The Front Island Bed lies between the Sidewalk Border and the low retaining wall of the expanded Foundation Bed. It is filled mostly with taller plants that enjoy lots of moisture, since the soil is a moist clay loam. It gets almost full sun, even though it is on the north side of the house. …
Category: Garden design, Garden Tour, Native Plants and Wildflowers, Wildlife Gardening Tags: Asclepias incarnata, Asclepias incarnata 'Ice Ballet;, Blue Stem Goldenrod, Chasmanthium latifolium, Cup Plant, Eutrochium purpureum, Geranium 'Johnson's Blue', Native Plants, New England Aster, Northern Sea Oats, Silphium perfoliatum, Solidago caesia, Swamp Milkweed, Sweet Joe Pye Weed, Symphyotrichum novae-angliae, Wildlife Gardening
Extreme weather dominates my thoughts about gardening for this past year. It started with extreme winter mildness. This may sound like a contradiction in terms, but it was unnerving for those of us accustomed to harsh Chicago winters. January was about 8 degrees warmer than normal on average. Snow melted, the snowdrops (Galanthus) came up …
Category: Gardening Techniques, Native Plants and Wildflowers, Perennial flowers, Shrubs and Small Trees, Weather Tags: Agastache foeniculum, Amelanchier, Anise Hyssop, Anise Scented Goldenrod, Aromatic Aster, Celandine Poppy, Chasmanthium latifolium, Culver's Root, Echinacea purpurea, Eupatorium 'Gateway', Galanthus, Gardening and Climate Change, Gardening and weather, Golden Alexander, Grape Hyacinth, Joe Pye Weed, Muscari, Northern Sea Oats, Oriental Lily 'Casa Blanca', Purple Coneflower, Rudbeckia triloba, Salvia 'May Night', Serviceberry 'Autumn Brilliance', Short's Aster, Snowdrops, Solidago odora, species tulips, Stylophorum diphyllum, Symphyotrichum oblongifolius, Tulipa praestans 'Fusilier, Veronicastrum virginicum 'Fascination', Zizia Aurea
Let’s start in the backyard. Rosa ‘Sally Holmes’ still has a few blooms, and even some buds straining to open before the frost. Most of the asters have gone to seed … But the dwarf New England Aster, Symphyotrichum novae-angliae ‘Purple Dome’, is a very late bloomer – it’s just hitting its stride. Rosa ‘Darlow’s …
Category: Grasses, Native Plants and Wildflowers, Perennial flowers, Shrubs and Small Trees Tags: Big Leaf Aster, Blackberry lilly, Chasmanthium latifolium, Cleome, Crabapple, fall, Grasses, Iris domestica, Native Plants, New England Aster, Northern Sea Oats, Northwind, Panicum virgatum, Prairie Dropseed, Purple Dome, Rosa 'Cassie', Rosa 'Darlow's Enigma', Rosa 'Sally Holmes', Roses, Senorita Rosalita, Sporobulus heterolepis, Switchgrass, Symphyotrichum macrophylum, Symphyotrichum novae-angliae
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