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Posted on May 15, 2016 by gardeninacity

Fight Garlic Mustard with Native Groundcovers

Garlic Mustard (Alliaria petiolata), Buckthorn (Rhamnus cathartica), and Japanese Honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica). If plants could ride horses, these would be the three horsemen of the Invasive Plant Apocalypse – at least for shady areas in the Midwest. However, a recent post in The Native Plant Herald (the blog of Prairie Nursery in Wisconsin) tells us how native woodland groundcovers can be used to keep these botanical barbarians from running amok. To read the post, click here.

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Wild Ginger on the west side of our garage. This picture was taken on May 2 of this year.
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Posted on May 12, 2016 by gardeninacity

Matchmaker, Matchmaker …

Book Review: The Perennial Matchmaker, by Nancy J. Ondra

Gardening is about bringing plants together into satisfying partnerships. If you were to peek into the mind of the typical gardener, as he or she stares off into the middle distance, you would most likely find thinking something like: “What on earth can I put in front of that Penstemon digitalis?”

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The Perennial Matchmaker is written to answer just such questions. The bulk of the book consists of plant combination ideas for over 80 genera of perennials. While it’s a book that can be read from beginning to end, I suspect that for most gardeners The Perennial Matchmaker will be most useful as a reference to be used during those moments when we are trying to come up with plant combination ideas.

This is a fun as well as a useful book. For example, many of the photographs are drawn from garden blogs you may be familiar with – including this one (cough – page 28 – cough).

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Posted on May 10, 2016 by gardeninacity

The Pinnacle of Tulip Season

In our garden, Tulip season is at its peak.

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Posted on May 8, 2016 by gardeninacity

Overdue Orioles

The Baltimore Orioles were supposed to arrive early this year (according to people who know their birds), but came late instead. Normally they arrive right around May 1, but this year Judy saw our first Oriole on Thursday, May 5. Perhaps our topsy turvy  spring weather first hastened and then delayed their arrival.

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Posted on May 6, 2016 by gardeninacity

Tulips!

Yes, this year’s tulip season is now well underway. Let’s see which tulips are livening up the garden now, shall we?

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Posted on May 4, 2016 by gardeninacity

May Day Flowers

In a recent post I shared my mixed feelings about leaving home for a short vacation at a time when so much is happening so fast in the garden. Upon my return, would I feel that I had missed out on some crucial moments?

 

Rather than being tinged with regret, my return to the garden felt like a joyful reunion. Buds were bursting, color was popping, the air seemed thick with chlorophyll. Let me show you a few of the plants that filled my heart with the greatest gladness (with the exception of the tulips; the next post will be devoted to them alone).

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Posted on May 2, 2016 by gardeninacity

A Visit to Casa Mariposa – and an Allium Winner

After leaving our friends in Maryland, we drove over to Front Royal, Virginia, at the northern end of the Skyline Drive. On the way we stopped at the northern Virginia garden of our friend Tammy, author of the vastly entertaining garden blog Casa Mariposa.

Tammy warned that there wasn’t a lot of color in her garden at the time of our visit, as we were in that lull between late spring and early summer. However, we found no shortage of sights to enjoy.

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Posted on April 29, 2016 by gardeninacity

Tulip Delight at Baltimore’s Sherwood Garden

Our original plan last Saturday was to drive with our friend Carol from her house in Maryland to Longwood Gardens. But then I remembered that this required a four hour round trip. As much as I wanted to see Longwood, having just driven from Springfield to Chicago and then flown to Baltimore, a four hour drive was distinctly unappealing.

And so I searched on the internet for gardens in Baltimore. What I found was Sherwood Gardens, a six acre park near the campus of The Johns Hopkins University and less than an hour away. The fact that every year 80,000 Tulips are planted at Sherwood clinched the deal.

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Posted on April 27, 2016 by gardeninacity

I Found My Thrill on Azalea Hill

I am not a big fan of Azaleas. Part of the reason is that they don’t grow well where I now live in Chicago. Even growing up outside New York City, where Azaleas are fairly common, they did not appeal to me. Perhaps it was because they generally appeared as little green meatballs that, for a couple of weeks every year, turned into little pink meatballs.

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A Flowering Dogwood shades colorful Azaleas along the edges of the National Arboretum’s Azalea Collection.
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Posted on April 23, 2016 by gardeninacity

A Bit of Tender Spring Green

So I arrived in Baltimore last night and right now Judy and I are staying with friends in the small town of Dayton, Maryland. Our plan for the day was to see the Azaleas at the National Arboretum. Problem is, it’s raining.

While we’re waiting for the rain to stop, here are some tender green leaves from the last weekend in our garden.

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Red Elderberry (Sambucus racemosa).

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