Just add a little water...

11 months later...

2010-03-18T21:58:00.001-07:00

Horrible, I know. I have dropped off the face of the blogosphere for 11 months! Facebook sucked me in...all my gardening adventures and photos have been posted there for the past year!

I will try to be more diligent about posting here this year. Finally, after attending the Chicago Flower and Garden Show last weekend, I have been inspired to start thinking about the 2010 garden again.

I set up a new seed starting station in my mudroom this year. Last year I had it set up in the unfinished basement. This year I went to Costco and bought some commercial metal shelving to use for the seed starting area.

I'm boycotting Jiffy pots this year - I just don't like how they never seem to break apart by the end of the growing season. Ever fall (and even following spring) I find the netting from the Jiffy pots still fully intact when I till the ground.

I have potted up flowering kale, Bells of Ireland, Jaguar marigolds, regular marigolds, 3 varieties of zinnia (that I harvested seeds from last fall) and stock which I collected seeds from my garden last year. I also have potted up Genovese, globe and purple ruffles basil, broccoli, eggplant and hot peppers. My montebresia and canna are potted up and sprouting too.

Third straight day of cold rainy weather

2009-04-21T11:38:00.000-07:00

So, since the ground is saturated with rain I took the opportunity to quickly plant up some new shrubs & perennials. I planted up Pieris japonica "Purity", Erica darleyenis "Mediterranean Pink" and Rododendron "Aglo" along with Lithodora "Grace Ward".

Lithodora "Grace Ward" - perennial, 6 or more hours of sun, hardiness -10, 6-12" tall x 12" wide, mounded

Erica x darleyensis "Mediterranean Pink" - blooms Dec-May, Bushy, 12-18" tall, 12-30" wide, sun to part shade, likes acidic soil, zone 4, -30 to -20

Pieris japonica "Purity" - part sun, 4' high by 4 ' wide, -30 to -20, blooms white in spring

Rhododendron "Aglo" - part shade, 5' by 5', -20 to -10, blooms pink in spring, likes acidic soil

I also moved a bunch of the seedlings from the house out into the cold frame. I have a nasty infestation of fungus gnats, so last night I watered them with a watering can of mosquito dunk infused water to help kill the larva. We'll see if that works. I did a bunch of research on the internet and other than practically starving the plants to death by letting the soil get super dry the mosquito dunk tip seems to be the most agreed upon. Such annoying little things!

Getting the back yard ready for Summer!

2009-04-14T11:48:00.001-07:00

Last week I started the dreadful task of ripping out the sod to make way for my vegetable garden. I'm planning at 16x6 foot raised bed garden along the slope of the north side of the yard. I have removed a little over 1/2 of the sod, but then cold weather and rain came and derailed my project. I'm hoping that I can can finish this up with week so that we can go buy the lumber to build the frame of the bed next week.

We also finished building a cold frame for the south side of the house (where I used to have my pathetically tiny vegetable garden last year). I found a great window on clearance at Menards for less than $30 that opens and has a screen for ventilation. I picked up some 12x2 lumber to build up the frame. A quick project for around $50. right now I have some rosemary and lavender out in it since it's still a little too cold at night to plant them out.

And the biggest addition to the back yard in preparation for summer is the covered gazebo that we purchased from Target last week. It's going to give up a nice shady place to sit in the summer and a reason to entertain. We not only purchased the gazebo, but also an outdoor chandelier so we can sit out there at night.

So far we have only got the first part of the frame up. We need to go buy concrete screws so we can anchor it into the cement patio. Once that is done we can put the top tier of the frame on and the canopy and curtains. I can't wait!

Snow coming today...

2009-04-05T13:56:00.000-07:00

So here we are in the first week of April and we've got yet another round of snow coming. Possibly 3 inches. In preparation I spread 8 bags of much today around all the various beds outside to help protect the emerging perennials. There are a lot of things coming back to life out in the yard!

I'm thrilled to see that the bleeding hearts along the garage came back (they're in a very shady, wet spot all winter and I feared they would die from root rot this winter). The Monkshood has emerged, lilies have reared their heads, mums are getting their first leaves, the oregano and thyme are coming back to life. The pinks are looking really healthy as well as the Shasta daisies.

I'm rooting a new bunch of curly willow. Not quite sure where I might plant them...either in the cedar planters or down in the wet area of the garden.

This week I also seeded up some Black Beauty eggplant, Borage and George's Favorite Blend Broccoli. 1/2 of the snake gourds have sprouted...and man, are they huge! The hyacinth beans are already on their 3rd set of true leaves.

I picked up some anemone and crocosmia bulbs at Pesche's...though they are not quite ready to be planted out. Perhaps in 2 weeks. I was kinda surprised at what little selection of bulbs they have there. I think I got spoiled with the selection of seeds and bulbs at Gethsemane Garden Center in Chicago.

I have to do a client delivery up north (Grayslake area) this week so I plan on stopping in at a few garden centers/nurseries up there to see what they have. I want to pick up some false indigo this year. I saw it in bloom at the Chicago Flower and Garden show and just love it.

Potted up the first transplants!

2009-03-31T16:28:00.000-07:00

The zinnias and lupine and hyacinth beans were ready to be transplanted into larger pots today. I stopped by Menards to pick up some transplant cells and couldn't resist coming home with 2 of the (49 cents after rebate) roses. I have no idea how they will do and truthfully am not even sure where I want to plant them. Perhaps one in the herb garden that I'm planning around the patio or on the side of the house near the AC since that is the south end and gets a lot of sun all day. I also picked up some orange tulips and purple hyacinths to plant in the walkway island since I apparently forgot to plant bulbs in that island last fall and it looks really bare now!

I seeded up a bunch more seeds:

18 cells of Swiss Chard
3 cells Brandywine tomato
3 cells of English Thyme
3 cells of tall zinnia seeds (collected...don't know what variety)
3 cells of Malva
3 cells of mystery seeds from a pod I collected somewhere
3 cells of mystery seeds from my mom's yard. I recall they're purple, but I have no idea what they are.

In addition, the cells that didn't germinate were reseeded and 2 of the snake gourds have reared their huge heads through the soil.

Soon I'll post some pics...I can't find the back-up camera (my original camera fell in the Pacific when we want to visit the tide pools in CA). ;)

2 weeks update...tons of sprouts!

2009-03-29T22:39:00.000-07:00

So...here is what has sprouted so far:
18 of 24 cells of Dwarf Lupine
30 of 35 cells of Flowering Kale (I miscounted and originally said I seeded 43 cells)
0 of 20 cells of Snake Gourd (my 2 1/2 year old picked these out at Pesche's)
6 of 9 cells of Marigold Jaguar
9 of 9 cells of Delphinium (*)
2 of 3 cells of Butterfly Weed (*)
0 of 6 cells Blanket Flower (*)
2 of 3 cells Coreopsis (*)
5 of 6 cells purple & white Cosmos (*)
4 of 4 cells Yellow Pear Tomatoes
5 of 5 cells of Dwarf Curly Parsley
9 of 9 cells of Purple Ruffle Basil
1 of 2 cells of Common Chive
1 of 3 cells of Lavender Lady
10 of 15 cells of Orange Cosmos
6 of 9 cells or Marigolds (regular)
0 of 3 cells of Cleome
18 of 18 cells of Zinnia
5 of 6 cells of Hyacinth Bean (*) - ready to be transplanted
4 of 4 cells of Oceana Blue Salvia (*)
3 of 3 cells of Mixed Hot Peppers
6 of 6 cells of Genovese Basil

I also seeded Oriental poppies and blue flax in 16 oz. plastic water bottles and threw those in a sunny window sill this past week. I just checked on them and a few of the flax bottles have sprouts beginning to break through the soil.

I am going to seed up some broccoli ("George's Favorite Blend") variety and some of the tall zinnia seeds that I collected from a flower bed in a mall parking lot last fall. Hopefully the zinnia's will take as they were very pretty.

Beyond that, I'm looking forward to :

the Oak Park Conservatory's 20th annual herb and scented plant sale on Saturday, May 2nd - an excellent selection of herbs
the Mt. Prospect Friendship Park Conservatory plant sale on Saturday, May 9th - never been to this sale before
the Grove's plant sale on Saturday, May 16th - I bought some very nice annuals and herbs there last year at pretty reasonable prices.

Oh...and not to forget...we had a pretty decent snowfall today. Over 3 inches of heavy, wet snow preceded by a lot of rain overnight. Hopefully the perennials and bulbs outside will be o.k. with the temperature being 23 degrees tonight. A lot of the perennials have come to life in the back yard - the hollyhocks, dianthus, monarda, asters, mums to name a few. There is one perennial that is coming up in the front bed along the garage that for the life of me I don't remember what it is. The shoots are coming up a deep purple shade. If I can't i.d. from a picture of the bed from last year then I will just have to wait and be surprised when it fully develops.

I love this time of year....it's so nice to see things outside turning green again and little plants sprouting up from the soil.

Seed Starting Time!

2009-03-17T18:48:00.001-07:00

Well, it's that time of year again....seed starting time! We're about 4 weeks away from the last Zone 5 frost date. I've spent the past few days getting seeds together and ready to germinate. As of today I've planted up the following;

24 cells of Dwarf Lupine
43 cells of Flowering Kale
20 cells of Snake Gourd (my 2 1/2 year old picked these out at Pesche's)
9 cells of Marigold Jaguar
9 cells of Delphinium (*)
3 cells of Butterfly Weed (*)
6 cells Blanket Flower (*)
3 cells Coreopsis (*)
6 cells purple & white Cosmos (*)
4 cells Yellow Pear Tomatoes
5 cells of Dwarf Curly Parsley
9 cells of Purple Ruffle Basil
2 cells of Common Chive
3 cells of Lavender Lady
15 cells of Orange Cosmos
9 cells or Marigolds (regular)
3 cells of Cleome
18 cells of Zinnia
6 cells of Hyacinth Bean (*)
4 cells of Oceana Blue Salvia (*)
3 cells of Mixed Hot Peppers
6 cells of Genovese Basil

(*) = seeds collected in the Fall of 2008 from my garden.

230 cells total - with 2-3 seeds per cell = about 600 seeds total.

Demise of the Mushroom Cloud

2009-03-05T13:51:00.001-08:00

So, this beast of a bush to the right of the window is what I dubbed "The Mushroom Cloud". I tried to trim it up the first summer we lived here...but it still looked hideous. This past summer ('08) I finally got my husband to whip out the reciprocating saw and buzz it to pieces. The root systems wasn't that deep, so it wound up being pretty easy to pull out.

I planted a beautiful red toned hydrangea in it's place (not pictured yet) to balance out all the green limelight hydrangeas I planted in front of the window. The hydrangea is complimented by asters, mums, pansies and zinnia's in front. So much more color than what used to be there (all evergreens).

I'm looking forward to seeing all of the new bushes come into bloom this spring. We completely redid the entire perimeter of the back yard with new bushes and perennials. I should have taken an hour in the fall to sit down and actually plot out on paper what exactly I planted and where. I guess it will just add to the excitement of seeing green poking through the soil in a few months.

I was outside today tidying up a little - cutting down the ornamental grasses in the front yard, trimming up the thyme and oregano plants, cleaning up debris and loosening any annuals that would budge out of the still semi-frozen ground. Counting down the days until the estimated last frost for Zone 5 (April 15)...only about 5 1/2 weeks away!

It's a little too soon to start planting any seeds up - don't want them to get leggy under the lights in the basement.....but I did plant up some Genovese basil inside a large apothecary jar by the windowsill. A few more days and we'll be getting some sprouts coming up. I couldn't resist planting "something" up just for the fun of watching it grow (while there's still snow in forecast).

Here are a few shots of my favorite plants from the 2008 garden:

This ornamental cabbage just kept growing, and growing and growing until it flowered with dozens of yellow flowers. I let it stay up until after the first snow...but then it started going stinky (the scent of fermenting cabbage on the way to the front door was not how I wanted guests to be greeted) so I chopped it down and threw it on the compost heap.

I also loved the chocolaty colored plant behind the cabbage - Thai basil. So potent! Just one leaf in a recipe contributes such flavor and scent. I had a lot of it left over in the fall so I just cut the entire plant down and dried the leaves in the oven, crushed them and bottled it. Even dried, it has retained it's smell and flavor wonderfully! I'll be sure to plant this up again in '09.

Not a good picture - this is the oceana blue salvia that I managed to grow from seeds I collected from my 2007 plants. Only a few seeds actually germinated and the plant is pretty much green all summer until about August when it finally blooms the most beautiful true blue color. It's a very airy plant and looks best when grouped together and provided with some support since it grows about 3 feet tall. I'm hoping to have a lot more seeds germinate in 2009 since I collected a lot more in '08 than I did in '07.

Sick of being Sick

2009-02-05T15:58:00.001-08:00

So, the Midwest winter drags on. Snow on the ground, bitter cold winds and the urge to bake comforting cookies and cakes at night. I would bake tonight, but I just don't have the energy to. I have a nasty head cold (seems to be going around) that just makes me want to go back under the covers and go to bed early.

Winter has arrived with vengeance!

2008-12-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

It's bitterly cold outside and snowing right now. From where I'm sitting I can see the windows lit up from outside by the white Christmas lights that I wove through the white-painted birch branches in the cedar planters outside. So pretty!

I finally put some lights on the holly and burning bush outside the front window today. It was a cold, rainy afternoon...so I took advantage of the few hours before it started to snow to go ahead and run some lights out front before everything would be blanketed with a fresh coat of snow.

I do have to admit, although the decorations are pretty and I love to see pretty red and gold bows festooning the outside of my house...I really do not like winter! I think I have seasonal affective disorder (SAD) - either that or I'm part bear and just want to hibernate all winter.

I actually ordered one of those therapy lights for SAD (which I'm impatiently waiting for!). I'm hoping that might knock me out of hibernation mode and get my creative juices flowing.

There is so much to do before Christmas - so many cookies to bake and a Christmas Eve menu to plan!

I decided to make a batch of cookies tonight...from whatever I had in the pantry. I ran out of butter, so I had to work with butter flavored Crisco. And all I had was one package of chocolate-peanut butter swirl chips and a packet of premelted unsweetened Hershey's cocoa. Here's what I came up with:

Chocolate-Peanuty Oatmeal Whole Wheat Messes

1 c. butter flavor Crisco
1 c. firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 c. granulated sugar
2 eggs2 tbsp. milk
2 tbsp. vanilla
2 1/2 c. Quaker oats (old fashioned, uncooked)
1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 package chocolate-peanut butter swirl chips
1 packet Hershey's premelted unsweetened chocolate

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Beat first 6 ingredients until smooth. Add combined, oats, flour, soda and salt; mix well. Stir in remaining ingredients.

Drop by rounded tablespoonfuls 3 inches apart onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes for chewy or 10-12 minutes for crisp cookies. Cool 2 minutes; remove to wire rack. Cool completely. About 4 dozen.

They're probably a million calories each...but it's winter, so who cares! They actually taste pretty good...a hint of peanut butter and chocolate, but not too much. You could probably use pure chocolate chips if you want it more chocolaty.

Wow...a whole month went by!

2008-08-31T20:36:00.000-07:00

Wow...I can't believe a whole month went by! August was busy, busy, busy! We had our cedar fence installed. It took the builders 3 days to complete it. Before we had it installed we buried a drain tube across the back of our yard so that we don't get flooding from our neighbor's sump pump outlet which dumps out right on our property line. It has helped tremendously. No more standing water...no more mosquitoes brewing in our yard.

We also installed a short retaining wall just inside of the fence so that we could build up the soil before planting along the fence. This is what we wound up planting:

5 5' tall arborvitae
2 red twig dogwoods
2 variegated Japanese silver grass
1 aster
2 beebalm
2 black eye susans
2 milkweed (alsclepias)
1 cardinal flower
1 Chinese lanterns
1 coral bells
1 coreopsis
1 crocosmia
2 echinacia
2 foxglove
3 hyssops
1 liatris
4 mums
1 monkshood
2 sedum
2 yarrow

We added a ton of new peat moss and soil and bag after bag of mulch to the back of the yard and corner gardens. We also ran 150' of soaker hose under the mulch to help keep things moist and cut down on the daily watering.

In the front of the house we planted 3 limelight hydrangea along the porch and living room windows. We had to rip some of the old shrubs out to make way.

I'm really happy because my oceana blue salvia did come back and just started blooming last week. I saved the seeds from the plant last year and planted it up indoors in March. I have 4 or 5 plants that made it and they're all starting to bloom that beautiful royal blue color. The Bella Donna delphiniums are on their 2nd bloom cycle too...they are just breathtaking next to the almost black Thai basil.

We're about 75% done with the stone pavers in the front. The left side of the walk is done and so is the small island. The pavers that go along the front of the house have made it almost all the way to the corner. Now we have just about 25 pavers left to lay and about 15 caps to cut. It's been a long, slow project! And this near 90 degree weather has not been helping us to finish any faster!

I want to get everything done because we're having our daughter's 2nd b-day party (and informal open house) this coming Sunday. So it would be nice to be done with projects so we can relax and enjoy everyone's company and actually enjoy all the blooms around our house.

Hot..hot..hot..

2008-07-31T12:13:00.000-07:00

Wow...is it hot this week! It's in the 90's and hasn't rained in over a week. I just heard some thunder, so perhaps we will get a little rain today. The lawn looks horrible. I think grubs got a hold of the back right corner of the yard, because the grass there looks really stressed out.

I keep seeing Japanese Beatles all over the front and back yard...and have even noticed some skeletal leaves on one of the ornamental trees in the back yard.

Our backyard neighbors have had contractors in their yard all week installing a brick paver patio. A week from now we will have contractors in our yard installing a 5 foot privacy cedar fence along the back border of our yard and a 4 foot picket cedar fence along the sides.

I still have to clear away some lawn in front of the back edge of the yard so that I can prepare a new bed for perennial plantings once the fence is installed.

I also stopped at Home Depot today to check out what's on sale and came home with 3 limelight hydrangea bushes. I couldn't resist...they were only $35 each and about 3 feet tall. I think I'm going to plant them in front of the living room picture window so that we have something nice to look at in the summer and to lighten up the front of our dark brown house.

I also came home some yarrow, tickseed and varigated grass.

What's growing this year

2008-07-28T19:30:00.000-07:00

This is not a complete list:

A = Annual, P = Perrenial

Whites

Obediant Plant 4
Cosmos "Sonata Mix" A 1
Dusty Miller "Silver Dust" A 12
Dianthus "Telstar White" A 3
Cleome Spider Plant "White" A 2
Gladiolus P 12
Sweet Woodruff P 1

Yellow/Orange

Moonbeam Coreopsis P 3
Canna "King City Gold" P 1
Tickseed "Coreopsis Early Sunrise" P 3
Tickseed "Coreopsis Sunfire" P 1
Gazania A 3
Osteospermum hybrid "Orange Symphany" A 2
Celosia "Fresh Look Orange" A 4
Celosia "Fresh Look Yellow" A 4
Lantana "New Gold" A 3
Calibrachoa hybrid "Superbells Saffron" A 2
Marguerite Daisy "Butterfly" A 2
Winter Pansy "Yellow" P 6
Blanket Flower "Gaillardia Arizona Sun" P 1
Canna "Orange Beauty" P 1
Lily P 2
Tulips P 16
Gladiolus P 12

Red/Pink

Pentas 12
Bee Balm - "Marshalls Delight" P 4
Zinnia "Profusion Double Cherry" A 16
Geranium "Pink Sizzle" A 2
Geranium "Americana Pink" A 2
Veronica "Giles Van Hees" P 2
Cardinal Flower "Lobelia Queen Victoria" P 1
Cleome Spider Plant "Pink" A 1
Hollyhock P 3
Coral Bells "Peach Melba" P 1
Scarlett Runner Bean A 5
Sedum "Autumn Joy" P 1

Purple/Blue

Monkshood P 1
Nemsia "Blue Bird" A 4
Salvia "Victoria Blue" A 9
Nierembergia "Robe Purple" A 4
Flowering Cabbage "Osaka Mix" A 12
Lobelia "Riviera Mix" A 6
Verbena "Obsession Blue with Eye" A 4
Cosmos "Sonata Mix" A 5
Purple Fountain Grass "Rubrum" A 2
Russian Sage "Perovskia" P 1
Phlox "Emerald Blue" P 12
Delphinium "Summer Nights" P 1
Echinacea "Prarie Splendor" P 2
Butterfly Bush "Pink Delight" P 1
Pincushion Flower "Scabiosa Butterfly Blue" P 2
Liatris P 6
Forget-Me-Not P 12
Balloon Flower P 2
Campanula Flower P 1
New England Aster P 1
Bearded Iris P 1
Japanese Iris P 1
Clematis P 1
Gladiolus P 12
Tulips P 12
Muscari P 30

Greens
Hostas "Aureo-marginata" 3
Hostas "Golden Tiara" P 2
Hostas "Guacamole" P 1
Hostas "Krossa Regal" P 1
Potato Vine "Marguerite" A 2
Feather Reed Grass "Overdam" P 1
Maiden Grass P 1

Vegetables/Herbs

Basil - Genovese & Purple frilled
Dill
Fennel
Thyme - regular & varigated
Sage - regular & golden
Green Oregano
Parsley - curly & flatleaf
Chives - regular & garlic
Snap Peas
Golden Beets
Yellow Pear cherry tomatoes
Simpsons Black seeded lettuce

2008-07-28T15:03:00.000-07:00

So, here are some of the things that have been growing (or rather, overgrowing) in the side and back yard. The fennel is nearly 5 feet tall already and a big storm snapped the top 2 feet of the peas over. The yellow pear tomatoes have tons of unripen fruit on them. I think the golden beets will be ready to harvest in a week or two. The lettuce has bolted (because of a week of 90+ degree weather).

It's coming along...

2008-07-09T21:23:00.001-07:00

This is one of the beautiful blanket flowers growing in the front island. I love the colors. They remind of the sunsets in Arizona. It looks like it would be a Southwest flower!

This is a (blue) hydrangea. I haven't altered the pH of the soil, so it's coming up pink now that it's planted out in the island.

We have been working on redoing the front yard of our new home. It's gone from being absolutely devoid of any color (other than green plants and ugly white rocks) to being full of perenials and annuals of all colors and various hydrangeas, dogwood and viburnum.

The pavers are not fully installed. We haven't yet cut any of them and we need to finish laying the row at the front of the house. Once it's done we'll be 90% finished with the front yard. We just need to pick out some shrubs to spruce up the front for the non-flowering season.

Previous Owner's Landscaping

2008-05-02T11:47:00.000-07:00

This is a picture of the NE side of the house - with the entry area.

Here is the front yard island - or the "Island of Rocks" as we called it. The rocks (thank God) are no longer there!

So here is the landscaping that the previous owners had. It's pretty boring - manicured evergreens and shrubs accented with white tumbled rocks. The overall mood of the landscaping was very somber. The dark bushes against the dark house had no contrast.

Since the entry of the house is on the NE side of the house it perpetually in the shade. Nothing pops in the shade.

Before the Fall of '07 we had all the manicured evergreens on the left side of the entry removed and 2 truckloads of rock hauled away to make room for more lively plantings and mulch.

I'm going to call to the landscapers that hauled the rock away last year to find out how much 3 or 4 cubic yards of much and a partial truckload of topsoil will cost. Hopefully they can deliver it in the next week or so because I'd really like to start planting up the island and corner of the entry and covering it all with mulch. The soil is absolutly horrible! It's about 2 inches of soil and then you hit clay and rock. So I'm adding sand and peatmoss in with the soil to help with the drainage.

We also need to complete the retaining walls around the sidewalk to the door. before the soil comes.

Slowly the front yard is evolving into something much more NATURAL looking and is starting to feel "ours" rather than "theirs".

Spring has come...at a new address

2008-04-25T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well, the past 9 months have been crazy hectic. We've moved to a new address - northwest of the city out in suburbia. We're still windy city gardeners at heart.

So the new house has many landscaping challenges - ton's of clay, poor drainage in spots, low spots, tree roots and a very sloped back yard. My initial plans for a large vegetable garden have been thwarted by these landscaping hurdles. This summer I'm just going to stick to growing my herbs and vegetables in a small plot with southern exposure and in containers.

Right now we have a couple projects going on - in the front I've expanded the island by about 10 feet lengthwise and need to have some topsoil and mulch delivered to build up the island. I'm trying to finish the short retaining walls on both sides of the front walk and am replanting the area directly in front of the main door. It used to be full or arborvitae and other "manicured' evergreens. I'm going for a more natural, perennial look accented with ornamental grasses and annuals.

The Peas have come and gone...

2007-07-03T20:29:00.000-07:00

Well, the peas have come and gone. June was a hot one in Chicago. I already had to chop the entire bush of peas down and plant a pink butterfly weed in it's place. The rooftop is still under construction, so the deck is still sitting inside our 4th floor penthouse. I doubt we'll get a chance to even enjoy the new rooftop before we move. (We found a house in the burbs and are closing on it in less than 3 weeks!)

My container plantings are doing great - everything is HUGE because of all the watering I do and the help of a good dose of Osmocote when the pots were planted.

We've already had a handful of ripe cherry tomatoes. Unfortunately, we had a micro burst of wind off the kitchen deck last week which snapped one of my tomato plants off nearly at the base. I've kept it in a pitcher of water on the deck for the past week. It's very wilted looking, but none of the leaves have dried up or fallen off...so I have some hope that it might sprout some roots and I can replant it again. It has well over 50 green tomatoes on it right now, so it would be a real shame if it were to die.

The photo below shows my globe basil plants sprouting up below the cherry tomatoes.

My Genovese basil (second from the left in the picture below) also suffered a cruel fate from the wind. I have managed to keep the entire plant (it snapped less than inch from the base) in water and it's been growing roots. So I hope to replant it soon.

Another one of the pots filling in nicely.

Below is a container that I planted up for my Mother-in-Law's birthday at the beginning of June. I saw it a few days ago and it's probably tripled in size and fullness. The colors of the Oceana salvia, the lantana, lobelia, geraniums, calibrachoas, potato vine, coleus, dusty miller and the osteospermum really remind me of an English country garden.

A huge butterfly takes a break on one of the tomato leaves.

The Roofing Supplies Arrive!

2007-06-05T14:14:00.000-07:00

The roofer's crane arrives in our alley. The driver cleared the telephone pole by about 3 inches! Very impressive!

A semi truck full of roofing supplies arrived. The forklift took 75 bundles of foam insulation to the crane and hoisted it to our roof. The area we cleared off outside our 4th floor penthouse was the staging area for all of the supplies and equipment that the roofers brought up by crane.

A view of the extended crane from our Kitchen Deck. The deck is now crammed with trees and bushes from the Rooftop Deck.

A view from our 3rd floor Master Bedroom as the crane hoists one of the pallets of roofing supplies up to our roof

They already cut the air conditioners off from the first 3 units. (We're in the 2nd 3 units that will be worked on). Our A/C is scheduled to be shut off on the 6th or 7th depending on if all goes on schedule.

Visitor to the Kitchen Garden & Some Courtyard Photos

2007-06-04T07:33:00.001-07:00

One of the first butterflies to visit the Kitchen Deck. This butterfly was spotted on the same lantana plant two days in a row.

Below are some photos of the courtyard as seen from our Rooftop Deck. Christy Weber Landscaping does the work. The courtyard looks really nice in the spring and early summer when the purple irises bloom along with the yellow daffodils. Right now the irises are starting to fade and the hot pink rose bushes are in bloom. Soon the yellow and orange day lilies will send up their flowering stems.

We have a small section of landscaping right outside our first floor window (you can't see it in any of the pictures) that we add seasonal flowers too (tulips, lily of the valley, muscari, pansies, canna, mums, etc.).

The soil in the courtyard is HORRIBLE. When they built this place 7 years ago I heard that they just dumped construction rubble in the courtyard and covered it with a think layer of earth. That's why when you plant something you really have to water it and nurture it to get it to grow strong enough to get it's roots to move beyond the silt and rocks into the real soil.

Spent the Day Ripping up the Rooftop Deck

2007-06-03T19:49:00.000-07:00

Well, the roofers are coming tomorrow to start work on our complex. We are supposed to remove our deck and everything on the rooftop at least 48 hours before they are scheduled to begin working on our unit. They're scheduled to begin on Thursday the 7th, so we have to be cleared off by Tuesday the 5th.

We spent the entire day up on the rooftop pulling up the 300+ square feet of deck, powerwashing it, cleaning off the membrane, taking planters down to the kitchen deck and then moving the deck we're keeping into our 4th floor penthouse and cutting up the part of the deck we're throwing away.

PHOTO: cutting up the old 10'x10' section of deck into 5' sections for the garbage.

It was a PAIN! We started around 9:30 this morning and finished with the deck around 5:30 pm just as a torrential rain started to pour.

At 10 am we had a showing of our place which I had to do myself since our realtor never heard back from the buyer's realtor so she assumed they weren't confirmed. Well, they showed up at 10, so we got them to give us 20 minutes to get the place ready for a showing.

PHOTO: lifting up, cutting and cleaning the sections of the deck we're keeping

I hate the home selling process. It's so nerve wrecking! And now with this roof construction it really throws a wrench in our selling plans.

We don't want to do any showings until the construction on our section of the roof is done and we can re-lay the deck. Right now we have about 200 square feet of cedar decking inside our 4th floor penthouse along with 2 Adirondack chairs.

We wound up having to take all our furniture from the penthouse and repositioning it to other rooms throughout the house so we could make room for all the decking. So now the rest of the house looks more cramped because of the extra furniture here and there.

PHOTO:powerwashing the deck before storing it in our 4th floor penthouse

We also had to bring 3 cedar planters with 4 curly willows and 1 dogwood down from the roof to the kitchen deck. Our kitchen deck is crazy busy with plants right now.

The willow was an absolute pain to try to dig up (we had to dig the trees and bush out of the planters so that we could carry them down - too heavy if left in planters). I think it took me a good hour to just to dig the willows out of the 2 planters.

So now we're exhausted and sunburned and ready for some carry-out from Penny's Noodle Shop in Wicker Park!

Some pictures from the Kitchen Deck

2007-06-01T14:38:00.000-07:00

L to R: Greek Oregano, Potato Vine, Parsley, Sage, Genovese Basil, Thyme

My "Peach Sunrise" lantana - this one is my favorite! It looks really nice planted up with the "Diamond Frost" euphorbia and the "Oceana Blue" salvia.

My "Bandanna Red" lantanas are planted up with ornamental kale and lavender.

My "Bandanna Cherry" lantana along with the "European Uprights Juicy Tidbits" fucscia

The cherry 2 cherry tomato plants are busy making fruit!

The peas have begun to bloom!

Everything is growing very nicely. We had a nice rain last night and a few more days of rain expected over the next few days.

We had a showing this afternoon and another one scheduled for Sunday. It's very hard to keep the house spotlessly clean with a 9 month old and a floral business. (I do freelance floral design and have an event going on tomorrow).

Aside from cleaning the house, I've been busy working on centerpieces of red spray roses, purple statice, yellow alstromeria, green yoko ono mums, fresh wheat, bi-color orange/yellow mini carnations and yellow mums (the kind that look like mini-sunflowers) in rose bowls. I have 36 centerpieces, 6 presentation bouquets and 12 presentation roses to make for a graduation dinner tomorrow. Maybe I'll post some photos of the finished product tomorrow.

Did some shopping today

2007-05-30T15:34:00.001-07:00

I had some fun at Pesche's today. I walked out with:

1 "Margarita" potato vine

4 "Fresh Look Gold" celosia

3 flowering kale

2 licorice plants

"Oceana Blue" salvia

2 "Oceana Blue" salvia - this plant is just gorgeous as a vertical element in an urn
3 "Laguna Sky Blue" lobelia hybrid - great trailing plant

3 spikes

4 "Bandana Cherry" lantana - I'm already looking forward to watching the butterflies on this one!

1 "European Uprights Juicy Tidbits" fuchsia hybrid - never planted a fuchsia before...so I thought I'd get one. Maybe if I'm really ambitious I'll try to train it as a topiary.

4 "Victoria Blue" salvia farinacea

2 "Americana Pink" zonal geranium

2 "Million Bells" Calibrachoa hybrid in cherry pink and gold

4 dusty miller

2 "Sweet Caroline" ipomea (potato vine)

1 purple cosmos

"Diamond Frost" euphorbia

1 "Diamond Frost" euphorbia - so dainty! The tiny white petals really liven up any dark corner or dark container.

Some of the plants are for planters on our kitchen deck and some are a birthday present for my mother-in-law. I'm going to plant them up country garden style in a wooden planter that she had built near the stairs to her house.

I started an attempt at pulling my curly willow trees out of their planters on the roof so that we can clear off the roof for the construction crew. After numerous tries with my little hand shovel I gave up yesterday when one of the willows wouldn't budge.

I'm going to have to have pull out the full blown shovel and put my full effort into trying to pry the roots free from the container. (We lined the cedar planters with sheets of Styrofoam covered with landscaping fabric. I have a feeling the roots have intertwined themselves through the landscaper's fabric and that's why it's so difficult to dislodge them from their containers.

Let's talk about nurseries...

2007-05-29T20:28:00.001-07:00

Lantana

If I had to give you a list of my favorite area nurseries it would go something like this:

Pesche's in Des Plaines - Great selection of annuals, perennials, veggies, herbs, shrubs & trees. These people TAKE CARE of their plants. You rarely, if ever, find any under watered plants sitting around dying. The have such an enormous variety of plants! And their prices beat out any Chicago nursery.

The Oak Park Conservatory Herb and Flowering Plant Sale - Yes, it's not a nursery per se, but this annual sale is great! The plants offered are geared toward urban garden spaces & container gardens that can tolerate the Chicago climate. Prices are reasonable and varieties include many that you won't necessarily find at your neighborhood nursery or garden center. It takes place in April.
Gethsemane Garden Center in Chicago on Clark - Wonderful selection of plants and bulbs. They have a great variety of indoor/house/tropical plants. If you need a big banana plant or a citrus already producing fruit then this is the place to go!

Platt Hill Nursery in Bloomingdale - Once again - the variety is great...it's just a long drive from the city.

Walmart in Mount Prospect - If you get there within a day or two of their plant shipments you can score some great prices on really healthy vegetables & herbs, perennials, annuals and accent plants. Where else are you going to get a 6 pack of annuals at $1.29 of a decent sized Japanese Maple for $29.99?

CityScape on Lake in Chicago - What I like about this place is that they group their flowering plants by color - i.e. all yellows are grouped together. It really makes it easy to coordinate colors, but it makes finding the exact species you want difficult. Prices here are probably the highest I've seen in the city. We suspect they make most of their profit through their landscaping and professional services, not their retail operations.

Grand Street Gardens in Chicago - Good if you need to pick up plants in a pinch. The selection comes and goes. Sometimes you'll score some great looking plants, other days it looks sad. Prices are a bit high, but they carry a lot of Monrovia brand plants and cater to the urban gardener. Owner is not the friendliest person in town.

Other notables:

Grow on Damen in Chicago

Jayson Home & Garden on Clyborn in Chicago

Lurvey's Garden Center in Des Plaines

Old Town Garden Center on Wells in Chicago

So Now We're Up To Speed...

2007-05-29T17:30:00.000-07:00

Well, fast forward through the fall and winter and that brings us to this year - 2007. This is our last year living in the City of Chicago. We put the townhouse up for sale. We've started looking for a new house for our growing family. Although we love the city and our current home, we really look forward to having a house surrounded with trees and flowers.

It will be nice to wake up and see a blue jay or a cardinal outside. Right now pretty much all we see are pigeons, a resident pair of doves, and the lone robin that visits our deck.

We aren't planting up the roof deck this year because we plan to move sometime in the next few months. We emptied out the two large cedar planters and took down the lattice screens. The remaining 3 planters (which hold dogwood and curly willows) are coming down this week and being transferred to one of our parent's yards for the time being along with the Adirondack chairs.

Our association has decided to rip the roof off the entire complex and re-do the pitch since the water hasn't been draining off properly over some of the units. Therefore, we have to dismantle the roof deck and transfer it to a neighbor's roof while they work on our section in 2 weeks. That is something we're not looking forward to.

It should take 4 days for the workers to rip off the roof membrane, change the pitch, add insulation and re-roof our section. They're also taking the AC off and recharging the compressors. So no AC (with a baby in the house) for a few days! Plus they have to remove our penthouse doors & raise them to adjust for the new pitch. This is not going to be fun (especially since our house is on the market in the midst of this construction).

We did set up a bunch of containers on the kitchen deck. This year we picked up some great herbs at the Oak Park Conservatory Herb and Flowering Plant Sale. Among those plants is a striking red and gold lantana, two varieties of lavender, thyme and sage. We've got a mix of colors going this year - no particular theme - purples, yellows, reds, pinks, and whites. In that mix are:

yellow plume celosia
silver dust dusty miller
lantana (shrub verbena) in Bandanna Red and Peach Sunrise varieties
lobelia
heavenly blue morning glory
cleome (spider flower) in pink and white varieties
verbena in white, pink, red and purple
violas in purple and yellow
ornamental cabbage in lime green and purple veined
lavender in Provence and Goodwin Creek varieties
basil
thyme
Greek oregano
parsley
black sweet potato vine
rosemary
dill
sage
cherry tomatoes
poblano peppers
jalapeno peppers
common chives
garlic chives
spike plant
jasmine
hydrangea
cubanelle peppers
peas

We're still going to plant up a few more planters to fill in the sides of the deck. Perhaps some mints, licorice, calibrachoa, angel wings and geraniums to add summer long blooms.

The 3rd Summer...it's a blur

2007-05-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

Our third summer here was a blur. Although we planted up a ton of planters and veggies our garden just wasn't a top priority. Why? Because we were expecting our first baby over Labor Day weekend. The arrival of summer marked the beginning of our third trimester and was riddled with a bunch of complications and ER visits.

All I really remember is that:

we had more cherry tomatoes than we could eat at times
the rosemary and basil grew like crazy
the lantana and cleome were gorgeous

Memories of our Second Summer - Building up the Roof Deck!

2007-05-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

We spent our 2nd summer here building up the roof deck. What was once around 80 square foot of deck on the roof was expanded to a little over 300 square feet that summer. We built an expansion of decking, 5 cedar planters and cedar lattice screens to help ease the wind blasts on the roof.

This is the original part of the rooftop deck. We added the lattice screen, cedar planters, bench and chimenia this summer.

This is the part of the deck that we added on, it's over 30 feet long along our 4th floor penthouse room.

We planted some flowering red dogwood, hardy hydrangea and curly willow in the planters along the east wall. The willow was actually taken from fresh cuttings which were rooted in water over a period of a few weeks.

The planters along the north wall were planted up with coreopsis, babies breath, cosmos, morning glory, sweet peas, regular (eating) peas, eggplant, regular and cherry tomatoes, onions and even a grape vine. The northwest section of the rooftop deck is what we refered to as the "vegetable garden" since that's where we concentrated all the veggies for maximum sun exposure.

We built 2 cedar Adirondack chairs for the roof deck. (Unfortunately a few crazy hail storms over the past 2 years have left their mark on the chairs in the form of hundreds of tiny round dents). Once we move and have time we plan to sand the chairs back down to the wood and refinish them.

Memories of Our Second Summer - the Kitchen Deck

2007-05-29T15:33:00.000-07:00

Well, we bought a nice wooden patio set for the deck during our second summer here. It's served us well during all our bbq's and outdoor parties.

The flowers we planted up this year were in shades of blue, purple, orange, yellow and white. Among the plants we planted were: orange African daisies, calendula, sweet alyssum, lobelia, marigold, hydrangea, morning glory, pansies, violas, licorice and coleus. Herbs that graced our table were rosemary, basil, chives, mint, thyme oregano, parsley and green onions.

Everything grew really nicely until around the end of July when we were hit with a few weeks of extreme heat.

Memories of our First Summer

2007-05-29T15:08:00.001-07:00

We have great sunrise and and daytime views of the Chicago skyline from our rooftop deck. We'll really miss this when we move! We have a great view of the summertime Navy Pier fireworks. Sitting up on the roof deck is the perfect place to watch the Air and Water Show planes as they buzz overhead on their way toward the lakefront.

Our first summer here we still didn't have any "permanent" patio furniture (note the white resin table and chairs). We did get a nice little wooden potting table and a bunch of window box planters to put along the ledge of the kitchen deck. We planted those up with butterfly bush, Joe Pye weed, mums, and some annuals. It wasn't anything too exciting that first summer, but we sure did get a lot of butterflies visiting our little garden!

We are definately going to plant some butterfly bush and Joe Pye weed in our new backyard. It's such a pleasure to sit outside reading or enjoying a cup of coffee in the morning while butterflies dance around your as they make their way from one flowerhead to the next!

Even though we moved in during the middle of the summer we managed to get some cherry tomatoes to grow in one of our deck boxes. Over the years we learned that the tomatoes preferred the northwest wall of our roof deck over the kitchen deck because the roof obviously got more sun exposure. It's a challenge growing tomatoes (or any vegetable) on the roof though - containers dry out a lot faster up there than on the 2nd floor deck because of greater wind and sun exposure.

Enjoying our Last City Summer

2007-05-29T14:37:00.000-07:00

So, we've lived in our current Chicago townhome for the past 4 years and now we're ready to move to the Northwest Suburbs. It's time for a backyard (and a front yard)! For the past 4 years we've been limited to container gardening on our 2nd floor deck and our 4th floor rooftop deck. It's been quite a learning experience and a challenge to container garden in the "Windy City". I can't remember how many times I've found one or two of my containers shattered to pieces in the alley after a windy storm.

Although I love container gardening, I'm really looking forward to being able to plant perennials and bulbs in the ground and not worry about them freezing over the winter like most of the ones that were in my containers have done.

Our first year here we basically started with a new slate - an empty kitchen deck and roof deck with amazing skyline views.

The photo above is the previous owner's table and empty pots on the kitchen deck before she moved out.