively small quake like this does almost no structural damage.

The sun is shining today, something we haven't seen in a while. The snow is pristine and glittering. The beginning of a beautiful day.

A couple photos taken on the farm. Ever wonder what happens to apples that don't get picked? No, you probably haven't given it much thought. This old apple tree in the pasture used to provide shade and treats for the horses. Now the deer enjoy the apples they can reach and the ones that fall to the ground.

The birds must not find these berries very appealing.

I hope you all have a wonderful week.

My Town

2010-02-02T10:15:00.004-06:00

All the fun and excitement of the holidays is over and February looms cold, gloomy and cheerless. February on the northern prairie is as bitter cold and snowy as January. In the south, you are turning the corner toward spring but here it will be March before we see even a little improvement in the weather.

One really pleasant note to start the month. I actually won something. That never happens. Jamie and Randy at Creating Our Eden (Use the following url if the linky doesn't work http://jandrgardenblog.blogspot.com/) had a drawing for a really nice bird feeder. I can't believe that I could be so lucky. An absolutely perfect prize for a wild bird watcher such as myself.

If you don't already know Jamie and Randy, stop and visit their blog. Be sure to check out the archives and see what an amazing job they have done constructing their gardens.

This is primarily a garden blog but this time of year garden topics are hard to find. Maybe today I'll just mention one of the more interesting things about my town.

Rockford has a tiny natural history museum that used to be located in an old house on the banks of the Rock River. Burpee Museum has grown quite a bit in the last few years and one of the reasons for its growth is Jane.

Jane is an adolesant tyranosaurous rex discovered, excavated and cleaned by staff and volunteers from Burpee. It is extremely rare to find a young example of a T. Rex and Jane is in wonderful condition. A very interesting story surrounds the finding of Jane. In the summer of 2001, a team from the Burpee museum had been scouting in Hell Creek, Montana for unusual specimens to bring back to the museum. On the last day of the expedition, the toe and leg of a large dinosaur were found protruding from the banks of a creek. Time had run out so the team 'hid' their find with rocks and dirt and returned to Rockford hoping no one else would discover the amazing find before they could reorganize and apply for permits to excavate the site.

While Jane was alive, the Hell Creek area was a flood plain

The team returned in the summer of 2002 and began to excavate Jane. Enduring weeks of blazing heat, torrential rains that turned the area to a sea of mud, swarms of biting insects and poisonous snakes, the team carefully uncovered Jane's skeleton from the surrounding rocks.

Finding the jaw bone gave the team a pretty good idea of what kind of dinosaur they had discovered.

Jane is a favorite with children. Kids love dinosaurs but Jane is extra special. She was a youngster herself and the kids must identify with her. Buses unload daily at Burpees doors bringing school children to view her.

All photos courtesy of Jane's web site.

You can read more about the discovery of Jane at this site: Jane, the diary of a dinosaur

SNOW ART

2010-01-27T07:16:00.000-06:00

The Rockford Park District has an uncanny ability to know when the January thaw will occur and select that exact time to host the annual snow sculpture event. This year sculptors worked in temperatures approaching 40-degrees F. On the day of the judging, it rained. I felt so sorry for all those who had worked so hard to create art that lasted only hours.

So here they are, the crisp details already dripping off:

Where the Wild Things Char

Vagan til Valhalla II

Save our Home

Refuge in the Shadow of His Wings

Mr Toad's Not So Wild Ride

Mommoth Masticator

How Many Buffalo Does It Take To Change A Light Bulb

Happy Together

Fish Out of Water

Who Are You

Happy Together was a crowd favorite and mine too.

More June garden club walk

2010-01-20T07:18:00.013-06:00

Talk about curb appeal. This pretty bank of rock, perennials, daylilies and shrubs runs along the highway for about 200 feet. Simple but elegant.

When visiting gardens for the first time, I tend to photograph unusual things that catch my eye.

In the photo below, a thrifty gardener created an old fashioned well from chunks of used concrete.

This succulent tower was made from an old 60's style kitchen chair frame and a piece of wood to give height to the back. Wire mesh encloses sphagnum moss and holds the plants in place.

A Toad Hall resident sits in this sunny garden.

This is a catalpa tree. Very striking.

WINTERLUDE

2010-01-13T08:55:00.002-06:00

We have had so much snow this winter and not much of it has melted. Last Friday the snow was over the tops of my Uggs:)

Northern Illinois isn't alone when it comes to bad weather. According to the national news, two thirds of the country is experiencing unseasonable temperatures, snows or floods. There is some good news in the forecast. The jet stream has shifted and temperatures are supposed to be on the rise for most of the country.

White are the far-off plains,
And white the fading forests grow;
The wind dies out along the height
And denser still the snow,
A gathering weight on roof and tree
Falls down, scarce audibly.
The meadows and far-sheeted streams
Lie still without a sound.

~ From Loreena McKennitt's Snow

A panoramic view of the fields around my house.

Winter is taking a toll on wildlife. Deer, rabbits, and birds are not able to dig through the deep snow to reach food. I have hundreds of birds in the yard where I ground-feed to make sure the doves, cardinals and juncos get their share.

The house finches are constantly pushing and shoving to get a better seat at the table.

I thought seeing some scenes from warmer days might cheer me up. Here are a few "then and now" pictures. The snow photos were taken Thursday.

The wren house with it's tiny resident carrying home dinner.

Much less inviting now with a thick covering of snow.

Colorful helenium Mardi Gras on a bright summer day.

Now just a collection of twigs.

A clump of miscanthus amoung the glowing maple leaves.

Now only a few brown stalks remain to catch the whirling snow.

Cats have the most wonderful imaginations. Perhaps today Toby sees himself as a snow leopard. Leaping into drifts, tunneling, rolling, never bothered by the cold. I had to cut his snow time short when he refused to stop harassing the birds.

AN ARTIST'S GARDEN

2010-01-06T07:40:00.002-06:00

This is a home from a June garden walk. I try to snap photos of elements that are unusual or interesting. With the exception of the Khlem gardens (which I will show in a future post), all garden walk yards are designed maintained by the homeowners.

A tiny bungalow with only a retaining wall and porch in front. The backyard was postage stamp size, about 20 x 30. Not really much in the way of plantings but a pleasant area with some ideas for creating outdoor living space.

Creeping Jenny trails over the retaining wall. A few flower accents and some metal artwork adds and interesting element to the wall. Shrubs are all pruned up to better show the plants beneath.

A brightly colored deck attached to the house holds some art, stuffed flamingos and an assortment of chairs and tables.

A mustard colored fence and bright stepping blocks accent the tiny lawn and a few plants.

Trellises frame the seating area and a painting hangs on the fence. Planters dot the patio and odds and ends are are positioned in any available space.

This is the garage door.

One wall of the garage is a startling blue with metal artwork accents. The stock tank is painted a bright copper and the hydrangeas are artificial.

More artwork hangs on the house’s rear wall. The woman in the white hat is the owner/artist.

A dead tree brightly painted to give it a few more years of usefulness.

A hanging swing becomes a planter.

The driveway, colorful sidewalk and boxed trees.

...hopped on the bough, then, darting low, prints his small impress on the snow ~ From Emerson's poem The Titmouse

2009-12-29T15:45:00.001-06:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

We had an ice storm here on Wednesday into Thursday that interrupted power to more than 40,000 homes. My sister's home was one of them. Her family spent Wednesday night and all day Thursday wrapped in blankets in front of their fireplace. They had no electricity, no heat and no hot water.

It rained on Christmas morning and later in the afternoon the temperature dropped. The roads were a sheet of ice driving home on Christmas night. Later the snow started and we had another eight inches by Saturday evening.

In spite of the weather, our family had a lovely Christmas, eating a wonderful meal, laughing and chatting.

One of my best gifts this year has been this little visitor I call Mouse. I’ve hoped for years to attract a Tufted Titmouse to my feeders. I often see them at Severson Dells and at my father’s feeders. This is the first year I’ve been successful in bringing them to my farm. Aren’t their large, black eyes appealing?

These little birds maintain their pair bonds year round. In fact, family bonds are so strong; youngsters from the previous spring often remain with the parents and help with nesting and feeding the following year.

Females are very particular about nesting materials and prefer soft hair. People have reported seeing them pull fur from live squirrel and woodchuck tails, and from men’s beards.

The annual bird counts judge these birds to be a tentative success story. While most bird populations are rapidly decreasing, Tufted Titmouse numbers show a moderate increase. It is guessed this may be because more people are feeding birds over winter and these adaptable birds are benefiting.

The Titmouse comes to the suet feeders for Kaytee suet dough, then to the hopper feeder for shelled peanuts. I'm sure they will eat sunflower seeds also but haven't seen them at the sunflower feeders yet.

Wishing all of you a very happy New Year.
May you have and abundance of love, peace, health and comfort.

Blessed is the season which engages the whole world in a conspiracy of love! ~ Hamilton Wright Mabie

2009-12-22T07:35:00.000-06:00

The legend of Father Christmas is such a wonderful old story.
The details are different from place to place, but the central idea remains the same. A kindly old man bringing rewards for good children (be they rich or poor) at Christmas.

I've heard that the chubby Santa Clause we see depicted in this country originated with an artist working for the Cocoa Cola Company. He is a much more earthy figure in older cultures that perhaps aren't so commercial.

The tradition of poinsettias originates in Mexico.
Children picked bunches of weeds along the roadside to decorate the village nativity. On Christmas day the humble weeds were blessed and turned to bright red flowers.

Christmas is the time for all things gaudy, glimmery, and glittery.

Fail not to call to mind, in the course of the twenty-fifth of this month, that the Divinest Heart that ever walked the earth was born on that day; and then smile and enjoy yourselves for the rest of it; for mirth is also of Heaven's making. ~Leigh Hunt

Our hearts grow tender with childhood memories and love of kindred, and we are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmas-time.
~Laura Ingalls Wilder

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer. ~ Albert Camus

2009-12-16T07:58:00.000-06:00

Blowing snow has erased the rest of the world and left only this row of trees along my fenceline.

The first winter storm of the season brought a foot of heavy, wet snow.
Its weight bent my lilacs to the ground.

Color disappears in a snow storm and the world turns to black and white...mostly white.

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of Storm.
~ Emerson

In the bleak midwinter Frosty wind made moan,

Earth stood hard as iron, Water like a stone;

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter, Long ago.
Christina Rossetti

A Hairy Woodpecker female.
Heavy snow creates desperate times for the birds.
Their survival may depend on the kindness of people.
I always put out extra suet and seed
so they won't run out of food while I'm at work.

The Downey Woodpecker female is similar in color but smaller
than the Hairy Woodpecker.
Her beak is much shorter than that of the Hairy Woodpecker

A tiny Junco.

A finch huddles against the chill wind.

I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June. ~ Lucy Maud Montgomery

2009-12-08T08:22:00.000-06:00

I'm varying my usual Wednesday posting because I won't be online tomorrow.

Another set of photos saved from a June garden walk. I horded these away thinking they would be fun to bring out on cold winter mornings.

The snow is beginning to fall in earnest this morning and blizzard warnings for tonight. It seems a good time to let the mind drift back to a sunny, warm June day.

Tinker's Cottage built in 1865 is now a museum. The grounds feature a small heirloom rose garden maintained by one of the local garden clubs.

A new vegetable garden has been added and it features these unusual trellises for growing vine crops.

If I don't look out my window at the snow piling up on the lawn, I can almost believe it might be June...almost.

"I heard a bird sing

2009-12-02T09:11:00.000-06:00

In the dark of December

A magical thing
And sweet to remember.
~ Oliver Hereford

When the flowers have died back for the winter months, my backyard looks empty. This is the season I really depend on wild birds to add movement and interest to my garden. On frigid winter mornings, tea or cocoa in hand, I sit by the window and watch them for hours

The first two photos are Downey Woodpeckers. The male and female are very alike except for that spot of red on the head of the male. They announce their arrival at the feeders with a little quacking sound.

These tiny woodpeckers are the most frequently seen at feeders. Although very small, they are not as shy as their larger cousins. Downeys usually find the suet and bird seed quickly and lead the larger woodpeckers to the treats.

If you are trying to attract woodpeckers to your backyard, use one of the premium suet cakes like the Kaytee or the Wild Birds Unltd brand. You can also use real suet from a butcher shop but hang it somewhere the raccoons, cats and opossums can't reach it.

In addition to the Downeys, last weekend my suet feeders were visited by Hairy Woodpeckers, Red Bellied Woodpeckers, Nuthatches, Chickadees, and a Tufted Titmouse. I have been hoping for a Titmouse for ages and finally one has found the suet and peanut feeders. I'll try for more photos next week if the weather cooperates and provides some sunshine.

The Gold Finches are wearing their olive drab feathers now. Thistle seed served up in a soft 'sock' is one of the best loved treats in my garden. These feeders stay busy all day, every day, with hungry finches squabbling over the tiny seeds. Later when we have snow cover, the Red Polls may visit this feeder. If food is in short supply farther north in the forests of Canada, they arrive in the area in large, hungry flocks.

The Gold Finches are year round visitors at the feeders. They will eat thistle seed, millet and sunflower seeds. I usually hang the thistle socks above the flower borders near the house. The seed is irradiated and will not sprout so you don't have to worry about thistle growing up among your flowers.

There haven't been the usual large numbers of House Finches with me through the summer months. I'm starting to see more of them as the weather gets colder and their natural food supplies decrease.

There is nothing in which the birds differ more from man than the way in which they can build and yet leave a landscape as it was before.
~ Robert Lynd

Shade garden

2009-11-18T08:01:00.003-06:00

I've been saving photos from my June garden walks to use on days like this--dreary, cold and colorless. This isn't my garden, altho I wish it was.

This back yard garden was all open shade. The first thing that I noticed when I rounded the corner at the rear of the property was the heavenly scent. Four huge clumps of white astilbe perfumed the garden (somehow I didn't get a photo of them). Who knew astilbe were so fragrant?

Answering some questions on previous postings.
The wild berries below belong to the

Smilax lasioneura
Carrion Flower Vine
which is not common in this area.

The deer in the previous post are fallow deer and are approx 30-39 inches tall at the shoulder. These are probably native to Europe altho I was not able to identify the exact variety and the origin.

VETERANS DAY

2009-11-11T07:40:00.000-06:00

On this day set aside to honor our veterans, I'd like to express my heartfelt gratitude for the sacrifices they have made for us all. This includes both my grandfathers who served in the Army in WWI; my father who served in the Air Force in WWII; and my brother and sister who served in the Army in Vietnam. Thank you and God bless.

We have an adopt a soldier campaign going on here. Everyone is urged to donate items to send overseas to our military. Soldiers back from deployment say the smallest things like junk food and powered drink mixes are morale boosters and help them remember the folks back home are thinking of them. If you can, donate in your area and put a smile on the face of a service man far from home.

AUTUMN IN NORTHERN ILLINOIS

In a few brief days we go from the scene above to the one below.

The trees are bare, the leaves are on the ground. This Friday it was my mission to move them off the grass. I know it sounds foolish to rake leaves in a 30-mph wind, but I can't always pick my times. In the end there were leaves in my hair, leaves in my shoes and down the back of my neck, but the majority were on the gardens. It may not have been an efficient job of leaf removal but it felt good to be outside using my muscles and breathing the fresh air.

In fact I have a limitless need for leaves and often pick up bags set at the curb for the trash haulers. These bags go into one of the barns to save for mulch on next spring's gardens. It's hard to believe anyone would go to the trouble to neatly bag this lovely stuff and set it out to be hauled away.

This is my window tree.

Robert Frost wrote...

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.
Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.
But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.
That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.

Later I took a drive up to Janesville, Wisconsin to visit a scrapbooking store. Some scenes along the way...

My resident hawk surveys his domain from high atop a telephone post. Magnificent creature, but not welcome at my bird feeders.

The seed pods below are Euonymus atropurpurea growing in the hedgerows along my lane. A rather nondescript little tree until it produces these pretty pink pods.

Interesting non-native residents like this shaggy llama can be seen along the back roads around my farm. Actually, llamas originated here in North America about 40 million years ago and remained until fairly recently. Before the last ice age occured , many had migrated to South America. After the glaciers receded, none were left in North America.

These tiny black deer, which I can't identify, are diffinitley not natives. They are smaller than our white tails, even smaller than a goat. This photo was taken from a very long distance. Wish I could have gotten closer. If anybody knows anything about these deer, please tell me.

I hope you are enjoying beautiful autumn weather where ever you are. We are having a spell of indian summer here. No way of knowing how long it will last so making the most of these warm, sunny days.

The back roads

2009-11-04T07:33:00.004-06:00

The back roads of northern Illinois are a wonderful source of inspiration and beauty. Often, I grab a camera and just drive aimlessly looking at whatever scenes appear over the next hill.

I wonder when I see a sky like this. What causes those patterns and color variations? Is it the wind that swirls and spirals the clouds?

The wonderful stories these old barns could tell. Think of the history they've seen--good times and bad. The men who built them and worked the land, growing old and dying there. Sad to see so many of the big old barns slowly falling. Too expensive to maintain.

Autumn grass has a special grace. It's constant movement is hypnotic.

Milkweed seed was blowing everywhere. It glistened in the sunlight as it drifted above the grass.

Brightly colored flower petals are gone. The seeds hang on waiting for just the right moment to let go.

This little donkey was happy to see me when I offered her pieces of smashed Halloween pumpkin.

I avoid the highways and interstates. How could getting somewhere fast be better than driving slowly through scenes like this one?

Blood Point Road

2009-10-28T07:02:00.041-05:00

An ominous sounding name for a road. When you hear the legend you will understand why FEARnet has named it one of the nation’s 10 scariest roads in its “Streets of Fear” online video and On Demand series.

Arthur Blood and his family settled in the area just south of Cherry Valley in the 1830's. The road was named for the Blood farm which was at the road's farthest point. The Blood family formed a friendship with a neighbor, a strange and solitary woman who some claimed was a witch. One night, Arthur murdered his wife and children and then took his own life. Of course, frightened residents claimed he had been under the spell of the witch.

Since that fateful incident, the legend of Blood Point Road has grown. A demon dog was seen shortly after the Blood murders. This may have been the Blood's family dog gone wild but still attached to the farm, waiting for the family to return. It sounds logical but doesn't explain current sightings of a huge, fearsome dog that leaps out to bark and rage at vehicles to this day.

There is a tiny rural cemetery near where the old Blood farm stood. Strange sightings are whispered of and local teenagers frequent the graveyard late at night hoping for a ghostly glimpse of the old witch they call Beulah. (Sadly, they do great damage to the grave stones in their quest for thrills.)

A high bridge spans a railroad track about a mile west of the old Blood farm. The bridge is old but does not date back to the time of the Blood family massacre. Many years ago, people say a school bus somehow lost control and veered off the bridge. None of the children survived. From that day to this, reports of stalled cars, phantom children and the sound of screams can sometimes be heard.

I drove the length of Blood Point Road last weekend on one of the few sunny, warm days we've had this fall. It's hard to imagine a ghostly presence on a lovely autumn day but as our local newspaper pointed out, at night rural roads are very dark and anything could be lurking in the hedgerows or among the tall corn stalks. Just before crossing the bridge, several cars were pulled off the road and parents and children stood at the bridge rail peering down at the long drop to the tracks. Graffiti in blood red was scribbled across the road surface. I made a u-turn at the cemetery and slowed down to watch several people wandering among the headstones. Many of them were probably like myself, just trying to understand how the many old legends originated.

As I pointed the car back toward home, I was startled by the manic barking of a dog. I slowed the car again and watched a huge white dog (Great Pyrenees) snarl and lung at the fence. Behind the dog, an old barn stood back from the road and to the right I could just make out a dark colored house so overgrown with brush and trees it was barely visible.

Ah, the stuff of ghost stories.

Happy Halloween everyone.

The house below is on Mulford Road in Monroe Center. I've never heard any rumors about it but it certainly looks ghostly in the dim light. I like the poem about old houses retaining memories within their wood and plaster. Not a sinister thought...rather comforting that the past is still remembered.

I stand before a darkened doorway
Stairs before me rise.
Windows flanking on either side
Like square, accusing eyes.

No one dwells in this house now.
The walls are bare and cold.
The people who used to live here,
Have long moved and grown old.

Although no one has died within,
There lives an inhuman host.
Memories and dreams that linger on,
Have since become it's ghost.

Echoes of children's laughter,
The very essence of life.
Peal down the hallways,
Piercing the silence like a knife

While you're here, you feel it.
Nothing ever dies.
The wood that creaks beneath your feet,
Are the house's tired sighs.

A house like this can't be replaced.
New is not necessarily good.
The energy of the people who have come and gone
Lived on in the rotting wood.
~ Lorna May

Cloudmaker

2009-10-16T09:32:00.012-05:00

Do you ever wonder where clouds come from?

They are manufactured right here in Byron, Illinois.
Today only one of the cloudmakers is online so look for partly cloudy skies.

Click on the skywatch icon to view skies all over the world.

"Gray drip-wet dawn Leafless tree in solitude ~ Don Sax

2009-10-14T07:03:00.020-05:00

The dull gray skies go on and on. Saturday morning the birdbath was iced over and later in the afternoon snow swirled briefly before turning over to rain.

Summer ends but the crisp, clear days of autumn do not follow. Instead we have bone chilling damp and weepy skies. No lovely red and gold leaves to ease the way from summer's bright colors into winter's dreary browns. I wonder, will the leaves change this year or will they simply fall from the trees still green.

I said goodbye to my garden during a brief spell of sunshine. I was sad to see a monarch butterfly and a red admiral there. They won't survive this hard freeze. The monarch waited too long to leave home and journey south.

The annuals are gone now. The perennials are tough, they will hold on through a few more freezes, then they too will give up hoping summer will return.

I know the year is dying,
Soon the summer will be dead.
I can trace it in the flying
Of the black crows overhead;
I can hear it in the rustle
Of the dead leaves as I pass,
And the south wind's plaintive sighing
Through the dry and withered grass.
~ Mortimer Crane Brown