I was listening to an Instagram Live chat between two well-known British garden designers earlier this summer and the conversation turned to the color yellow, or as these Brits referred to it, eff off yellow. I'm cleaning it up a bit here as they used the f-bomb to describe the unwelcoming affect of yellow in the garden. Apparently, it's rather obnoxious to the English eye and it got me wondering about the yellows, specifically the various kinds of rudbeckia or black-eyed Susan, I have throughout my garden. In no way do I find them offensive, maybe because I'm only part English. Whatever the case, I love yellow no matter how offensive others may find it and I thought you might like it too. It's funny, though, how the opinions of others can make you question your plant choices. ...
Going Native One Plant at a Time in My Backyard
I've partnered with the National Wildlife Federation's Garden for Wildlife program for this post. All thoughts are my own. If you asked me 20 years ago what a native plant was, I probably would have said it was anything I couldn't kill. Which pretty much summed up my awareness. In the beginning, I was like a kid in a candy store with little plant knowledge but wanting one of everything. It was purely superficial and based solely on flowers. I quickly learned that the one of everything approach results in something more like a weed patch and less like a garden. I'm still trying to control that impulse, but I've also learned that my tastes have shifted. I still want beauty, but my definition of it has changed. For me, beauty encompasses all that my garden attracts. From the tiniest ...
Treating Chlorosis Is Like Locating Toilet Paper in a Pandemic
Chlorosis is pretty. I wish those dark green veins and yellow margins were an interesting attribute instead of a window into one of the affects of alkaline soil on an acid loving plant. Apparently, I'm not the only one having trouble locating the soil amendment I need to fix my chlorosis problems. June is the month for it. Iron-tone as well as several other products for treating it are flying off the shelves. I never thought I'd write something like that. Then again, I never would have predicted toilet paper's rise in popularity last year either. Who knew a pandemic could inspire such a movement? Until now, soil amendments have been pretty easy to come by. But I'm happy to report I finally found Iron-tone. With the price of gas rising by the hour, the phone was the only way to handle ...
Root Bound Tree? Try Root Washing Before Planting
Spring is overwhelming. There are a million things to do in the garden, not to mention all the family stuff. One daughter coming home from college. The other about to graduate high school and playing lacrosse all over the Chicago area. Everything's a blur right now. Then I decide to plant a new garden complete with a Tina dwarf crabapple. Restraint is not my strong suit. It should have been a quick planting job. The tree was small, container grown in a 10-gallon pot. No big deal. So I dug the hole, slipped the tree out of it's home and realized this "quick" job was about to get a little more involved...and dirty. Not hard, just time consuming and time is limited right now. But I want to do this right. Trees are an investment, something you hope will last for many years, not just the ...
Soil Test Results Say Back Off Organic Matter! What?
My soil test results contradict everything a gardener is told to do. As promised, I received a letter in the mail less than two weeks after submitting the soil samples to the lab detailing the shortcomings. As it turns out, both areas are pretty similar despite the fact that one is an established garden, the other hardly touched except for the tricolor beech and two Techny arborvitae that are no bigger than a minute. But there's one significant difference and it's a game changer. The redbud garden, which is no longer home to a redbud on account of verticillium wilt, was one of the first gardens I dug almost 20 years ago. It's seen a lot of compost which explains why it tested "very high" for organic matter. A whopping 10.0! Too much organic matter can be a bad thing. Ummm, wait, what? ...
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 ...
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