Sunlight and Shadow

Picture Sunday: Blue Skies

Breathe

Light and Space

When I saw this picture in my mind's eye, I knew I loved the play of light it evoked; so much so that I took several shots and have played with them digitally.

This rusty fire escape is almost sculptural art.  It was intended to be strictly utilitarian back in 1915 when the two-story building was built in my village.  Now largely deemed as probably unsafe for use, and as the second story of this now antique type store is largely unused, I hope no one has the idea to remove it.

I think I tend to find those utilitarian items imbued with a functional beauty to be the most powerful art in a personal garden, unless the gardener is also a sculptor or visual artist of some sort.  While some gardeners are, most aren't; which leaves them prey to the siren song of all sorts of poorly made commercial garden ornamentation.

Okay, trying to do a butterfly garden, aren't we all?

Tea anyone?

Cute the first time I saw it.  No longer.

Sight lines, anyone?

Stop already!

So how do we incorporate beauty and light and design in the the utilitarian layout of our gardens?

They got it right at Johnson Nursery in Menomonee, WI with this retainment pond.

They even did a nice job with this dry stream bed/rain garden on one side of the path...

...not so much with the origin on the other side. 

Three large boulders set into the ground a bit at the base of what I think I remember to be a flowering crab would have been much more appealing than the small stones.  The tiled stonework floats over some culvert type passage for water run-off.  A flat stone approximately 18" high to provide impromptu seating in a garden or yard under a shade tree might be appreciated by any gardener whether to actually sit a moment or to visually take in the garden in a quiet moment.

These are both example of utilitarian items in a garden which bring more beauty than most garden art.

Go big...or just keep weeding.

White-lined Sphinx Moth

White-line Sphinx moth also known as the hummingbird moth feeding on phlox.  It ignored obedient plant, checked out laurentia, and nudged my fuschia.  It kept coming back to the phlox, however.  I've seen a lot of these this year.  I probably had the caterpillar hatch out as I had a number of their caterpillars' favorite foods.

The caterpillars of this species eat these things, most of which I have in my garden.   Luckily, I never saw one of these caterpillars because they're pretty ugly!

• Willow weed (Epilobium)
• Four o'clock (Mirabilis jalapa)
• Apple (Malus)
• Evening primrose (Oenothera)
• Elm (Ulmus)
• Grape (Vitis)
• Tomato (Lycopersicon)
• Purslane (Portulaca)
• Fuchsia

What's Blooming in My Central Wisconsin Garden?

Wood's Pink Aster

Clockwise from upper left: Aster Alma Potschske, mountain mint, sedum 'Xenox', obedient plant, green seed pods of turtle head

Clematis 'Sweet Autumn'

Seed heads of echinea nitidi and the last of the trumpet vine flowers.  Saw a hummingbird today(9/24/2013)!

Aster, I think 'October Skies'

I've had this "identified as 'Clara Curtis' daisy...

...and this also.  Two completely different plants, the first is more aster-like, this one is more like an anthemis.

An unidentified lilac aster; it is tall, pale, without a differentiated center.

Rebloom on the possible Eden rose

Solidago 'Fireworks'

Gaura and sedum 'Neon'

Filipendula still looking interesting.

Late-blooming lancifolia hosta

So Which Daylilies Did I Select?

My photo of a photo taken by Dr. Darrel Apps of 'North Wind Dancer' (Schaben, 2001).  All the pictures of daylilies in this post are pictures of a picture taken by Dr. Apps, unless otherwise noted.

There were quite a few "Goings-on" in my neck of the Central Wisconsin "New North" this weekend.  For area gardeners, we have had a couple pretty cold "cover up your coleus and clip your basil" sort of cold nights; not the "Run, run-- collect all the cukes and tomatoes" sort.  We also had the opportunity to select from some truly superior sorts of modern daylilies from the hybridizer, Dr. Darrel Apps, who as a member of the local Kiwanis, donated daylilies to their fund raiser held in conjunction with the Classic Car Show Pancake Breakfast.

With 70 different selections, the choice was difficult.  That pale yellow spider on the far right was not among my selections, but would have been a nice addition to my long border. (My photo.)

Dr. Darrel Apps, daylily hybridizer and Kiwanis member.  (My photo.)

So what did I select?

Looking for Something to Do This Weekend? Come to Wild Rose, WI!

Calling all gardeners, weekend road-trippers, and classic car buffs!  This weekend it is time to combine all three!

As I primarily blog about gardening, I'll start there.  Dr. Darrel Apps, the famed daylily hybridizer, my neighbor, and local Kiwanis member is donated 70 different selections of daylilies to a Kiwanis fundraiser held on Saturday (9/21/13) morning 7:30 to 10:30 at the Lions' Building just south of Wild Rose on State Highway 22.  These daylilies are "modern" daylilies (he uses this phrase here locally, because when the locals think daylilies, they almost invariably think "ditch lilies", (a name Dr. Apps abhors).

The one thing a daylily breeder never has enough of is space.  He is cleaning out his plot of everything of which the results was similar to an already patented  cultivar, dividing out cultivars he uses for breeding and grow like gangbusters and are eating up his breeding plot's real estate, or plants he just doesn't need at this point in his breeding program.  These are the same sorts of flower sold in the White Flower Farms breeders collections of daylilies.  And, actually, a lot of those sold in the White Flower Farms catalog when Dr. Apps was at Bridgeton, NJ were his.  Now, he is here in Wild Rose.  They will be sold mostly as two fan divisions, starting at $3, going up to $10 for things like divisions of breeders' plants which would normally sell for hundreds of dollars.

I've got my eye on a few fans of this dark one!

The fans will all be labeled with color, height, and other growing information, and a name if it has one.  If you buy an unnamed one you can name it in your garden yourself!

Next, there is the Classic Car Show and Cruise.  I have lots of details on the home page of the village's website.  It's on Friday Night, and starts at the Wild Rose Elementary School, winds up on Main Street, where it is followed by a free street dance and live music.  Our Main Street is lined with over 50 scarecrow exhibits this year.  These are incredible and nearly worth the drive in themselves.

This is followed by a Saturday full of  fun: the free car show, pancake breakfast, activities for the kids... Lots to do.  If pancakes didn't fill you up, have lunch at one of our restaurants on Main Street and walk it off chatting with the scarecrows.  (We'll never tell!)

And, if you need a quiet moment to contemplate nature, take a stroll around our Mill Pond on our Boardwalk, or hop in the car and take the six mile trip over to Covered Bridge Road and the Springwater Volunteer Covered Bridge.

It's definitely worth a road trip!  Everyone here hopes to see you around!

Silly Things Which Bring Joy

Every time I look at this picture, it makes me happy.  The bright blue of the sky, the bright white of the PVC, and those few drops of moisture dripping from the outlet...

Before Handsome Son left for college this summer, he helped me to install some guttering over the entrance to my house I use most often.  It may seem like a little thing, but it exactly the sort of job that never gets done.  What contractor would come out and hang 10' of gutter?

Without it, each fall and spring when the heavy rains leading into ice and snow and eventual winter come to central Wisconsin the rain comes off the house in sheets, drenching me as I jiggle my key in the lock, forming a huge ice dam and skating rink on my deck.  I have to keep my wits about me taking Faithful Companion out for a walk or any sudden yank on the lease could spell a perilous fall.

This year, it's not going to happen.

You'll notice we did not add a downspout.  I may regret that, but I left the option open to create a one of a kind rain chain.  Maybe I'll even look for an interesting, large, concave rock to form some sort of Zen-like splash.

The artistic options simply abound.

Considering how this utilitarian item made of PVC (ick!) will bring me no little amount of Joy is astounding.

What small thing could bring you Joy?

Bee Hanging Around

A fairly docile bee just hanging around on my garden trellis this morning (9/3/13) when the temperatures were less than 60 degrees.  Just hanging around got her captured so I could take a nice close look.

I know, the picture on the trellis was clearer...for you, but watching her in the jar was fun, for a while.  I sure hope she didn't get a good look at me.

Pine Gone!

Where the big gap in the border is, once stood my 15' Austrian black pine.

It's Saturday, a day when many tackle the to-do list that has been building for a week or more.  This morning, it looks like we might get some fierce pop-up thunderstorms.  We could use the rain.  I think the last time it really rained here was the beginning of August.  I know, because it was torrential when my village board meeting was done and I had opted to walk to it instead of drive.

Noah (NOAA.gov) says otherwise.  "Noah" says this or Noah said that.  Friends and family kindly reminds me another Noah built an ark.  I am watering.  Later, Faithful Companion will supervise as I mow the lawn that doubles as my garden paths.  It is lush and green.  While I don't water the lawn per se, it gets a lot of moisture and is sheltered from the sun by my borders.  My lawn is lush and green, and has too much clover in it for my liking, but green.  It is nice to sit on, unlike the lawns once I leave my street.  The lawns here benefit from having gardeners in attendance and even the busiest drag out the hose and turn on the sprinklers.

Two years in a row of drought, although this year is misleading with our milder temperatures.  Last year it was hard to keep up with the endless watering and many private wells were tested, and failed.

For the past year, I have been tackling a much broader scope of gardening to-dos.  My garden has plateaued and as every gardener knows, gardens are about change.  Whether it is the bloom cycle or the growth of shrubs and trees, changing shade and sun patterns as the seasons change, change in a garden is a constant.  Big, sudden changes are sometime difficult for us to envision.   If you had proposed to me a year ago I would have decided to remove my small pine in my back yard, I would have given you a perplexed look.

I have always admired the Austrian black pines in expansive landscapes of stately homes in expensive neighborhoods in Illinois.  I admired their form, lushness, and how they are pines "all the way to the ground".  This last may seem an odd comment, until you realize I was surrounded with "self-trimming" Jack (red pines) and white pines most of my life.  These pines constantly lose their branches one after another from the ground up, growing 40' or 50' in as many years and retaining branches on only the top 20' or 30'.

This year, my neighbors sided the garage with this nice vinyl in an appealing shade.  Suddenly, screening the view wasn't super-important.  With siding, I could consider the fence extending all the way to the garage, not needing to consider access for painting.  My mind just keep moving from there.  That Bloodgood seedling with the interesting leaves, now nearly four feet tall could have its own space, not just tucked in a holding space pretending to be a colorful perennial, as it matured enough to fight it out on its own...and how nice would its foliage look against that sage-y green!

So, on Thursday, my brother, the Gardening Twins, and Baby Boo came to cut down the pine, pick apples and make pizza.  My brother chided me on not moving it to his place five years ago, where sap suckers could have at while it held down visual real estate in a much larger frame dividing his historical property from train and interstate.  "Can't we still figure out how to move it?"  I gave him that look; it's 15' tall!  (I'd already dealt with my angst and its issues many times.)

We had a moment to consider in silence, and then cut it down piece by piece in sections, gave it due homage, counting its rings, admiring its lushness at the top branches, and carefully piled its branches in a huge convex stack.

Other changes in my garden this week!

Honeycrisp apples are ripe!  My tree has been loaded this year.  I should have thinned the apples, but I have been doing extra watering to cover my lapse in judgment!

Sweet Autumn clematis began to bloom this week!

I hadn't really noticed it before, but at least this calibrachoa appears to close at night.

This is the fourth year for this plant orange-flowering Hardy Hummingbird Trumpet, Zauschneria californica ssp. latifolia (There are a couple different common and Latin names for this!) in my garden.  It must be well-placed as it is typically given a zone 6 or 7 rating.  Monrovia considers it hardy to zone 8!  Mine does go dormant and is slow to get going, but is not unsightly while thinking about it.  It looks great planted in this scree area with the fescue 'Elijah Blue'.

Japanese False Cypress or Boulevard Cypress is looking particularly good this year.

After believing this smokebush 'Nordine' dead early this June and cutting the thing to the ground shortly thereafter, it has regrown to the height it had attained last year.  This years color has been remarkable and intense, but the trade-off was no "smoke".

Just a note, these last three plants are all a bit out of their zone, growing in my garden.