Clematis and other Climbers at the Chicago Botanical Gardens

Clemartis 'Josephine' with a climbing rose. The double blooms of 'Josephine' are more noticeable at bottom center of picture.









A white clematis, possibly 'Guyere'


A Jackamanii-style clematis




Akebia quinata adding a structural quality to this wall. I am sure they must prune it weekly!

One thing they do really well is pick out the right clematis to showcase at the Chicago Botanical Gardens (CBG). If you are in the upper Midwest you might want to take a peak at the results of their study to pick the best clematis for the region.

Clematis take time, as do many climbers. Is is certainly no accident that my favorite climbers were also well represented in the CBG. I did not see the orange honeysuckle which blooms nearly all summer in my garden, but as it can have invasive qualities, most likely in areas to our south, I can understand its omission as it is stunning. I'm sure the CBG doesn't want to promote anything possibly invasive.

In my own garden in addition to the orange honeysuckle, I have akebia quinata, sweet autumn clematis, dutchman's pipe, clematis 'Josephine', 'Comtesse du Bouchard', and 'c. texensis 'Diana'.

Weddings, June, Roses...and Don't Forget the Shoes!

I definitely recommend comfortable shoes while touring the Chicago Botanical Gardens. For some, this means wearing flip flops and carrying in the stiletto heels for those once in as a lifetime photo shoots of your life's happily ever after story.



There were minimally eight different bridal parties making good use of the gardens a a backdrop for weddings and untold engagement pictures. Those were almost as easy to spot as the weddings, bride- and groom-to-be arm in arm, her heels dangling from a fingertip and the heavily-camera laden photographer trailing in their wake.

This bride looked every inch the model bride, not the bridezilla version, in her organza and ostrich feather creation. She looked like a swan searching for open water.



And oh! Those shoes!


The dress the bridesmaids, who could have come from central casting, I swear, all a size 6; actually landed a dress they could have worn again, and probably will. My photos do not do the mauve gray tones justice. The cut and line of them-- fantastic!


Surprisingly, the placement of the zipper makes the dress!

I don't think the photographer had to work too hard with this bridal party! It seemed right down to the weather, this bride had every detail perfect in its implementation.

Time to Answer Search Queries...and then more from the CBG

Two questions have come up in search queries for this blog. I thought I would pause and answer those questions just in case the people searching are still looking for answers (as so many of us are!)

Question #1: How far can I plant a willow (or insert any living plant) from my drainage (septic, drain) field?

I wrote an entry about disguising a drain field. Who knew there are so many questions out there about them! I also sit on the village board and we often talk about the sewer system (I'm on the committee...the "s--- committee"!) Some trees, particularly maples, box elders, willows, pines are always scoping out soil for more water. As a semi-pro horticulturalist, I get paid to garden; I know there are a fair amount of root within the drip line of the tree's crown. I also know we see maple root working themselves into clay drain tile in the village sewer system. We actually sent tiny video cameras into the sewer pipes to look! Bleech! I have also seen my huge white pine roots in the soil around the farthest corner of my tiny house-- a distance about 45 feet outside the crown's drip line.

If I were a property owner I would not plant a tree or shrub anywhere near a drain field. I have planted prairie plants, perennials, annuals, and bulbs over drain fields to good effect. All said, if you are absolutely driven to plant that shrub or tree, stay away from willows, pines, maples, box elders; and stay at least the distance of the mature crown's diameter outside the drain field.

Question #2: Is the peeling bark on my grapes normal?

Completely normal! First year bark is smooth and very supple. As the main stem achieves maturity it loses this suppleness (a little like this gardeners knees!) and becomes more tree-like. Remember, some grape vines in France and California are as much as 400 years old and the main trunks look more like trees than vines. The picture above shows a grape vine that is probably ten to twenty years old. I saw it at the Chicago Botanical Garden this last Saturday in the small fruits area.

Pictures of More Great Roses at the Chicago Botanical Gardens

Incredible Roses at the Chicago Botanical Garden

I can recognize this rose from a quarter mile away. There is only one red rose like 'Champlain' from the Canadian Explorer series. The sun was pretty bright, and given its location and my desire to capture the impact of the billowing red rose skirting the tree, I have failed to capture the impact and beauty of this rose. I encourage anyone looking for a good red rose to try 'Champlain'.


'Lavaglut'


'Henri Martin'


As I mentioned, most of the roses were well-named and tags placed so I could get a decent picture and the label. I don't know which rose this is. I'm going to blame myself for not looking and photographing the name. I'd bet the name was right there at the time.

'Gourmet Popcorn'




'Ballerina'


'Dainty Bess'


Cabbage Rose, an heirloom rose

Working It

A busy bee working it on moss rose 'Henri Martin'.

After nearly a week of rain here in central Wisconsin, totaling more than 12 inches, the clouds have parted and that big yellowy orb has made an appearance. Am I out in the garden frantically pulling weeds from the soft brown soil? Nope, I am the en route gardener with that dangerous tool, a microphone, for a tour group bound for Chicago's Botanic Garden (CGB). I am working it doing a question and answer on gardening, and talking about favorite garden tools, sights at the Botanic Garden, and chatting up gardeners and garden-lovers alike.

Hey, I had a great time. The group was great, the garden was great, the tour organizer was wonderful, and I took over 530 pictures of garden-related photos. Yes, that's not an errant zero, 530-some pictures.

Best of all, I quipped to the group, these gardens are weeded ahead of me!

It takes a while to wrap my head around that many images. Some are of the labels are of plants on which I want more information. Other than my shovel, my camera, as I told the group, is how I document everything garden-related. Like I told the folks on the bus, some gardeners keep notebooks filed with meticulous notes-- I'm not one of those! Photos downloaded each day into default date folders show me what was blooming and when, and pictures of labels before the photographed plant give me the details as to what that cultivar is.

Other pictures are the tour people, and then there are those of that wedding with the incredible lilac-gray sheath dresses and hooker heels, with the bride done up in feathers looking like a swan ready to float away on a cloud of happiness with her groom. (That was one sensational-looking wedding party!)

The CBG has a great rose garden, which is at the peak of its grandiflorific, flouribundtaculous glory. I know I can't grow half these varieties just 160 miles north, here in central Wisconsin, but it is fun to dream.

The pinetum and the greenhouse gardens were fantastic, too. The fruit and vegetable gardens had a lot of ideas to share with the home gardener. Since my last visit, a number of years ago, the CGB has upped the ante with labeling and growing information signage which is a great thing to see. Not only can I see the great results of their labor,but I can note which varieties are doing really great for them and try them in my gardens, too. And, better still, I don't have to hunt down a garden worker to find out that not only am I unfamiliar with a cultivar, but they don't know what it is either (which I have had happen on more than one occasion here in Wisconsin).

Needless to say, I could not, nor did I attempt to see it all, I had only just over four and a half hours to spend there. the weather was wonderful, not too hot, not sunny. It did not rain! My feet ached, but my soul was plant happy.

So as the primers I teach from when I substitute teach during the school year say, "More to come..." I'll try to share in the coming posts some of these great pictures, including those of that fabulous wedding party (one of at least eight I noticed having pictures done that day at the garden).

When I got home, the post mistress had delievered the awaited parts for the Mantis tiller. Tomorrow, weeds, I am coming for you!

Manly Plants

Does Angelica gigas qualify as a "manly plant"? It has a six or seven foot fluorescence on a stalk emerging from basal foliage...

In the background of any blog, the bloggers can see those things for which readers of their blog are searching. Another blogger I follow recently wrote a blog about whether wisteria beans were edible. They're not. In fact they are poisonous. The wisteria beans probably won't kill you, but they will make you sick. She ended with " Bad dog, SPIT!"

These days, everyone certainly needs a sense of humor. Here in Wisconsin, half the people you ask will probably tell you our Governor is decidedly a very bad joke. So when I saw that a reader was looking for "manly plants" I just had to share my "wild and crazy" thoughts with you readers.

"Manly plants."

It conjures up some strange SNL skit where 1980s comedians Steve Martin and whoever sidekick of the day enter a present day big box store dressed in shiny, metallic-colored glamfab costumes, and with a rolling gait walk over to a pimpled saleskid holding a garden hose too long on some sedum or Mediterranean heat-loving herbs, while checking his iPhone for text messages.

"Oh, Nursery Expert, we have heard gardening is hot, hot, hot; and we hot guys would like to start a garden with real Manly Plants. What do do you suggest?"

The HD saleskid clone certainly doesn't have a clue to that one. Looking quickly left and right and seeing no supervisor in sight, he realizes he is on his own.

And that's where I have to leave this skit.

What are manly plants? Do we follow the Tim Allen sitcom thoughts and pile tons of lawn seed, lawn weed and feed, trimmers, hedgers, and mowers, all with "more power", into our comedians' baskets?

Or, are the ingredients for a super hot, blistering chili: onion sets, jalapeno peppers, Roma tomatoes, and habanero peppers; manly plants?

I know quite a few men who garden. I would guess male professional horticulturalists outnumber women. The two best gardens on last weekend's Outagamie Master Gardeners Garden Walk were the work of men. I hope stereotypes like manly plants or the idea of plants marketed for men, or women, have no place in horticulture.

Talking About the Weather

Wegelia 'Carnaval'

Yesterday, we had 4 inches of rain. Tuesday we had 4 inches of rain. It is raining yet again today. The normal amount for June for our area is about 2.89. In Green Bay, they have had only double that. I haven't checked, but I think we had measurable rain nearly every day in May.

Yesterday morning, I got my corded electric lawn mower and trimmer out and finished the back yard-- barely. The grass was still damp and it was raining when I finished. I did not trim my hedges, nor mow my front yard. I heard many gas-powered mowers coughing away at many other very damp, over-grown yards.

Last night, driving to my brother's, the ditches were roiling with running water.

Many property owner are cursing the rain and damp. Winter was rough on our homes. We have yet to have had enough dry, warm weather to paint and spruce up our homes.

Fields are too wet for farmers to get out to cultivate.

It has been a wet, wet, cold spring, and now a cool, ten degrees below normal cool, summer.

Potatoes planted late do look good. They seemed to have raced to get caught up with their late May 1 planting date. Many fields are coming into bloom. Last year, I had some very large potatoes. When I cut them open, I found them to be hollow, having sucked up to much water, much too fast. These potatoes do not keep well.

Traveling north to Clintonville Tuesday, I saw several recently planted corn fields. These were corn fields planted with rows maybe a foot a part and heavily planted; with the farmer acknowledging his crop would not make ear corn, but rather silage; that fermented, unripe chopped corn and stalk roughage for winter cattle food.

After getting the rewind spring and fixing my string cord, and changing out my spark plug, I was able to get my Mantis tiller to run a scant couple hours before the rains begin. I was not able to finish cultivating the family garden. I fear the weeds. If there is weed seed in the soil of the family garden, with this rain, it will germinate.

There are parts of the family garden I did not manage to plant because of the rains. These will be able to be tilled without regard for crops and perhaps planted with a second fall crop. Where transplants were planted, most rows were mulched with compost, wood chips, or shredded paper. Many of our transplants, particularly heat lovers, were planted through landscape fabric. Cabbage had landscape fabric laid down on each side of the row. I tilled 80% of the berry plot and potatoes rows, before the tiller became uncooperative.

This weekend we are looking to dry out a bit. Hopefully, Sunday, the sun will shine and the tiller will cooperate, and the weeds will DIE!

Gardening and Community

Community gardening plots by Goodwill in Outagamie County


A raised bed stringed off in the "square-foot garden" style

One of the gardens featured on the Outagamie Master Gardeners Garden Walk was a garden at the Goodwill Industries Menasha . The purpose of their garden as stated on the linked site is :

"Community Garden Partnership provides opportunities for diverse groups
to share their experiences and knowledge with other gardeners
at a variety of community locations while also promoting such
things as self-sufficiency, environmental stewardship, creation
of healthy civic space, and donations to food banks."

When I visited the Community Garden the docent from the Master Gardeners organization quoted that phrase for me pretty much verbatim. He intended to be my guide through the garden. I really didn't need a guide to help me keep my feet off the tomatillos and didn't want to get into my own back story, so I told him my son and I would be fine on our own.

It was probably rude. My son told me I was and probably hurt his feelings. He probably had had very few visitors all day and wanted to do his part to contribute. We did sit down at the picnic table when we were done and chat up him and his fellow docent, because then, I did have some questions.

The garden is roped off into 10' x 10' squares. In the small space the entire plot envelopes, the soil type changes radically on a sharp diagonal line from a sandy loam to clay. It is in the shadow of a major highway and lots of developed and black-topped areas. I would assume some topsoil may have been hauled in for lawn at some point accounting for this major demarcation.

To further cut down on growing space there are tiny foot paths around the raised beds in any gardener's plot. It appears one Gardener took his entire plot and planted 10' rows of sweet potatoes. Then, in an act of gardening outside the lines, planted hills of corn just outside his stringed partition.

The plot with the biggest tomatoes, and best looking everything else was using commercial synthetic fertilizers and had recently dusted his cucumbers (or more likely zucchini) with Sevin (which is not an organic pesticide, and while it is decidedly a chemical that can get the job done, is not a favorite of mine).

There were no cabbage, no greens (other than what appeared to be a self-seeded Asian mustard from a previous year's community garden), no potatoes, no chard, no beets, no other Asian veggies, no peas, no carrots, no radishes, and no herbs.

There was corn, planted outside the lines and corn planted in the square-foot garden.

There were tomatoes, although they either looked pretty rough and so tiny that with our weather time for fruiting will be doubtful; or looked like ones bought potted and ready to bloom and planted last week.

There were beans. There was one gardener who erected hooped wire fencing over his beds for some sort of vertical gardening.

There were lots of weeds and little well-worked soil. There were few labels other than "yellow beans" or "tomato".

In other words, the gardens provided little information and looked a bit rough.

In addition to providing food for gardeners and food pantries, the gardens are supposed to be a way to share knowledge from newbies from experienced gardeners and tips on different methods from peer to peer.

I didn't see a lot of anything I would want to try.

The raised beds weren't really "raised". More, they were just sort of "boxed". The purpose of a raised bed is to provide a fluffy, improved soil bed and/or bring up the level of a bed to allow less enabled gardeners better access and ergonomic position while gardening. It seems the beds there missed all that.

I also had the obvious misconception that the gardens would be touting environmentally sustainable practices. There was no composting being done or being used. There was no community compost pile.

When I spoke to the docents, they told me that when the community garden idea was put together the organizers felt they could not put any limitations on organic versus synthetic. I totally get that, but I was hoping minimally for some sustainable methods.

Another aspect that bothered me, in regards to the teaching aspect was lack of identification of varietal types. Personally, I feel this is the biggest challenge to gardeners. In zone 4, I feel we are often just lumped in with the greater Midwest which is predominantly zone 5-7 and sent transplants that do well in the region versus our local area.

When I expressed my concern over the loss of varietal information for plants that will reliably do well here, the elder docent (who was a Master Gardener) replied, "Generally, regardless how well any particular vegetable does a gardener will get enough produce overall to make the garden worthwhile."

This response floored me. If early settlers to Wisconsin in any area had zero germination for their 'Jubilee' sweetcorn, as I did this year, they couldn't run out to the seed store and reliable buy more seed the next year. If their potato crop developed late blight, there was starvation.

This is a little like the "Let them eat cake attitude" which has gotten politicians the world over in hot water or worse. It is a bit like the attitude prevalent after Katrina. "They" were warned, why didn't "they" leave. It was the poorer people with no big SUVs, credit cards, and more importantly cash nor "place to leave to" that stayed behind in New Orleans. Policy makers not of that socio-economic group didn't understand why "they" would stay.

Fortunately, I can run out the next spring and buy some other sweet corn seed, but if I wanted to eat local and had planted only 'Jubilee', I wouldn't be eating sweetcorn this year. By the way, although it is not a crop yet, I did get great germination from sweetcorn 'Early Sunglow, even with our cold, wet spring.

I will go back and check out this community garden sometime late July, and other community gardens in the Fox Valley because gardening is a learning and growing experience.

My Beets, So Far, and the Potager

Burpee's Golden Beets

In addition to the family garden, I have every spare inch in my own yard planted with fruits and berries and salad fixings. My one big space splurge is the short row of potatoes, they need some space.



















Honeysuckle


Lettuce 'Butterhead'


Strawberries 'Honeoye' with a garlic scape in foreground


Edamame, finally coming up. Edible soybeans are a lot slower to germinate than I would think.


Makeshift fencing around four blueberry bushes in the potager, 'Yukon Gold' potatoes, carrots 'Little Fingers' and leaf lettuce
Soil to right has been replanted with some rutabagas and a second planting of radishes.






'William Baffin' rose showing sawfly damage

Containers: Tiny Gardens

Gardening on a small scale was a big part of the Outagamie Master Gardeners Garden Walk. There were lots of examples of tiny gardens which were quite well done.

Funky Garden Art

Yesterday, I went to the Outagamie County Master Gardeners Garden Walk. I took over seventy pictures of everything that caught my eye. Garden Walks are brain candy for gardeners, arm-chair and dirt gardeners alike. So I'm sure my next few posts will include lots of pictures, ideas, and thoughts on these gardens.

I will say, I've given small tours of my yard, but I have never groomed it to a level of a garden walk garden. Never at any given time have I had all my beds weed-free, edged, deadheaded, and mulched within an inch of their lives. Today, my small amount of lawn needs a serious trim. It it raining again this morning and I have social get-togethers the rest of the day. Lawn mowing is not going to happen, not with an electric lawn mower.

The first garden I will profile was by and far my favorite. This was a house where the gardeners certainly knew a thing or two about gardening. It was the garden on a small lot that hosted a grand old Victorian house built in a wonderful style. It was easily three stories and featured, probably a first level parlour with a bump out of five or six rectangular windows that I imagine encased a window seat. As we were leaving my son looked up and saw tomatoes growing in pails on a deck (that was little more than flat roof) on the second floor.

Similar to my house in Elgin, where I hung a stone woman within a huge, heavy grapevine wreath as an guardian spirit, this house had a green man hung under the eaves as its portal spirit.





I've always been a fan of bottle trees, especially ones featuring blue glass bottles. This one is easier than most to build as it is simply rebar stuck into the ground in a sculptural way. For some of you, collecting the colored bottles will be the fun part (Hopefully, not too many of your trees feature all small brown and clear bottles, unless they are Leinenkugels!)



A lot of the bird feeding art featured copper plumbing pipe and blue glass.


I've always thought these old exhaust vents would make great garden art!



These last pictures show their night lighting, and pay homage to early rural electrification, and were funky beyond what I've seen. I don't think my pictures capture their cleverness. For that, I would probably need to photograph them at night when they are lit after I had added a bottle to their bottle tree.