Happy Holidays!

Can you believe it's almost mid-December and I'm still puttering around outside weeding and such?  We've had a couple of decent frosts but the ground isn't frozen yet.  There's still some green foliage in my garden: columbine, bergenia, male fern, hellebore, thyme, lamium, and yes, that awful garlic mustard and motherwort.

Male fern grouped with hosta, false solomon's seal, wild geranium, solomon's seal and enchanter's nightshade this past spring

I am still surprised about how tough male fern has been in my garden; it's weird to see them still green in December.

Actually, they're one of three fern species that have done well for me this year:  Robust male fern, maidenhair fern (a native) and interrupted fern (another native).  All are in soil with an alkaline clay base naturally amended with neutralizing oak leaves, lots of root competition, and part to full shade.

The first ferns I planted were maidenhair, deer and male ferns. The deer fern struggled right from the start and by the second summer I gave up on it. Happily, the maidenhair went ahead and made itself right at home.  What a dainty beauty!

The two male ferns I planted also went ahead and carved out a place for themselves.  They haven't gotten tall but their clumps have expanded, despite no supplemental watering, in soil that isn't always moist.

It's hard to see here but if you look hard you can see the
brown fertile leaflets halfway up the fronds of this interrupted fern

I did not plant my interrupted ferns.   I didn't even know what they were when I found them in my front yard.  (Note:  Ontarioferns.com was the wonderful resource I used to determine what the heck they were)  Perhaps the previous owner planted them or maybe they showed up on their own.  Either way I don't give them much water and they have to compete with a tangled mass of spruce roots.

'Ghost' japanese painted fern and my other athyriums
seemed to need more moisture than my other ferns this year;
they did not like our drought-y fall

Some other ferns I've tried did not make it, maybe because the soil is too dry, or heavy and alkaline: every ostrich fern I tried quickly died.  I've got a cinnamon fern that is struggling along and the jury is out on the japanese ferns and other athyriums I've planted.   I hope these make it in my yard; deer and rabbits leave all my ferns alone (so far) and that is an endearing trait if ever there was one!

Puttering Around In November

Still a bit of color to be found in the November garden: smokebush, spirea, ninebark, daylilies and evergreens

I wasn't planning on blogging today.  I would never waste a warm day inside when its November, painfully aware that the next 4 months are going to be yucky and cold!  So I was out weeding this morning.  Yep, weeding.  (Still working on that garlic mustard and motherwort invasion I've got going on.)  Well, of course it starts raining and although I'm not against getting wet, it's not good to be tromping around on heavy clay soil when it's wet, so here I am, waiting for things to dry out a bit.

Some of my spireas turn reddish; others orange and yellow

There's not much color in my yard at the moment since most of my canopy trees are now leafless.  There are still a few sparks though.  My japanese spireas were looking quite fiery this morning and  I'd say that even my purple smokebush was smoldering a bit (oops, is that a pun?)   Actually the spireas paired with the yews make my front yard look like a tribute to the Packers!

I've got a couple kinds of diervilla scattered around the yard; some have nice fall color and some do not.   Not sure if its the different sun exposures or the varieties that are the cause.  Another bit of unexpected color is coming from my Kerria.  Their stems are a bright apple green.  Wasn't expecting that!

It's hard to believe smokebush is a native

I erected a chicken-wire enclosure around what's left of my oak-leaf hydrangea.  The deer damage looked pretty bad at first but after looking it over closer, it's just the tips and leaves that were eaten and there are still plenty of buds on each branch.  I know it's locking the barn door after the horses took off, but I'm hoping it'll recover if I keep the deer away from it for the rest of the winter.

Chickadees were out in force today but I didn't hear much else chittering in the trees. Haven't seen much squirrel or chipmunk activity either.  That's good because I also planted some bulbs today and I don't want those crafty little beasties watching where I put my Tarda tulips.

I'm trying something new this year: Snowflakes (Leucojum).  I thought I had purchased Snowdrops (Galanthus).  Oops!  That's ok though.  In fact, it might work out really well.  Although it sounds like cold hardiness may be an issue, the info I read on the 'net says they don't mind clay soil and a bit of dampness.  Also they are supposedly deer and rabbit resistant.  If it's true; I've hit the jackpot!  (We'll see what happens, I guess.)  I had been planning on planting daffodils in the woods but then decided they may not look right there.  I've still got time to get them in the ground if I change my mind.

Henry's Garnet Sweetspire can't decide
what fall color it wants to be

Well, the sun's back out; gonna go compost some tomato plants.  Later!

Japanese Maples Set Yard Ablaze

'viridis' cut-leaf japanese maple

We had our first snowflakes for the year today. Sadly, the weather that brought those fluffy flakes also brought strong winds that cleared most of the leaves from the trees in our yard.  It was a real pity because my two japanese maples had just turned color a few days ago, after our first frost.

Most of the fall color in my yard is yellow, with a smattering of red but almost no orange.  Luckily I've got  'Viridis', a cut-leaf japanese maple that turns from yellowy-green to bright orange in the fall-hot, hot, hot!     Not to be outdone, another cut-leaf maple, 'takeyuma' turns from a greenish-red to a red so bright it reminded me of the male cardinal that often comes to my cedar to eat berries.

I feel fortunate to have seen the show, even if only for a few days, because right before the maples changed color, deer came through my yard on a mission of destruction.  They ate my oak leaf hydrangea almost to the ground, reshaped my arborvitae (which they've never touched before) and, worst of all, they ripped apart the weeping mulberry that was my splurge purchase for the year.   These plants weren't on their trail and in a part of the yard that isn't easy to get to, so I was shocked at the damage.  It's a miracle that they didn't go after the maples too, which I had also purposely planted on hilly areas near the house to minimize their accessibility.  Needless to say, I was spraying Liquid Fence like a fiend the next morning.

'takeyuma' doesn't keep it's red color
in the summer shade but I like it anyway

When I was gardening in central Wisconsin, I pined for the chance to grow Japanese maples.  I've heard that they only last a few years before succumbing to the cold but now that I can grow them, I can't imagine not having a couple around.





There's a garden in Rockford, Illinois that is a must-see in October if you like Japanese maples.  Anderson Japanese Garden is a highly-rated Japanese garden that is lovely in the fall.  Once those maples change color,  Wowza!  It's like an electric shock seeing them beauties!

Cut-leaf maple leaves are so feathery!

Puffballs from Mars

My youngest isn't convinced about
this Giant Puffball's tastiness

What a surprise!  A couple of weeks ago (beginning of October) after many days of rain, rain and more rain, strange luminous round things  were found lurking in my woods.  Giant Puffball Mushrooms from Mars!  (At least that's what they looked like...alien beings.)

Turns out Giant Puffballs are found all over southeastern Wisconsin and they are edible!  Well, they are edible when they are firm and solidly white on the inside.  If they are green or yellow on the inside, they are no longer edible.

My parents were visiting at the time and my father came in from the yard all excited, with a white mushroom the size of a volleyball in his arms.  It was the biggest puffball mushroom I had ever seen (turns out that it actually wasn't all that big compared to some of them) and I watched with skepticism as my dad proceeded to slice it up and fry it with some butter in the pan.

Before he was able to eat it, I quickly checked on the 'net to verify his claim that giant puffballs really were edible.  "Dead Dad" wasn't the souvenir I wanted from their weekend visit.  (We've already had the "Mangled Dad Taken To Emergency Room" visit.)

Looks like tofu...

It had the consistency of tofu and a very mild flavor.  We all liked it except my husband.  He ate some of the raw mushroom by mistake and didn't like it.  He didn't care much for the cooked version either.  He's a Morel man through-and-through, I guess.

Anyhow, having another edible mushroom on the property was exciting for all of us.  A nice surprise.

Also a surprise this Fall were some perennials in the yard.  I never noticed this in catalogue descriptions but my "Fireworks" goldenrod turned out to be fragrant.  Not smack-you-upside-the-head fragrant like a lilac, but scented enough that my whole prairie patch smelled faintly like vanilla.  All sorts of insects swarmed its blossoms while it bloomed.  In fact, I'm going to have to move it next spring because it got so tall that you had to move its flowerheads out of the way when walking on the path near it.  A scary proposition when the flowerheads are covered with various bees.

Snakewort: also a woodland native
but this particular plant is a cultivar

It's late October now and my Snakeroot is still in full bloom.  In my shade garden, it's a really late bloomer and I love it's small, fuzzy white flowers.  That's another plant that was literally covered with insects.  I guess they love the flowers too.

My blue-stem goldenrods bloomed very nicely; I tried to bring some into the house for a vase but they didn't work very well.  Better for vase-work were my marigolds and zinnias.  They've been looking amazing this fall.  My nasturtiums are just gorgeous right now too.  Their variegated foliage and yellow, orange and red flowers look wonderful surrounded by falling leaves.

Yummy and beautiful!  What more can you ask for?

I used to grow nasturtiums in Pardeeville, several varieties in fact.  Those flowers tended to have a peppery taste.  The ones I grew this year have a distinct radish-y taste.  They sure look pretty in a salad but, Wow!  Strong!  Unfortunately, these are from seed leftover from years ago and unlabeled so I don't know the variety.  "Alaska" maybe?

Still going strong in the back yard are my maidenhair and robust male ferns, my sweet woodruff (still putting up new leaves, despite some COLD weather) and, strangely, my variegated solomon's seal.  The native solomon's seal are looking ratty and going dormant.  I wonder if it's because the natives set fruit and the variegated kind didn't?

After a week's plus worth of rain, the deer came through and cleared out my hosta, lady's mantle and wild geraniums.  They must have been hungry because they also nibbled my pulmonarias, which surprised me.

Another nasty surprise was how bad my spruces were affected by rhizosphera this year.  I had read somewhere that it would be a bad year for foliar disease due to the cold, rainy spring we had but I was totally unprepared for how much needle loss there was.  I had the kids sweep up as many needles as they could and I limbed up many of the spruces to increase air flow.  Once winter comes, I'll lay down a thick layer of mulch; hopefully that'll help.  I know that the spruces need to go (the wrong trees planted the wrong way in the wrong spot) but so many birds and critters depend on them!

Blue Stem Goldenrod: a woodland native

The same goes for that cedar in my front yard;  the cedar waxwings, robins and yellow-rumped warblers are on the move now and they swarm that tree every year.

The front yard would look better if I took it down but I don't have the heart to do so.  Even though my front walk is covered in little frosty blue berries that stain the cement green.  Even though I have to cover my windows on the outside with papers to keep those stupid waxwings from hitting the glass.

All the other birds can see the window clings that are normally present on our windows (we use the black hawk clings and the clear, frosted clings) but the waxwings obviously don't get it.  They try to fly past them; they do it to the papers too.  We look like a family of pyschos with our windows covered up like that.  I need a better idea; if you have a suggestion I'm all ears...of course, looking like psychos isn't a bad thing with Halloween coming 'round the corner.  Maybe I'll have the kids cut the papers into the shapes of ghosts or something.  Call it my holiday decorating effort!

One of the critters that loves our spruce trees
(uh, that's not a spruce tree in the picture though)

Anyhow, hope you are all done getting ready for winter.  I haven't even planted my fall bulbs yet.  Actually, I haven't even purchased my fall bulbs yet.  Maybe this week...

Kids are back in school and I'm back in the garden!

The gray headed coneflowers
are getting pretty floppy now

Summer vacation may be over but the temps are still pretty steamy around here.  Not really the kind of weather I like for working outside, so I've been cruising the various nurseries looking for bargains on perennials and woodies.  I picked up some nice-sized panicum "Prairie Sky" at Menard's for 50 cents each.  I don't always have luck planting grasses in the fall but figured I'd give 'em a shot since they were crazy cheap.

It blows my mind that more people don't do fall planting.  (About the only stuff I don't fall-plant are plants that are at the edge of hardiness in my zone.)  There are lots of deals out there right now so I've got quite the pile of plants that need to get in the ground as soon as possible.  In the mix are some Kerria shrubs I found at Piala's*.  I'm nervous about planting them now because they are hardy only to zone 5 but I spent all summer trying to find a place that carried them so I am going for it.  Wish me luck!

Despite all the hot and dry weather,
my Diane Claire pulmonaria are still looking great

I sure hope they survive.  The plant man told me that they were all the rage several years ago because Oprah had some. Obviously they didn't retain their popularity.  I'm guessing that people were putting them in full sun and so they didn't do well, or maybe it was their suckering habit.  (I've found some forum threads discussing how aggressive kerria can be.  Since I garden on a hillside and have the space, I don't think I'll mind the suckering.

I'm still pulling new garlic mustard seedlings.  It sucks 'cuz I found several that went to seed over the summer; not sure how I missed them while weeding.  They sure are hard to weed out now.  The stems get really dry and thin above ground once things get drought-y and they tend to break off easily.  Still, I feel like I've made real progress in the back yard. I now even have a planting plan and have a very specific shopping list.  Very happy about that!

My front shrub border a few weeks ago

Saw so many butterflies this summer.  Whites are still checking out my nepeta daily.  It seems to be their fav.  The goldenrods are blooming now; they are so pretty!  I don't know what kind they are because they just sort of showed up in my yard.  They look like fireworks.  Japanese beetles have been awful lately; I've been squishing them with my foot but there are just too many.

The kids went back to school today so I'm hoping for a couple of weeks of awesome gardening weather so I can get the rest of the back yard beds mulched and do some shuffling around with the plants in my front yard. I want to hit the ground running next spring.

Sammy Russell daylilies are almost
done now but they did well this year

*Piala's is just outside Waukesha and had a nice selection of trees and shrubs.  I thought they were a bit pricey but it was still fun looking around.  I was just there earlier in the week and they had peacocks and chickens running around.  The peacocks even had chicks with them.  Cute little fluffballs!

Tall Thimbleweed and Carrionflower

I just sent in some plant samples to my UW extension office for identification.  I first try to use the 'net and my plant books to figure it out myself but sometimes I get stumped and need help. 

There are several Carrionflower vines on my gazebo;

I didn't notice any smell when they were in flower;

guess I'll have to check into next June when they bloom

For the last couple of years, I've had several weak vines popping up in my back woods and since most things in my yard turn out to be invasive and nasty, I figured it was too.  I reviewed the Wisconsin DNR's invasive plant list.  Nada.  Then I checked out some of the invasive plant sites on the 'net but couldn't find it there either.  So I sent in a sample and was told it's Carrionflower (Smilax).  Sure enough, it's on the Illinois Wildflower website.  (I swear I checked the Illinois Wildflowers site and some other wildflower sites but didn't see a match.  Why I didn't find it when I searched, I don't know.) 

I'm told it's native and not invasive so I've decided to keep it.  Hopefully that decision doesn't backfire on me.  A couple of days ago I was hacking through the undergrowth that has taken over my gazebo and I found it swathed in Carrionflower vine.  I wish I had found it when it was in flower!  I want to see if it really does smell like rotting meat.  If it does, it'll have to get moved.  I don't think it would be pleasant sitting in teh gazebo drinking tea and scarfing down cookies while bathed in the smell of roadkill.  On a tangent, I've recently found another plant that smells that same way but I think it's just a nasty non-native weed (I can't remember the name though.)  Another internet search to do and hopefully not another sample mailed to the UW!

Tall Thimbleweed in flower; once the white petals fall off,
the head elongates a bit and looks like a thimble



One plant I figured out myself is Tall Thimbleweed (Anemone Virginiana), a native perennial.  I believe Prairie Moon Nursery in MN carries it.  As far as I can tell it's not aggressive and I like its pretty palmate leaves.  Reminds me of a big wild geranium or even a masterwort leaf.  The flowers aren't anything exciting but I was happy to find a plant in my yard that isn't bent on world domination.  (Of course, I just noticed this plant this year.  I'll have to wait and see what it does.)

Last month I also found a Masterwort in my backyard that may have come from a "Sunnydale Variegated" masterwort (Astrantia) that I moved around a few times.  That's the only explanation I can come up with.  I'm pretty sure it wasn't there when we moved in.  However, the flower color isn't right and its not variegated.  Hmmm...

The Masterwort bloom is the purple-tinged flower
with the palmate leaves; in front of it is sweet cicely (I think)
and there's false solomon's seal in the upper left corner

Well, you must be thinking, "How bad is that woman's yard that she's finding full-grown mystery plants just popping up out of nowhere?"  I'll tell you; it's pretty bad.  I haven't done a good weeding since it got hot.  People who don't mind a bit of chaos look at our back yard and say, "Cool, it's like your own little forest preserve."  Neat, orderly people, however, gasp in shock and ask why I don't just hack it all down and put in a lawn.  It's a jungle, that's for sure, but I kind of like the wildness and disorder of it all.

So, anyhow, I still have some money budgeted for plant IDs from the UW, which I plan to use this fall on a plant all over my backyard that is tall and aggressive with unimpressive yellow globelike flowers that bloom in September.  I was thinking it might be some type of loosestrife.  I hope its something native and benign; I've already got enough plant invaders to deal with!

Yeah, I don't know what it is
but I know its aggressive enough
to choke out garlic mustard

Hope the heat isn't getting to you!  It won't be long before it's all snow and ice again.

Creature Feature

Happy summertime to you all!  It's been hot and dry for a while now so I was glad to see some rain this morning.  Just wish it had waited until I had taken our tent down and brought in the bedding we had drying out on our deck (we had been camping over the weekend and as usual it rained, leaving me with a big wet mess to deal with when we got home.) 

While camping, we got the chance to care for a baby cedar waxwing that the storm had knocked out of its tree.  We had it just long enough to warm and dry it off and feed it some grape bits before we got it back to its tree.  It was a cute little bugger, full of personality.  Made me think of other critters I've run across over the years in my garden.  The ones that made an impression on me or my family. 

My previous garden was an acre of grass in full sun and sandy soil with only a couple of trees.  Over the years I added a wide assortment of perennials, trees and shrubs, including a bit of prairie.  It wasn't long before we had lots of critters visiting the garden. 

There was a hummingbird who thought he was the king of everything and would harass anything that got close to his favorite plants.  There was the little gray-green tree frog who would cling to our windows at night to eat moths attracted to our lighted interior.  One time we accidentally brought him inside on the back of a chair cushion.  It caused quite the commotion when it panicked and started jumping on us instead of trying to get away, which made us scream and jump in panic!  We finally calmed down enough to get him safely back outside but it was all my kids could talk about for days. 

There were the sandhill cranes that came every year; they are SO scary up close.  You don't realize how big they are and how sharp their beaks look until you are face-to-face with them. 

There were so many animals and birds and bugs, but it was a couple of our snake residents that really stuck out.  I'm not into snakes.  They freak me out, especially when you are weeding under a large hosta or shrub and a snake zips out from the plant you have your hand under.  That'll make anyone jump!

Still, I figure that it meant I had a healthy garden going if snakes were there and so I decided to leave any snake found to go about its business in peace.  There was one snake that really made me laugh.  The kids and I found a eeny-weeny green grass snake in our garage one day.  Oh, how it hissed at us as we tried to scoop it up with a dustpan to put it back outside.  It had the tiniest little head with the tiniest little mouth and an itty-bitty hiss.  It was trying so hard to look mean and fierce!  Adorable! 

I will never know if it was the same one but a couple of years later I was weeding among my daylilies and I saw an adult grass snake.  It was staying very still but when it realized I saw it, it started gently waving its head so it would look like a blade of grass blowing in the wind.  I laughed so hard! It really did have the movement of wind-blown grass down perfect!  I decided to take a break from weeding and went inside for a cup of chai.  That would give the snake time to find a better hiding spot.

I haven't seen any snakes in my new garden but we have at least one tree frog who likes to sit on our window at night to catch a snack.  And the first sound I heard when we got home from camping was the sound of cedar waxwings in our trees out front.  I hope I can provide a safe haven for the critters that live here (but they better not eat my plants down to the ground!  Bambi and Thumper, I'm talking to you!)

A gift from the storm

(NOTE:  This post was started over a week ago but I forgot to post it.  Since I first wrote this, it's been hot and dry. That's WI weather for you.)



'Hummelo' in bloom



Hey!  It actually felt like summer today!  And the mosquitoes have finally arrived.  It's weird; others in our town have been complaining about the mosquitoes for weeks and weeks but we didn't really see any until a couple of days ago.  Probably due to the cold but I'd like to think there are additional reasons.  Maybe my organic gardening methods have increased my amphibian population and that's why we  haven't had many mosquitoes?  Or maybe the rotting cupola on our garage has a new bat family in residence?  Whatever the reason, I am very thankful for the respite we had from those bloodsucking pests!

We are also thankful for a gift from the storm that blew through last week.  Last year, the top half of an aspen was knocked over by another storm and got hung up in a maple tree.  It was just out of reach on a steep slope and it was going to be pricey to get it removed.  It was pretty darn scary weeding under it, let me tell you, as it creaked and groaned in the slightest wind.  Well, our latest storm took it down from it's lofty perch and laid it out on the slope <i>perfectly</i>, avoiding every plant and shrub we didn't want it to hit.  Yay!

It was supposed to rain again today so I decided to transplant some sweet cicely to one of my shade beds.  The woods is once again full of garlic mustard.  We had just finished bagging up what we pulled a couple of weeks ago.   Ugh.



Maidenhair fern with Sweet Woodruff
at its feet: both Wisconsin natives



On the bright side, my 'Hummelo' betony is blooming and its reddish purple blooms look so nice with the variegated 'Goldwell' veronica near it.  I've never grown 'Hummelo' so wasn't sure if it would do well especially because it started off so slow.   It's leaves aren't felty like regular lamb's ear.  I like it alot and plan on adding more.

 

Another plant that has me clapping in admiration is maidenhair fern.  Now that it is settled in, it's looking really good.  Of course, we've had a really wet growing season so how it will look in a droughty year has yet to be seen. 

 While clearing out some space in the back yard for a lawn I found a shrub that I had overlooked last year.  After some digging on the 'net I think it's an elderberry, specifically Canadian Elderberry.  It's actually kind of pretty, although I suspect it suckers.  I hope it's the edible kind of elderberry...

Could this be Canadian Elderberry?  What a nice surprise if it is!

A Sumac Surprise

Tiger Eyes sumac: Beauty or beast?

Planted one sumac the summer of 2009;
it didn't sucker in 2010 but is on the move now

There's a corner of my yard that I don't see very often.  It's a sliver of flat yard behind my shed that ends in a sharp slope down to my neighbor's and farther down still to our back yard.

There were two huge box elders on the slope that we had an arborist remove because they were hollowed out and leaning over our house.  That left an exposed slope that needed shoring up and fast.  I planted one Tiger's Eye sumac and 2 Gro-Low sumac.  I left them to their own devices and they not only survived but thrived in their new steep but sunny home.

Tiger's Eye is a type of staghorn sumac, which is on Wisconsin's invasive list, despite being a native plant.

So, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised to find that my Tiger's Eye, which isn't supposed to sucker as aggressively as the species (according to the sales spiel), has spread out down the slope with at least 4 new sprouts, a couple of them about 10 ft away.  Oopsies!

Another plant that seems to like its new home is my Caroline Moonlight baptisia, which I wasn't sure was going to do well.  Surprise, surprise,  while weeding in my mini prairie, I found baptisia seedlings.  Carolina Moonlight won't come true from seed so I'm curious to see what color flower the seedlings will produce.



Carolina Moonlight Baptisia: It didn't bloom for long
 but I really like those mellow yellow blooms



Buggy about Buglossoides!

2 Sahohime and 1 Hanakisoi blooms perfume the kitchen

You know the excitement you feel when a perennial blooms for the first time and it's a plant you've never grown before?  Well, I got a double dose of that excitement this week when both my tree peonies and Buglossoides (Purple Gromwell) bloomed.

I'm guessing you've heard about tree peonies.  I've got two in one of my perennial beds.  One is Sahohime and it has large bright pink blooms that are pretty but not very fragrant.  The other is Hanakisoi with flouncy pale pink flowers and lots of scent.  I love the scent of peonies; they are one of my favorite plants and I was waiting all year to see if these newcomers to my garden would flower this spring.  (I've grown herbaceous peonies for years but this is the first time I've tried tree peonies and I heard that it can take several years for them to start flowering.)

I had been watching and waiting as the peony
buds fattened but was still surprised once they bloomed



The other surprise bloomer is one that I doubt you've heard of.  I know I had never heard of it until I asked a worker at Flower Factory in Stoughton for a list of deer, shade, drought and alkaline clay tolerant plants.  You can imagine that the list wasn't very long.  On it was Buglossoides.   I thought the name was weird and decided to give it a try.

If only they lasted a bit longer!

I planted it below a group of spruce trees where there's lots of root competition and it's

pretty dry.  The first year, my two clumps didn't do much other than put out some thin vine-like shoots, hugging the ground and not looking particularly vigorous.  I noticed that the foliage didn't go fully dormant over winter but was totally crispy and dead-looking by spring.  I was worried it had died.  But surprise!  Not only did the foliage emerge later looking happy and lush, there were now four clumps instead of two. 



This was when my buglossoides first starting blooming;
there's a lot more flowers now
(but I can't get you a picture 'cuz I can't find my camera)

 And another surprise!  Buglossoides just bloomed and the blooms are bright blue.  True blue, not that purple that some catalogs call blue.  (I think we've all been taken in by that at some point or other in our gardening careers.) And it's a really bright hue, that blue.  (Geez, now I'm sounding like Dr. Seuss.)



Anyhow, now I'm wondering how long it'll bloom for and if it will put out vines again like it did last year.  It'd be great if it kept blooming until the yellow daylilies and sundrops bloom.  Here's hoping!



Flowers that are blue, not purple, folks!



Morels Found!

I cleared one tiny section of the hill-
still alot of garlic mustard to kill

Yikes, it's been a hectic month around here!  Excitement!  Exasperation!  Extreme muscle fatigue!  With each day that I accomplish something in the yard, I feel a bit less stressed and panicky but there's still SO MUCH to do!  

I continue my battle with garlic mustard.  By this time last year I had my yard totally cleared of flowering GM. Due to all the rainy days in April this spring I am barely getting started.  This past Sunday my neighbor came out and helped and having that second pair of hands really helps.  We were both excited to see how much our Mayapple patches have expanded.  It's amazing what a difference clearing out weeds has for the native plants.  We also found morel mushrooms.  Turns out my neighbor didn't know there are similar looking mushrooms that are poisonous (false morels) but the ones we found were the real deal: the right kind of cap and pitted texture, and hollow on the inside.  Yay! 

Yesterday I took a break from the GM and trimmed dead branches from the cedar out front, put more soil on my asparagus trenches (oh, their little thin stems are so cute!), weeded dandelions out of my little front lawn and then mowed and fertilized it with corn gluten.  If this stuff does what it says it does, I'm in heaven.  An organic nitrogen source that also kills any weed seeds that dare germinate in its presence?  Wow!  It's a good thing too because the dandelions are out in full force this week.

Amber Queen Epimedium

Yes, I ran the range of emotions yesterday.  Happiness (when I found my Amber Queen epimedium in bloom for the first time.  Fear (when I accidentally knocked over a metal trellis I had pulled out of the shed and it whacked me hard on my face (I haven't looked yet but I'm hoping I don't have a black eye.))  Frustration (when I found that those naughty chipmunks had dug out every melon, squash and cuke seed I had planted out in containers on my deck. A 2nd-story deck!  Seriously?)

I was also embarrassed.  A couple of my kids brought home pine tree seedlings from school for, I don't know, Mother's Day or Earth Day or something.  They were pretty much dead, I think, but about a week ago I dutifully spent a morning ripping out buckthorn so I could plant them.   Some of the buckthorn I just threw back into the woods but the bigger ones I left out in the ditch by the side of the road for "processing" at a later date.  Turns out I missed the email about yesterday being our city-wide brush pickup day.  I'm sure the city workers were not happy as they dug through the mess of thorny branches sticking out every-which-way.  Sorry, city workers!  That wasn't my brush for pickup!  Still, they did get it removed so one less job to do for me.  Thanks, city workers!  I promise to pile my brush more carefully in the future, just in case you stop by to grab it.

Anyhow, since I'm still experimenting with what plants will survive in my yard, most of my perennials are new to me and a bunch of them are in bloom now.  I'm really digging native Creeping Jacob's Ladder with its cute little blue blooms but despite reports of deer resistance, something decided to eat one down to the ground.  Add that to the spray list!  

Yum!  Morels!

Oh, and I doubt I'll add it to the spray list but something's been working over some Sweet Cicely.  That's also a native and it has a distinctive anise (licorice) smell when the leaves are messed with.  That's why I find it surprising that deer would munch on it; I thought they don't like smelly foliage.  I had to send this particular plant in for identification at the UW extension but I like its ferny leaves.  I don't, however, like it's long spiky seedheads and I noticed it seeds itself liberally.  Very liberally.  Still, it was a native plant that I didn't have to buy and I've never have to water, so it works for me.

Speaking of native plants, we went looking for morels at our local state park and I noticed that I have many of the same woodland plants in my yard.  One thing I don't have is Large-flowered Bellwort (uvularia grandiflora) which was blooming all over the place at the park.  It's got a wilty look to it that I'm not sure I find attractive but I've added it to my to-get list for next season.

My Frohnleiten epimedium is also blooming and it's flowers are so different from Amber Queen it's hard to believe they are the same type of plant.  Frohnleiten has sunny yellow shooting-star-type flowers and its foliage is glossy green whereas Amber Queen has these funky jester-hat-shaped flowers and red-mottled foliage.    So far, nothing has eaten either so they are both on my for-keeps list.

Frohnleiten Epimedium

Also blooming for the first time is my "Little Lanterns" columbine.  It's like our native columbine but in miniature.  I picked off the blooms because the plant itself is still so tiny.  Turns out there's sweet nectar in their blooms too.  When I was a kid I'd pick columbine blooms and suck out the nectar.  I can see why hummingbirds like them.

Nothing touches the Mayapple, Wild Ginger or Sweet Woodruff and the ferns haven't been messed with either.  Gotta love that!   I noticed there wasn't any Wild Ginger or Sweet Woodruff in the state park.  They prefer a more acidic soil than what our area has.  They seem to be doing fine though and it's been a couple of years now.



Creeping Jacob's Ladder

Yesterday I put out my tomato and pepper plants and my tropicals so of course we had a frost warning last night.  It's a good thing my spouse turned on the news.  11 pm and we were out in the back yard, putting blankets on everything tender.  I need to get a light out there.  Stumbling over things in the dark is not much fun.

Anyhow, today I'm going back to the garlic mustard weeding.  And maybe moving mulch.  (Did I tell you my mulch story?  Did I ever mention that Murphy's Law is a force alive and well in my life?  I ordered 6 yards of mulch from the city and specified on the form that I didn't want it where I had it delivered last year.  I even drew a map of the new location where I wanted it dumped.  Later, I got a phone call verifying that I wanted the location changed.  The day the mulch was to be delivered, I got another phone call to confirm that I wanted it dumped in a new location.  So, I'm out back clinging to my hillside so I don't fall to my death as I weed GM and I hear a truck.  Hmmm....wonder if that's my mulch delivery?   Then I realize that the truck sounds were coming from the wrong side of the house.  Noooooo!!!!   I rush as fast as someone clinging to a steep hillside can rush to the front to find my six loads of mulch dumped smack dab in the middle of our 2nd driveway, exactly where I told them NOT to dump it.  I have one week, maybe two to get it all moved before my patio contractor needs to use that driveway.  I can NOT win!  Ever!)



Wild Ginger foliage

 I found another tag for a long-gone perennial.  It has me worried.  I keep finding tags in the dirt for perennial plants but no plants.  I wonder why they are gone.  Was it the dang wildlife?  Was it the clay soil?  Did the previous owners not realize that liberal applications of mulch on a yearly basis is a must-have soil conditioner when you've got clay soil?  I wish I knew why they focused on annuals and why so many perennials are MIA.
Still, today the sun is shining (we haven't seen that too much this spring) and I've got a bird with an orange belly singing a beautiful song in the trees.  Perhaps a baltimore oriole?   I've got a cup of hot chai in my grip and a tasty peach muffin in front of me.  Have a happy day, ok?




Going After Gooseneck Loosestrife

I've already blogged about my front yard's foundation planting; it was very unattractive because it was overgrown and some of the nicer plants were getting muscled out by others that don't hold much charm for me.

One of those bullies is gooseneck loosestrife. Now, don't get me wrong. Overall, I like this plant. I like its unique white flowerheads and it does a good job of smothering weeds. Also I like its subtle fall foliage color. However, the previous owners had this planted by the front entrance in full sun and since I don't do much supplemental watering, by mid summer it was a big patch of ugly and diseased foliage. GL likes moisture.

I didn't want to take it out but since it swallows up any neighboring plants I also didn't want it in any of my perennial borders either. So, even though I was totally dreading doing it, I decided to rip it out. I also have a patch of it in a different area where it is controlled by a large spruce so I've consoled myself that it's not like I am totally giving up on this plant.

The easiest way to clear out the patch would have been to smother it or spray it but I needed the space ASAP for an overabundance of strawberry plants I had ordered in a moment of cabin fever madness. That meant pulling it all out, which basically meant removing the top 6-8" of soil in the bed. That's because the roots of gooseneck loosestrife form a dense patch of salmon-pink fleshy underground shoots and white fibrous feeder roots.

It took me all day but I managed to clear enough space to put in my strawberries before the rain started. In fact I got done early enough to transplant some perennials, rake and fertilize the front lawn (I sprinkled Garden Supply Company's Yum Yum Mix and compost on the grass) and I also got some peas, lettuce and spinach seeds planted (I know, I know, I should have done that weeks ago).

As I was forking wood mulch I was musing on how much easier that job is when you have a pitchfork versus using a shovel. Later, I realized as I was winding twine around some poles to make a pea fence that I was enjoying myself. It was actually fun to try and figure out how to get the twine to do what I wanted without cutting it. I never noticed before that I like jury-rigging things.

It's important to notice the small things that bring a person happiness, right? Maybe it's all these little bits of happiness that makes gardening so enjoyable.

As I surveyed my day's work I noticed that the strawberries I put in several days ago have really taken off; I was surprised to see they leafed out so quickly. I guess all the rain we've been getting is to their liking. So tonight I've got a sore back and sore hands but I'm happy that I was able to get so much done and that my newest batch of strawberry plants will get a good soaking.

I thought they were dead but they live!



Surprise!  Rue Anemone popping up among the oak leaves. 

 Sigh...Another yucky day. My frustration is building as day after day goes by and I cannot weed...Sigh again. Yet even now my yard still holds surprises.

Last year a bunch of plants I had planted in the spring had disappeared by fall. Did the wildlife get them despite my spraying Deer Off on them every month or so? Did they not like my soil? Did I not water enough or too much?

I had forgotten that many native woodland plants rise up like Lazarus in the spring and then go dormant to avoid all that drought and heavy shade found in a woods in summer.

So, I was practically giddy when I took a stroll between icy rain showers and found that my virginia bluebells (thanks Tana!), blue cohosh, rue anemone, "gold heart" bleeding heart, columbine and wild geraniums have started making their appearance. Yay! (The blue cohosh and rue anemone in particular were surprises; I was sure they bit the dust last summer. )

Still no sign of some plants that struggled last year due to my neglect but I may yet be surprised. I had bought a clay-tolerant butterflyweed (the regular dry soil butterflyweed is one of my all-time favorite plants; in my previous garden I had both the native orange and the cultivated yellow type). I wanted to see if it could survive in my heavy clay front yard and I chalked it up for dead as I didn't see any activity until one day in mid-September when I started weeding the area that is hopefully going to be my itty-bitty prairie garden and found it alive and well. I have no idea when it started to grow but it had to have been mid June at least. Same thing with one of its relatives, a woodland plant called Purple Milkweed (no, not the kind that is considered a noxious weed). It also took forever for that one to getting going.



Look who's peeking up through the snow?  It's a blue cohosh plant

 I came back in chastened by these little plantlings' desire to live and have resolved not to go nuts at the Flower Factory in Stoughton this year but concentrate on the plants already here. (Of course, last year my husband almost fainted when he saw the receipt for FF when I got a little crazy. There's another reason to keep my head this year.)