A Dash of Color on a White Winter Day

Peek A Boo!  I see you!

Got a taste of Spring yesterday with all the warm weather and sunshine. The cold, wind and snow are back this morning though.  Wisconsin weather, you are such a tease!  

My container plants seem anxious for spring as well.  Yesterday  I found overwintered geraniums starting to bloom.  They’ve surprised me a couple of times now.  It’s the first time I’ve overwintered geraniums and when I brought them inside this past Fall they set seed and I had fluffy seedheads all over the dang place.  Some seeds even rooted in the soil of other houseplants.  What a mess but it was kind of fun watching the cats chase the fluff.

The geraniums seem happy but I’ve really struggled to keep my star jasmine vines going.  Even in the basement where it’s cooler, it just isn’t humid enough.  I’m watering them almost daily but they’re still looking dessicated.  Putting them under a grow light might have been a mistake.

These spruce trees are like the local bar-everyone hangs out there.

Yesterday I was out hand-watering young evergreen shrubs in the yard and I noticed that my mature spruce trees are really water-stressed too.  I think animals are also being affected by our strangely warm and dry winter.  The other day there was a lot of activity up in the spruce trees.  Cones were dropping like rain all around me.  Looking up, I saw some bright red birds with black and white wings feeding on the cones still hanging from the branches.  They hung around for several days, stripping the trees of their cones.  

I think they were pine grosbeaks, which I thought wintered in the far north of the state.  I know I’ve never seen them around here before.  I wonder what they are doing down here?

They were a dash of color on a white winter's day and so are my unexpected geranium blooms. Both put a smile on my face.

8 Point Buck Sneaks Through Yard

Lover Boy is lucky I  wasn't a bow hunter!

It's that time of year again when Wisconsin's whitetails start thinking about love.  One amorous boy wandered through our yard yesterday at lunch.  He was so busy sniffing out fellow deer on the trail that he didn't notice me sneak out onto the deck and get video and pix of him.  He's lucky I wasn't a hunter!

Purple Smokebush in fall color mode

Although most of the trees have lots their leaves, some shrubs and the buckthorn are still green.  Shrubs that still have their leaves are the elderberries, diervilla, kerria, itea and my oakleaf hydrangea.  I made sure to spray my japanese maples, arborvitae and others that the deer seem to enjoy munching on.  I also sprayed some oak seedlings.  I'm so happy to see the oak seedlings, by the way.  It means that I'm making progress in clearing out the woods to a healthier tree density.  Oh crud!  I just realized I forgot to spray the pine seedling I got from my youngest for mother's day!  Oops!  I know what I need to do this morning!

Still haven't planted my fall bulbs or dug up my cannas but it's gotten cold enough finally to get them going.  It's supposed to rain and snow today but I think I can sneak in some digging this morning before it does.

I've still got a few things blooming in my garden-some fleabane, salvia and goldenrod and of course, the longest blooming plant in my yard, lamium 'Pink Pewter.'  The flowers are small but 'Pink Pewter' gets going right away in the spring, rests once I stop watering it in the summer and then blooms all fall until covered with snow.

My potted asters didn't fare well with the heavy rains
 we got a couple of weeks ago

I haven't done much in the yard the last couple of months because our basement remodel has consumed our every waking moment lately.  I did get one item off my to-do list: chopped down a yew that had outgrown its space and just looked awful.  I was ok with it not coming back but I'm reading on the 'net that it'll probably return and actually look good in a couple of years.  We'll see.  Either way is fine with me.

Get out and vote today if you haven't already and good luck with your late fall gardening chores.  My list is long and my motivation short but I feel confident I'll at least get a few things done before the ground freezes solid.

Aster and Goldenrod in the Fall_Pretty!

A Flock A Day

This woodpecker appreciates my twig tuteur,
checking it every couple of days for yummy bugs

And suddenly it's Fall.   As soon as the first cold snap hit, my quiet summer yard turned into a raucous bird party.  A large flock of cedar waxwings paid its annual visit to my cedar, stripping it of berries.  (It's so fun watching their antics.) Yesterday, a flock of robins came through, taking over the bird bath for several hours.  Flickers and robins and gray squirrels have been out in force inspecting the newly turned earth where I planted my recently purchased plant bargains.

Carrionflower vine berries

I'm always amazed at how much attention my gardening activities receive from the resident wildlife-usually when I'm outside there'll be at least one curious chickadee or wren hanging out in the trees, commenting on what I'm doing, or maybe a ticked-off red squirrel hollering at me from above. Robins and chipmunks tend to check out any ground I've dug up, sometimes so impatient they don't even wait for me to leave.

I recently moved some phlox to a different bed and as I was digging the new hole I was thinking about the hummingbirds who come to the phlox every day, wondering how long it would take for them to find the new location.  I needn't have worried-I didn't even get the plant in the hole when I heard the heavy buzz of hummingbird wings and looked up to see one just above my shoulder, chirping and eyeing the proceedings intently.

Probably should have waited until spring to move the phlox but I decided to chance it.  Besides the phlox, I've been trying to fix some design flaws, transplanting shrubs as well as perennials.  And with all the bargains I've gotten on plants this fall, I've had plenty of new stuff to plant too.  I even scored a nice-sized 'Golden Shadows' pagoda dogwood for $30!   It was on my want list this past spring but I couldn't bring myself to pay $120 for a plant that is only marginally hardy here and well-loved by deer.  You just know it's not going to live long.

Just love Laura phlox!

Thankfully, we've finally had some rain the last couple of weeks.  Here in Waukesha County we are still under drought conditions and I'm worried that next year will be the same.  Despite the awful growing season we had, there were still some new plants I found in the yard.  One handsome specimen turned out to be a native pokeberry.  It's berries were gone the day after they ripened so I guess something is immune to its poison.  Another turned out to be white snakeroot, also poisonous.  (Why are all my woodland natives poisonous?) This is listed as invasive but native, and I guess I don't mind it going nuts in the far back of the yard where it can battle things out with woodbine, solomon's plume and sweet cicely.  Those are all native thugs too.  I hope I haven't made a mistake letting it survive.

One of my favorite Fall combos-goldenrod and aster

Another garden surprise was a phlox that just popped up in a completely different bed than where I have my original stands of phlox.  It has white blooms with a small pink eye ring and looks gorgeous paired with my Autumn Joy sedum.  That's actually why I decided to move my phlox in the Fall while there were still some blooms.  When we moved here there were two large clumps of tall phlox-one was white with a large pink eye ring and one was pink with a large white eye ring.  This year I noticed 2 others-one short and purpley-pink, and one like the new one that just turned up.  Are they remnants of plants that were planted too close together?  Are they seedlings that didn't come true? (That would explain the new phlox plant I found)  I'll be curious to see what kind of phlox I get next year now that I've "separated" out the various colors.

All my asters are looking good but I'm disappointed with the colors of Farmington, Wood's Pink and Wood's Purple-all are very pastel and I was hoping for something brighter, like the native asters I see in the prairie planting across the road.  Now that is the perfect Fall combo!  Magenta and bluish-purple asters paired with goldenrod when the sun is low in the western sky-Yowza!

One of the native asters in my yard-I think this is Calico Aster

Drought? What Drought?

Surprise!  This onion has gorgeous blooms that
bloomed for weeks longer than my  ornamental alliums.

Hi, all!  It's been quite a while since I last posted; it's been too depressing.  This has been a rotten spring and summer for my garden and yard.  Once again, there's no rain in the forecast and even mature trees and weeds are struggling.  I have lost most of my vegetable garden and many of the small shrubs I planted this spring.  My poor veggies never stood a chance-even with watering, the heat was just too much for those tender little seedlings.

So, why am I posting now?  Well, I realized that there are some plants that are doing just fine despite the drought.  I thought I'd share with you what's doing ok in my garden, with only the barest of supplemental watering, and in some cases, no watering at all.

We are on well water so I try not to water unless it's really needed.  I've let my lawn go dormant and am basically just hand-watering anything that's wilting.

Butterflyweed

My established hostas and daylilies are surprisingly well.  So is my bergenia and buglossoides.  In fact, the buglossoides are looking pretty happy at the moment, although they didn't bloom for long this spring.

Strangely, my lamb's ear and rudbeckia, both of which I thought were drought-tolerant, have been wilting badly and needing extra water.  Also strange, my 'Sem' spirea, which I thought was not drought tolerant, is not only doing fine but starting to sucker a bit.  (Off-track I know, but 'Sem' does sucker.  It's advertised that it doesn't.  Same is true for 'Tiger Eyes' sumac, also advertised as non-suckering.  Mine suckers like crazy.)

Tiger's Eye Sumac seems to be happier in the
heat than its native sibling, staghorn sumac

Let's see...some woodland natives that seem to not be affected yet include solomon's seal, columbine, solomon's plume, hairy mountain mint, carrionflower, all the goldenrods, baptisia, virginia creeper and sweet woodruff.  Some natives that aren't quite as forgiving: wild ginger, ferns (with the exception of my male fern), avens and sweet cicely.  

Of course, there's the native prairie plants and well-known drought-tolerant domestics that I expected to do well and they are: yarrow, rudbeckia, grasses, butterflyweed, smokebush.  (My smokebush looks really good at the moment-the ninebarks not so much.)

All of the viburnums (nannyberry, highbush cranberry, arrowwood) are wilting and losing leaves.  My peach tree is struggling as well but that's to be expected because it's new.  I've had to water the arborvitae, spruces, spirea, and surprisingly, my diervilla, even the native ones.

Yesterday it was only in the 80s so I finished
the path through my meadow garden.

Oh yeah, another plant that is doing great is sumac.  Not the native staghorn; their new growth is being killed off.  But 'Tiger Eyes' is practically hopping and skipping in excitement over all the heat and is using its summer vacation to take over the hillside I planted it on.  And I've never seen 'Gro-Low' looking so healthy and happy.  I haven't given these two a drop of supplemental water and they are on a steep, blazing hot slope.

(Another off-track thought: I really like 'Tiger Eyes' paired with dark-leaved canna.  Very tropical looking.)

Is this summer a hint at the future of Wisconsin weather?  I think it might be and so I'm going to start looking at adding more drought-tolerant, native plants to the yard and also try to find a spot where I can put in rain barrels for my veggie garden.   Two things I should have done as soon as we bought this place.

One last thought: There's been no mosquitoes.  Yay!  Gotta have moisture for mosquitoes.

Recycling Concrete

I love finding ways to use stuff
that would normally end up in the trash

As part of our basement remodel we had to remove some of our concrete pad.  Some of the chunks I used in our retaining wall for drainage.  Some of the chunks I used to hold soil to level out my gazebo.  And today I used the remaining chunks for my dry "stream" bed and some steps.  

We have some french drains and some pipes from the house that drain daily down a slope.  No vegetation will grow there so the soil was washing away.  I started putting down gravel and rocks to try and direct the flow and stop the erosion.  The little chunks of concrete work just fine for this.

Also I had a couple of big chunks with some smooth edges and tops.  I dug those into the slope to use as steps.  They seem solid and stable. Now I'll have a short cut down to the garden beds from our patio.

In the future I'd like to put down a liner and get some big fieldstone in there, with river pebbles and a water fountain at the top.  It's a really low priority project but if it gets done, I think it'll add some real pizazz to the back yard.

Our dry "stream" bed is a work in progress.

Ville de Lyon Clematis

Ville de Lyon

My new Ville de Lyon Clematis bloomed for the first time a few days ago.  It doesn't have many blooms because it's not well established and it's in shade, but it's so beautiful!   Even from the house I could see those big bright blooms down at the bottom of the hill!

Henryi

Its blooms aren't quite as big though as my Henryi Clematis, which is also a lovely clematis. It's also new to my yard-I have that one on my lamppost and I love that one too!

A home-made tuteur from scraps

Had some fun yesterday making a tutuer for a clematis I transplanted to my front foundation.  I had some really nice mulberry branches that were begging to be used and not tossed in the burn pile.  I tied the branches together with some bits of copper wire left over from our basement remodel and wrapped a grapevine around. Fresh grapevine is so pliable and easy to use.  Dried grapevine needs a soaking before you can bend it into a circle.

The bees and butterflies approve of my allium addiction

Oh, and there's so many butterflies!  I saw whites, monarchs, swallowtails, admirals, an angle-wing, a dark-winged butterfly I haven't seen before, and a hackberry butterfly.  I wonder if this butterfly party is courtesy of home gardeners and their penchant for lots of different plants?

All my columbines are in bloom now

Those were the only good gardening events yesterday.  The rest of my day sucked.  I found out that I have a massive common asparagus beetle infestation on my asparagus.  Every spear is just loaded with eggs!  Now I'll have to spend my afternoons squashing the adults and larvae.   

I also found out that there's some patches of poison ivy in my woods.  Normally I avoid herbicides and pesticides but not for poison ivy.  It's getting the brush killer treatment!  Luckily, I was able to rinse off in cold water right away so the oil wouldn't seep into my skin.  Thank heavens for that!

Finally, I found out something shocking.  There's a big patch of bishop's weed  that I've was planning on pulling out in the future but wasn't in a hurry to do so.  Everything changed yesterday--while working in my asparagus patch I noticed a bunch of seedlings I didn't recognize...hundreds, maybe thousands of little sprouts, every inch of open ground was covered.  I took a closer look and realized they are bishop's weed.  It self-sows!  I had no idea that stuff could set viable seed; I thought it was listed as invasive because it's such an aggressive groundcover.   

Not sure how long this tuteur
will last but it was fun to make!

Well, you can imagine that my plan for the day was immediately revised.   The mature plants are just starting to flower so I had to do something quick.  I've had some success with digging out the roots but this time I'm going to try smothering the patch with black plastic film first.  I've heard that smothering doesn't work but this patch is on a super steep slope and the plants are so tall it's hard to tell where the ground is. I don't need to plant this bed anytime soon so I can wait out those little monsters and once the foliage withers, I can dig out the roots easily.  (At least that's how I'm hoping it's going to work!)

Hope you enjoy your day!