A Little Garden Art

This weekend I attended my first-ever garden walk. I had such a wonderful time I'm inviting you to come along from the comfort of your home. As blog slide shows go, it's a bit long, but I've already paid for your ticket, you won't be hot and sweaty, and you won't even need a hat.

This was the Union Street Gallery's sixth annual garden walk. This year's theme was A Little Garden Art. There were ten gardens on the walk. I made it to seven, and photographed six. I hope you'll join me on this visit to a few of south suburban Chicago's lovely gardens.

Nasties on the Move

After producing two blooms last month, the nasties weren't budding or blooming. It's been a little challenging finding a sunny enough spot for them, and last week I moved them back to the veggie garden where those two buds were produced. Although the foliage seems less happy with the heat and sun in this spot, the nasties are budding again. Maybe we'll have a few blooms to show off for Bloom Day next week!

Sorry for the tardy post - work, the holiday, and a hospitalized relative took priority over blogging.

I'm growing Nasturtium "Spitfire" for the GROW project. Thanks to Renee's Garden for the seeds.

Sunday Gloves

Her name evokes memories of growing up in the early-to-mid 1960's, back when ladies young and old dressed in their Sunday best for church. Proper attire included hats or lacy mantillas, dresses or skirts, (females wearing slacks, or, gasp. . . jeans were unheard of in church,) "dress" shoes, (mine were patent leather,) and of course, pristine, pure white gloves.

'Sunday Gloves' is no ordinary daylily. Her very fragrant, creamy white blooms are over five inches across. and she's a rebloomer. Added to the garden five years ago, this is the first time she's bloomed. She's been moved three times at season's end in search of a sunny enough spot, most recently last fall.

Eureka! We've found the sweet spot, and finally patience and determination are rewarded. Isn't she lovely?

Wildflower Wednesday - Indian Pinks

Although not thought to be native in the northern part of the state, Spigelia marilandica, commonly known as Indian pink or woodland pinkroot is native to moist woodlands in Illinois, and much of the southeast United States.

With our rainy spring, this year it's growing in moist soil. Last summer, its first here, it thrived even our typically dry shade garden. Since it was new, it received supplemental watering every week we didn't have a good, soaking rain.

Indian pinks are slow to emerge in spring, and I'm glad I left last year's dead stems. The stems are sturdy, even a little woody, making it easy to find even though it's a late sleeper. Indian Pinks grow to 1-2 feet tall with a spread of up to 1-1/2 feet, and are hardy in zones 5a to 9b.

The tubular crimson blooms with their sunny yellow throats and star-shaped lobes are an excellent source of nectar for hummingbirds when they bloom in June. Operation Rubythroat lists this sweet wildflower as one of the top ten native hummingbird plants.

(Gratuitous Hummingbird video ;)

The seeds ripen in July, when the capsules become black on top and black-green on the bottom. Within a day or two of ripening, the capsules explode and the seeds scatter. We had no seedlings this year, so once they're finished blooming I'll try the pantyhose trick, wrapping some of the capsules in a piece of old hose to capture some seeds.

Indian pinks aren't easy to find in nurseries. I found this one last summer during a visit to Gethsemane Garden Center with my fellow Chicago Spring Fling Organizers. I'm glad it was in bloom at the time. I may not otherwise have noticed it among all the wonderful plants Gethsemane stocks.

Wildflower Wednesday is the brainchild of garden blogger extraordinaire, Gail at Clay and Limestone. For more native plants posts, hurry on over and visit her blog today!

June Bloom Day

It's hard to believe it's already mid-June - time for Garden Blogger's Bloom Day, when garden bloggers around the globe play show and tell with what's blooming in their gardens on the 15th of each month. June has been by turns, hot, humid, and sunny, other times, cool, humid, and rainy. It's been one of those Junes when we've had plenty of rain, and even the pots have needed little to no supplemental watering.

This pot was overwintered in the basement, primarily for the geranium, (in the center of the pot, budding.) The surprise here is the Spring Fling petunia (swag from Proven Winners.) I never expected it to be happy in the basement over the winter. I had cut it back severely, and left it in the pot to see what would happen. THIS is what happened! The geranium looks a bit lost, and the petunia spread, rooting itself in three places in the pot, making a nice second-year memento of Chicago Spring Fling.

Rocky Mountain columbine is almost finished. Columbines have been blooming here since early April.

I tried Diamond Frost euphorbia for the first time in the center of a few double impatiens baskets a few years ago. They're overwintered in the basement too. Each year they get larger and more glorious, blooming sweetly and adding their airy loveliness in pots and hanging baskets, and even in the ground. Easy-care, drought-tolerant and blooming well even in our dry shade, they're favorites here.

Happy returns daylilies start blooming in late May, and have continued, with intermittent rests through frost. Last season they never rested. I hope for the same performance this year.

Walker's Low catmint is nice, but a bit too large, sprawling, and spreading for this spot. This is Nepeta x faassenii 'Blue Wonder.' Shorter than Walker's Low by at least a foot, it blooms respectably in part sun.

I love Dragon wing begonias. A cross between wax and angel wing begonias, they have nice foliage, graceful form, and bloom all season. There are a few here that are overwintered indoors, where they continue the show until they're cut back in winter. Within weeks, they're blooming again.

Penstemon 'Husker Red' was moved last fall. This spot is (normally) a little sunnier than where they were before. They're happier and more upright than they were in their previous spot.

Indian Pinks are natives. New to the garden last year, I fell in love with their unique, adorable blooms when the Chicago Spring Fling committee got together last summer for a reunion lunch date and trip to Gethsemane Garden Center on Chicago's north side.

Speaking of Spring Fling, I was inspired by alliums in the gardens we visited. I'd never grown them here - didn't think they'd be happy with so little sun. The purples are finished blooming, and their seedheads are wonderful. The whites, whose foliage is nicer than the purples, are just getting started. Time will tell if we have enough sun to keep them happily blooming in future years.

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'Rozanne' is my favorite geranium. It starts blooming in late May here, and will continue non-stop until frost. I love long-blooming perennials, especially those that are happy in our mostly-shady garden.

It's been a wonderful spring for astilbes with all the rain we've had. There are pink and white ones blooming here.


The red mini-rose continues to hang on. They're sweet, yet short-lived. This is the last of five the Lawn Man gave me a few years ago. It's the same one that bloomed, covered with snow, in December last year.



The last foxglove blooms. (See those seed pods, Monica?)


This geranium is one of the few plants that made it here from my last garden. (Chicago Gardeners shouldn't move in February!)

I was thrilled to see the first nasturtium bloom! Renee's Garden provided free seeds for a group of about 40 bloggers participating in the Seed GROW project. We're sharing our trials and triumphs, all growing this 'Spitfire' Nasturtium. On Renee's advice, I thinned this pot a little. Too cute to kill, I carefully lifted a few and transplanted them to one of the veggie beds, where they'll mingle with peas and cukes on the trellis.

It's supposed to be a TALL bellflower, but the rabbits have chewed them all down almost to the ground. They're still hanging in there, and finally started blooming. Our garden is beginning to look kinda funny with all the little fences I've put up trying to protect the most vulnerable plants. One might think a crazy plant woman lives here.

This little sundrop was found blooming in the wayback yard behind the Cornelian cherry hedge. It was discovered about this time last year, and moved into the garden where it struggled and wilted the rest of the season. I was happy to see it come back this spring. I think it's some kind of primrose. They have such bright, cheery blooms, I'm happy to have these (sometimes considered) lowly blooms in our garden. The first time I had these in a garden was nearly 30 years ago when an elderly neighbor shared some from her garden. She just called them sundrops, so I will too. It's a fitting name for them.

Also blooming are single and double impatiens, perennial bachelor's buttons, peas, tomatoes, peppers, radishes, arugula, wax begonias, fuchsia, cyclamen, lilies, other hardy geraniums, Johnny-jump-ups, several kinds of coral bells, feverfew, a hellebore that holds onto its blooms until after frost, celandine poppies, a few sporadic old-fashioned (pink) bleedinghearts, wax begonias, and a white blogalong passalong penstemon from a dear blogging friend. Thank you Gail!

For more June blooms from gardeners around the globe, please visit the host of Bloom Day, Carol at May Dreams Gardens.