The main drag through our neighborhood is lined with Bradford pear trees and it's beautiful when in flower. Stinky, like dead fish, but pretty if you can get past the odor. Unfortunately, they are our neighborhood's harbingers of Spring. The trees were planted approximately 18 years ago and I'm guessing were bought for a song by the developer. They're common and it's always concerned me. Even more so now that my neighbor's gorgeous pear trees in her front garden have succumbed to fire blight and will have to be removed. Their invasive nature has landed them on the Illinois Invasive Plant List. In other words, choose something other than a pear. Ironically, the callery pear (Pyrus calleryana), from which the Bradford originates, was brought over from China in an attempt to thwart fire ...
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Callery Pear Is the Unfortunate Harbinger of Spring
It's that time of year when you're hungry for green, searching for reassurance that spring is near. The Callery pear tree delivers in late March/early April in the Chicago area, peppering landscapes and swallowing fields and woodlines. It's everywhere and a clue to it's invasive nature. It's the first glimmer of spring we often see in our area and when I worked for a tree nursery several years ago, the most common question I got from customers this time of year was, "What is that beautiful white tree I see everywhere?" And then... "Do you sell it?" People couldn't get enough of it and when you don't know much about trees, it's easy to give into the squeakiest wheel. It seems like a safe, reliable choice. Don't fall for it! BIG mistake. In an effort to bring awareness, I covered ...
Save Your Money, Sow Seeds Instead!
If you're like me, you've been buried in seed catalogs for the last few weeks, completely overwhelmed by the tens of thousands of possibilities concealed within those flimsy pages. I've since buttoned up my orders, mostly. There may be a few more stragglers in there but for the most part it's done and I'm really excited because I had a great experience last year creating a beautiful, layered new border mostly from seed that cost me about $20. Some were direct sown, while others like the Prairie Sun rudbeckia, were given a headstart indoors to get a jump on the season. I like instant gratification, especially after a looooong winter. The dry, full-sun area around the patio was screaming for a do-over. It was a long narrow border of Walkers Low catmint which has the not-so-attractive ...
Autumn Leaves are Lovely, But Acorns Fill My Heart
A few days ago, I was listening to a podcast and the conversation touched on the change of seasons and the way each is marked by the things we associate with them. Winter snow. Spring daffodils. Summer tans. Autumn leaves. While colorful leaves are the quintessential poster children of fall, it is the acorn that marks the arrival of autumn. Something about that little brown oak seed with the tan beret takes me to another season of my life, the one marked by the frenzy of small children. When my girls were small, keeping them occupied was challenging. Never one to plop them in front of the TV for hours, I looked to the outdoors for entertainment. That's not to say I wasn't grateful for the respite that a Disney movie offered from time to time. We played in the rain, built snowmen with ...
May in the Garden: A Mix of Beauty and Brawn
May has been a blur with all the clean-up and gear changing that comes with extreme temperature fluctuations, torrential rain, and the relentless march of weeds through every bed. It seems like the moment I pull a weed, three more grow in its place. Kinda like when you pull a grey hair. So I stop pulling altogether, the hairs not the weeds, and I can only imagine what that would look like if I did the same in the garden. Nonetheless, the garden is shaping up and plenty of plants are having their moment. I often imagine how beautiful it would be if it all just popped at once and remained so all season long. But then if it did, the novelty would wear off and there would be nothing to anticipate. I like knowing that no matter what, something in my garden on any given day is going to grab ...
Cedar Apple Rust: Gelatinous Blobs Dripping from the Junipers
I feel like I'm beating a dead horse with all this doom and gloom I've been sharing with you about the demise of some of the trees in my garden. And I'm sorry to tell you, the drama continues! The Chicago area has gotten over six inches of rain in the last four days, with more to come, revealing something I've never seen in my garden or anywhere else for that matter. You know how you know of something or someone? That's how I regarded cedar apple rust fungus (Gymnosporangium juniperi-virginianae). I know what it is and would much rather have book knowledge of it as opposed to the up close and personal kind I'm getting on every single juniper in my garden. There are only four, and they're all peppered with orange gelatinous bits of goo that look like some nasty little garden troll blew ...
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