Rainbows apologize for angry skies. ~ Sylvia Voirol

I've always been a 100% non-conformist. I've always hated to travel and still do. Never learned to drive a car because I didn't want to go anywhere. I have never paid the slightest attention to etiquette, but didn't know I was "out of step" until I got married ... and my husband pointed it out to me. He enjoyed it. ~ Ruth Stout

I would have liked to have met Ruth Stout. A woman before her time. She was sister to the famous author, Rex Stout, who often commented she must be insane. In her younger years, Ruth claimed to have demolished a few saloons with her friend Carrie Nation. A generation after her death, we are still building on her no-till, no-dig gardening techniques. Ruth did things her way with very little help from the men in her life. She wrote books, helped other gardeners, and was considered a genuine eccentric. Rumors abound that Ruth gardened in the nude so it was best not to just drop in on her unannounced;) She lived a full and healthy life and gardened well into her nineties.

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I still have a pot ghetto, a sorry little community of miss matched nursery pots containing plants that should have long since found a home in the ground. Ornamental grasses, zinnias, petunias, a bronze fennel and a Jim Crockett boltonia.

These lovelies will be so root bound they won't know what to do when they are finally set free in the garden.

And then there are the seedlings I sowed. Many are wondering if they are destined to live and die in little plastic cups. This weekend I'm determined to get every last plant into the ground.

I'm very proud of these foxgloves. They don't naturally thrive in my area but a few have been pampered and babied along and are blooming again this spring. Not very tall but pretty never the less. I am finally giving up my vision of masses of five foot tall stalks in various pastel colors. A couple three foot stalks with pink and white gloves is what I'm lucky to have.

Tall by the cherry tree the foxgloves stand
pale in their purpleness, their long bells sweet
and profligate. Each one of them could fit
a lady's narrow, faithless, foxy hand.

~ Alison Prince

The yellow cosmos I sowed from seed didn't do well so I found some already started pinks at a local greenhouse. This is the first year for cosmos in my garden. It won't be the last. They are so cheerful and pretty they will definitely be a regular here. These are only a little over a foot tall.



This little sedum has lived in a plant saucer for several years. It doesn't require much soil or water. Sedums are so easy to start from cuttings. The saucer was about half full of hens and chicks when I stuck a few cutting of this variegated variety into the dirt and left them to root.


Peonies are awaited with much anticipation every spring. If for some reason I could only have five flowers, this would be one. This is the first bloom of the season. Huge, chaotic masses of petals with wonderful fragrance. The bloom time is so short no one could possibly become bored with them.

I love the doubles and the 'bombs' (I suppose they are so named because they look like a bomb went off in a flower petal factory;) No such thing as too many petals or too many ruffles.

The two above were growing on the farm when I moved here. The farmers before me didn't give up much soil to non-revenue producing items. 'Just pretty' wasn't reason enough to grow flowers or shrubs. Peonies were the only exception they made.

Below is one of the two Shirley Temples I added two years ago. They have grown quickly from a few bare root eyes into two large bushes covered in buds.

Another unknown purchased a year ago. The tag said 'red peony'. My camera doesn't do well with reds. This peony is a lovely scarlet.

I love spring anywhere, but if I could choose I would always greet it in a garden. ~ Ruth Stout

OH, give us pleasure in the flowers today;
And give us not to think so far away
As the uncertain harvest; keep us here
All simply in the springing of the year.
~ Robert Frost

When spring finally arrives in the north, plants explode with blooms. They know how short our season is and they have a lot to accomplish before another long winter sleep.

Allium karataviens is still blooming. It's a little charmer with leaves almost as wide as the plant is tall.

A few tall, gangly alliums Purple Sensation are still blooming but most have passed to the green seed head stage. The strappy allium leaves are already disappearing and will leave their airy skeleton orbs standing above the lower foliage and blooms.

This is garlic. A bulb from the local farmer's market was pushed into the soil at the feet of Rose de rescht and it thrives and increases every year. I've never dug the bulbs or eaten the garlic. It makes a nice ornamental. After it blooms the nepata will move into its space.




More iris in a rainbow of colors.

These yellow and blue blooms crowd each other like two children wanting attention.

Nepata (cat mint) is everywhere. It hides the bare ankles of taller plants and covers the gravel garden. Its blooms are tiny, not significan, but a three foot wide plant smothered in a million blooms is like a blue mist hovering above the ground. This plant definitely has a work ethic and never stops blooming.

The peonies are just opening so there will be peony photos in the next post.



Wildlife Rumors by Miss B



Let me tell you about the wild time we had last weekend. A starling somehow got into our house. I told my photographer, quick get the camera but she was absolutely frantic and wouldn't listen to me. The bird was flying through the house, crashing into windows and landing on picture frames. We cats (myself included) were racing right behind and leaping to grab it. My photographer fetched a big towel and threw it over the bird. Before we cats could pounce she had that bird scooped up and out of our reach. Very disappointing. If my photographer had only done her job and gotten some good action photos for my wildlife column. Not one photo do we have.

Now she keeps mumbling about bad luck and birds in the house. It was bad luck for cats that we didn't catch the bird. House cats don't get a lot of opportunities.

I need a photographer that stays cool under pressure and does her job. Her job isn't catching birds and setting them free outside.

But all my life--sofar-- I have loved best how the flowers rise and open, ~ Mary Oliver

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

There is so much blooming now. I want to record it all but not in just one posting.

A couple years ago I purchased a few small clematis at Home Depot for a ridiculously low price--something like $3.50 each. It was a whim, I wanted to try growing them on roses. Unfortunately that doesn't work well in northern Illinois. In the spring, when the super hardy clematis is up and blooming, northern roses are only about two feet tall. Not a good paring. This poor blue climber puddles at the feet of Austin rose Abe Darby. It looks well enough just winding along the ground among the other plants. Every now and then a blue patch appears at the feet of a lily or a foxglove.

I was really taken with photos of a tall bearded iris named GnusFlash. It's a black and white striped iris, very striking. Anyway I purchased Gnusflash and got this. It's lavender where the real GF is white and white where it should be black. Oh well;)

This is iris time, yellow, powder blue, lavender, pink, white and black. The view from any window features their fluttering silken petticoats.

I can't walk out of a garden center empty handed. Another whim and something I didn't need--but it was so pretty. How could anyone turn away from a silver leaved, pink flowered little charmer like this lamium Pink Pewter? (Funny, those were almost exactly the same words I used on my mother as a child when I came home with another stray dog.)


Below old faithful Superstition iris and a pink self seeded columbine. Superstition was the first iris I added to my garden almost 20-years ago when I moved here.

Too green the springing April grass,
Too blue the silver-speckled sky,
For me to linger here, alas,
While happy winds go laughing by,
Wasting the golden hours indoors,
Washing windows and scrubbing floors.
Too wonderful the April night,
Too faintly sweet the first May flowers,
The stars too gloriously bright,
For me to spend the evening hours,
When fields are fresh and streams are leaping,
Wearied, exhausted, dully sleeping.

~ Claude McKay

Some plants just make life easy

Columbines are easy to get along with. Need a bloom for shady places? Columbine does well in partial or open shade. Full sun is fine too. Dry places are good, poor soil and rocks are ok. Colors come in white, red, orange, yellow, blue, pink, wine, and even black. Hummingbirds love them and hummingbirds have very good taste;)

Pinky Winky makes a denser, shorter plant and the blooms face up and out. The Winkys come in several colors and in doubles.

Columbines tend to wander about my garden. Here one year, there the next. I never mind. They are a slender plant that seldom shades out neighbors. They change too, sometimes sporting white and then no white at all. They grow amongst the iris and the roses. I'm trying to persuade them to grow with the foxgloves and the nicotiana.

Tall bearded iris with blooms as lovely as any orchids.



Iris multiply like bunnies. You have three the first year and twendy-three two year later. They aren't difficult to divide but I do tend to put it off. The yellow iris below is one of my favorite. I find iris are ridiculously easy to care for, in fact they need almost no care at all. Give them sun and don't plant them in a wet spot and they will live happily ever after.

Maintenance Note: For those of us who love Autumn Joy and similar sedum but who hate the late season flop--now is the time to prevent it. In May or early June, I cut the stems back by about one half. This results in the plants maturing with a shorter stature which isn't as likely to lay down. The tips that are pruned off can be stuck into growing medium or even into the garden and they will root and make a new plant. If you wait too late to cut sedum back they may not bloom.

Many taller perennials can be treated in the same way to reduce height and help them stand straighter. The blooming schedule is usually a week or so later than unpruned plants.

Showcasing two old fasioned bloomers

These two shrubs were in my parent's and my grandparent's gardens. Old fashioned, carefree and as dependable as great grandpa's pocket watch. Both are out of style now, replaced by newer hybrids with more color and longer bloom time. Still, I wouldn't be without these old faithful garden friends.

Bridal wreath spirea (Rosaceae spireae prunfolia) is lovely in bloom. The bush is fountain shaped with arching branches accented by thousands of clumps of tiny white flowers. I have a preference for gracefully arching branches so it is very appealing to me.



Other big advantages: In my garden this spirea has no pests and no disease. It is tolerant of poor rocky soil, extreme temperatures, light shade and drought.

Everybody just calls the second shrub "the snowball bush". Viburnum opulus has a short window of display time before it becomes another featureless upright shrub. For the brief period when it is covered in big balls of white it is a traffic stopper. I wish this viburnum produced colorful berries to give us another season of interest but alas it does not.



The snowball bush is another no problem bloomer that requires little maintenance and is forgiving of cold, heat and drought. I've heard people complain about aphids but on my farm the lady bug population far outnumbers the aphids.

Unfortunately this is not one of the wonderfully fragrant viburnums but you seldom get all the best options in one package.



Pruning about one third every other year works well for me and results in more blooms and better shape the following spring. I prune both shrubs in late spring soon after bloom.

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Wildlife Rumors by Miss B

Late breaking news has set this community on its ear. Red Headed Woodpecker was seen at the Maple Tree Restaurant eating a suet and sunflower dinner. Red has never visited us before but his reputation proceeds him. It seems this bad boy has a not-so-stellar-reputation. Claims from other communities describe him as a thug, vandalizing homes, breaking eggs, and worse.



Red told our reporter Miss B that these allegations were scurrilous lies and that he was simply a peace loving woodpecker doing good deeds by removing insects from the environment.

The morning after Miss B interviewed Red, he left the area and the bird population breathed a sigh of relief.

Crime is on the rise in the community since the arrival of the Raccoon family. Described as bandits, these renegades allegedly prowl the area at night holding up restaurants and eating everything in sight. It is even believed the Raccoons are responsible for Mr and Mrs Towhee leaving the area. So far police have not been able to catch them in the act.

Miss B will have more news as it breaks.

Onions and grape-ade

The delicately beautiful blooms of the iris are deceptive. There are few plants in my garden as tough as the tall bearded iris. The white iris Immortality is the first to bloom. Last year the black iris Superstition bloomed at almost the same time for a wonderful color contrast.

I can count on iris to do their thing every year with no help or coddling from the gardener. In fact they are so self sufficient I force them to endure conditions they shouldn't have to put up with. In some areas of my garden they are rediculously overcrowded. They get no supplemental water even in times of drought nor are they fertilized or fed. They do well in a naturalized area and hold their own against the grasses and tree roots. They are never harmed by late spring freezes but severe rain storms occasionally make the bloom stalks tilt at crazy angles. The downside is a very short bloom time but the spiky foliage alone is not unattractive. Most of my iris have a delicious grape-ade fragrance.

This year allium (a member of the onion family) "Purple Sensation" is blooming at the same time as the Immortality iris. I find these tall purple orbs on the end of a slender stick a little difficult to incorporate with other plants. The color is nice on these alliums but they would look much better at half the height. "Purple Sensation" does reseed and many clumps of grass like young folliage are scattered through my garden. It will probably take these seedlings three or four years to reach maturity and bloom. Purple Sensation blooms for about two weeks but I allow the interesting seed headto remain for months.

(The sun just rising behind the a group of iris and allium.)

Another allium planted in my garden for the first time in the fall of 2008. This is Allium karataviense a very low growing plant for the front of the border. The leaves are interesting and attractive in the early spring. Later three inch oval blooms nestle down low in the leaf cup. I hadn't seen karataviense widely available and reasonably priced until last fall. There is also a wine and pale lavender colored variation that make an interesting addition to the garden. See Tina's "IN THE GARDEN" post for more info and photos on alliums.

Above white blooms and below pale lavender. My plants were purchased as "Ivory Queen" but obviously are not.

After doing some additional research I learned these allium do reseed freely. Since it takes several years for seed to produce a flowering bulb most people will probably want to just purchase mature bulbs and not expect much from seedlings.

Wildlife Rumors by Miss B



This breaking headline just in from our reporter Miss B.

Trouble in the local monarchy. Monday one of the young princess bees, tired of waiting for the Queen to die, gathered her loyal followers and left the hive. The old queen was sorry to see her subjects leave but made no attempt to stop them. This is not the first uprising in this hive. Over more than 20-years many such defections have occurred.



Hundreds of servants gathered round the new queen on a flimsy tree limb while scouts were sent outside the realm to seek a suitable location for a new hive.



Best of luck your majesty as you and your followers under take this perilous journey.
May you find your Camelot.

Long live the Queen.

Then and now plus Wildlife News from Miss B

These lovely blooms are already fallen. There was such an abundance of flowers in May that I couldn't squeeze them all into my twice weekly blog schedule. Still, I could not completely ignore the beauty of the crabapple blossoms. They deserve mention and a photo or two. They bloomed a week or two before the lilacs this year and like the lilacs their time is very brief. Neither the lilacs nor the crabapples have much to recommend them during the 51 weeks of the year when they aren't blooming. We gardeners put up with straggly bushes and problematic trees for just that one glorious week that makes them worthwhile.

These garish tulips are still blooming. It's been a very cool and rainy spring and my bulbs have bloomed for weeks. Nepata is beginning to flower in the background.

A very late blooming daffodil.

This delicate geranium is restful after the hot reds and yellows of the late blooming bulbs. The name geranium is from the Greek geranos (crane) that referred to the long crane-like beak of the seed pod. Some are called bloody cranesbills because the foliage turns bright red in autumn.

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Wildlife rumors by Miss B


This story just in from our intrepid gossip columnist Miss B.

Mrs Rose Breasted Grosbeak has been seen at a trendy, upscale restaurant dining with the handsome Indigo Bunting. Neither Rose nor Indigo would give our reporter a comment.

Later that evening Mr. Rose Breasted Grosbeak was seen dining at the same restaurant--alone. Are the Grosbeaks calling it quits? Has Rose really dumped Mr G and run off with the handsome Indigo? A spokesman for Mr. Grosbeak denies these rumors saying the three are just very good friends. Our reporter Miss B will have updates as more news breaks.

Please stop by Rambling Woods Nature Notes for more birding and wildlife discussions.