The dahlias are tucked away despite the fact that I swore off trying to overwinter them again after last year’s dahlia fail. I killed all except one variety. It was my first attempt at overwintering dahlias and I thought the garage was the perfect spot. As it turns out, it’s not. Chalk this fail, there…
Place the word “tough” in front of a word and oftentimes you get a negative meaning. Meat. Disposition. Decision. Childhood. No one likes tough meat or a tough childhood for that matter! But put it in front of “plants” and every gardener listens. Tough plant you say? To survive in my garden, you (the plants)…
Over the years, I’ve grown all kinds of crops in my raised beds. The glass gem corn (pictured above) is my most recent experiment. To me, everything in the garden is an experiment because nothing in gardening is a sure thing (unless we’re talking about mint). Oftentimes, I’ve taken the soil for granted with the…
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…
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…
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…
