On the Road!

Well Pardon this Gardener I'm hitting the road and going to the Smoky Mountains for a long weekend with the family....see ya!

Brrrrr!

Well Pardon My Gardener...my blog layout has been changed and I have NO idea how to post pictures anymore.  I will have to check with my Technical Adviser, when he gets home tonight.

Anyway...brrrrr!  31 degrees this morning, a little frosty.  I know all the retail garden centers are putting out annuals for Mother's Day, but DON'T  DO IT!!!!  Mother's Day is a week early this year and we ALWAYS get 3 frosts in May.  I would hold off on planting annuals until Memorial Day myself.  But if you can't wait keep your eyes upon the frost reports and be prepared to either bring in your containers or cover bedding plants with a sheet!   Good Luck and Happy Gardening!

Spring Wildflowers

I woke up this morning with Woodland Wildflowers on my mind.  My parent's live on a Woodland Ravine that drains to the Lake. Every Spring the Ravine fills with Wildflowers.  Great White Trillium,Wake Robins, Mayapples and Virginia Bluebells.  There are woodlands out here in Dupage County of course, but it's not the same.  There is something magical & amazing about being in a woodand surrounded by Wildflowers and being able to hear the waves of the Lake crash on the beach.  
They say Home is where the Heart is.  This morning mine is sitting in a patch of Wildflowers listening to the waves break on the beach.....

Fertilze your Perennial Beds

Here in Chicago we are getting some much needed rain.  It's a great time to fertilize your perennial beds.  Look for a granular fertilizer with equal parts N-P-K.  A good 10-10-10 or 14-14-14.  Avoid fertilizers that are too high in Nitrogen as this will result in leggy vegetative growth and may reduce the  number of blooms your plants put out.  I like to put it this way.  Fertilizers contain Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium.  Each preforms a different job. They make a plant grow up,down & all around. Nitrogen makes plants grow up, Phosphorus makes a plant grow down, that is it promotes root development and growth and Potassium is good all around as it is an important carrier molecule in plant physiology.  So if you're hitting your local Garden Center or Hardware Store today look for a good granular fertilizer.  Try Osmocote...and leave the Miracle Grow on the shelf this year.  Your perennials and annuals will thank you.  Good Luck & Happy Gardening!!!!!!!!!!

Here comes the rain...

Good Morning!  We are due to get rain all weekend here in Chicago.  We need it.  Every garden I have been in has been very dry.  The rain is suppose to hit our area later today.  So get out in your Gardens if  you can this morning! 

For my Garden friends that are not opposed to some chemical use in their perennial beds, if you haven't put down the Preen yet, do it before the rain hits!  All the trees flowered and have seeded very heavily and are just waiting in your garden with all the other weed seeds to explode into a riot of weeds in your perennial beds.

I NEVER use chemicals in Gardens where I am growing any kind of edibles.  I break out the hoe and clear out the weeds around veggies, herbs, or berries. 

Happy Gardening!!!!

Early Spring Perennials

Over the years I have noticed that many people have early Spring flowering bulbs and ornamental trees and shrubs to start the year with amazing displays of color to welcome the Spring but that there is a gap in their gardens for flowers between when the bulbs and ornamentals are done and perennials start.

Here are some of my favorite early Spring perennials to give your border a boost:  Pictured at left is my favorite perennial,  Geranium macrorhizum 'Bevan's Variety'.  The leaves are scented and every time you brush against them you smell citrus. I like to pair it with Convallaria majalis( Lilly of the Valley).
I also love to pair Brunnera macrophylla ( Heartleaf Brunnera aka perennial forget me not) and Lysimachia nummularia 'Aurea'.  Other April bloomers you might enjoy are: Stylophorum diphyllum ( Celadine Poppy), Pulsatilla vulgaris( Pasque Flower), Lamium maculatum cultivars( Spotted Dead Nettle) and Myosotis sylvatica ( Forget-me-nots).   Look for them at a local Garden Center.  Here's a shopping tip. Look for quality perennials at your locally owned garden Center.  You can get many plants at the Home Depot & Lowes etc,  the problem with them is you never know what they are going to have. Their buyers don't buy specific plants so much as they get sent random crops of perennials that fill the need for the store to have 40% shade perennials and 60% sun perennials.  Your local retailer if they don't have it in stock can call their local supplier and get it for you.  Trust me I know...I use to be an herbaceous plant buyer.  Good Luck & Happy Gardening!

Simple Soaker

Pardon this gardener, but where are the April showers????  We haven't had any significant rain in over two weeks and this makes me think of irrigation.  Several Summers ago my wonderful and very practical husband came across this product by Nelson called The Simple Soaker.  It is a do it yourself irrigation kit that hooks up to your garden hose.  Each kit contains 50' of black plastic tubing and 5 sprinkle heads.  You run the tubing through your garden beds and you decide where the sprinkle heads go.  You have two heights to choose from.   You should be able to see from the picture at the left, it shows a sprinkler head on an 8" stem and then one at the lower setting.  It is a fabulous system.  You can hook it up to timers so that it will water for you while you are out of town.  The best part is that each kit costs less than $30.  Check it out on line at Nelson by Googling or Binging Simple Soaker.

Good Luck and Happy Gardening!!!

Rain Barrels

I have been thinking about getting some rain barrels for our house to supplement our Summer watering.  Like Most places watering restrictions will go into effect next month.  Limiting what days I can water and what time.  I wasn't too keen on having a big blue plastic barrel featured prominently outside my 100 plus year old farm house.  But after some surfing on the web, I found this lovely  rain barrel that looks much more in style with my farmhouse.  I could live with this look. 
We don't have an irrigation system like many of our suburban brethren.  Which is good.  Many of my clients with irrigation systems have water bills that are in the neighborhood of $200 a month.  A little pricey for this gardener.  So I think this may be a good way to supplement our watering.
Happy Gardening!

Brrrrr!

It's a chilly Monday Morning in Chicago! 35 degrees in the South Western 'burbs!   I hope my garden friends with tender annuals either covered them up with a sheet or brought them inside!  

It will get into the 60's away from the Lake,but will stay in the 50's near the Lake. 

Happy Gardening!

Spring Frost

After a gorgeous week here in Chicago, we have frost warnings for this weekend.  Perennials that have already emerged should be hunkydorygrooveyfunky with the frost but if you have purchased any annuals you will want to either bring them inside the garage overnight if you've potted them.  Or if they are in window boxes or the ground, cover them with a cloth sheet to protect the tender leave and flowers from the frost.
 Happy Gardening Peeps!

"April Showers, bring May Flowers that bloom in June."
We are do to get some rain today in the Chicago area today.  It's a great time to divide your perennials if you have not already done so.  After a little rain is also a great time to get at the weeds in your beds.  There's still no better way to get rid of  weeds than pulling them by hand and after a little rain you will have better success getting the whole root.  Yesterday in a client's yard I went crazy pulling Garlic Mustard because it was coming out so easily in the damp woodland soil.  Seize the Day!  Happy Gardening!

All Mulch is not Created Equal

Now that you've cleaned up your garden, you are probably contemplating some mulch.  Keep this in mind as you price out mulch.   All Mulch is NOT created equal.  The dyed bark mulch is evil.  Sure the colors are pretty but did you know that dyed bark mulch is made from chipped wood palettes and that it will leach nitrogen from the soil?????  That's not what you want in your garden beds.  The same is true of freshly chipped trees in the 'free' mulch from tree trimming companies.  Let's face it, if the 'free' mulch were actually any good the tree trimmers wouldn't be pawning it off on the unsuspecting, they'd be selling it to landscapers!
The best mulch to use is pulverized and shredded hardwood mulch.  It will be a medium brown in color.  If your mulch looks dyed, it has been.  
Another mulch myth is that mulch will 'prevent weeds'. Um, no,no it won't.  The initial heat from the mulch will scorch a few weeds to be sure,but it won't prevent weed seeds in the mulch from germinating or any weed seeds that drift into your yard from germinating.   Only a pre-emergent herbicide like Preen will help keep weed seeds at bay.
Good Luck and Happy Gardening!

Creeping Charlie!

Now is the time to get rid of your Creeping Charlie problem.   For small areas you can just use a metal claw and rake it out.  For larger areas you will need to spray and you need to spray BEFORE itstops flowering.  Once the Creeping Charlie stops flowering it develops a protective waxy that makes it resistant to herbicides.   I use Ortho Weed B-gone.  Anytime I use a chemical in the yard or garden my FIRST thought is the safety of my daughter and my dog.   Which is why whenever possible I try to spray after both Edie & Earl are in for the night.  That gives the chemical at least 8 hours to be absorbed. 

Now is the time to get on it!  Good Luck and Happy Gardening!

This is my back yard.  The chairs are in the turf to keep Earl- our 13 yr old Golden Retriever- out of the newly seeded areas.

This is a great time of year to over seed your lawn and do turf repair in areas that have taken a beating from kids or dogs.


Here's a turf repair tip for you. Pre- germinate your grass seed.  To do this take your bag of grass seed and poke several small holes in the bag and then submerge it in a bucket of water over night.  This will allow the seeds to absorb as much water as possible and this will help them to germinate more quickly.  By pre-germinating seed you can get seeds growing within 7 days vs the up to 21 days if you just throw the seed down and water.  This technique works best for small areas of repair since the seed will clump together when wet.  Obviously you can't put wet seed in a spreader....just in case any of you were contemplating that.  It's still best to use dry seed for over seeding large areas of turf.  Happy Gardening!

Pardon My Garden, I'm expanding the Front bed and now it's done!

Here's the new bed in the front of my house.  Planted with divisions of perennials from my back yard perennial garden, it's all mulched in and ready to grow!

Next up...the back yard perennial border.  Now THAT'S gonna be a project!

Snow in April

It's 38 degrees and dropping here in Chicago and the venerable Tom Skilling is calling for Snow overnight!  Emerging perennials will be just fine, but if you put in any annuals other than violas and pansies cover them up or if they are in pots bring them inside overnight!  

This is the Arbor in My Gardener's back yard last year.  The Arbor was an anniversary gift from my wonderful husband 9 years ago.  The old clematis vines are the ONLY thing holding the arbor together anymore.  For the record the are Clematis viticella 'Polish Spirit'. They start flowering around June and keep flowering all Summer long.   I would also like to take the time to put to rest the myths surrounding clematis and whether you should cut them back or not.  35 years of gardening has taught me this.  It doesn't matter when you cut your clematis back, regardless of variety.  They WILL flower. I have 6 different clematis varieties.  Sometimes I cut them back, sometimes I don't.  But they ALWAYS flower.  ALWAYS.

At some point this Summer I will get a picture of the Clematis in my Mom's yard in Lake Bluff.  This Clematis, we just call her Clem,  is older than I am.  It has struggled in the crappy clay soil up near the Lake for 40 years.  But the Mighty Clem keeps right on trucking.  Should my parents ever retire and  move, I WILL be claiming the Mighty Clem and bring her to my house.

Pardon My Garden, I'm expanding the Front bed

Well, Pardon My Garden!  I decided on Good Friday to scrape off the turf just South of our driveway and create a new perennial bed.  The house next door to our lot is for sale and I wanted to make sure that any prospective buyers didn't think their front yard was bigger than it was because the turf in front ran all the way up to our drive.  We also have one of the largest Hackberry Trees ( Celtis occidentalis) I've ever seen straddling the two lots and I didn't want any developer thinking my lot line or my tree were part of the neighboring lot.  Now that it's rained I will get the last of the turf out and start moving perennials into the new bed.   Up next, I am going to rehab my back yard perennial border.  By rehab I mean EVERY plant in the beds is coming out, getting divided and shared with neighbor's and friends( that's how I roll) and then I will put everything back into the beds in new places. Like rearranging the furniture if you will.  I think I will start that this week before I get too busy taking care of everyone else and their gardens for the Summer.  I will take before and after photos to share.
HAPPY GARDENING!

  "April showers bring May flowers that bloom in June. " 

Especially if you plan it that way.  My yard and a neighbor's that I designed 5 years ago are the only gardens on my street with Spring bulbs and Spring blooming shrubs. 

This is my front garden this morning in the rain.

I gave a little talk today at Winestyles in Woodridge.  The get together centered on educating people about Community Supported Agriculture( C.S.A) and the importance of locally grown fresh produce in our lives.  My talk focused on Cottage Gardening as a means for the space & time challenged suburbanite to incorporate growing some herbs and veggies in their perennial borders.  A good time was had by all.