signs of spring

Wow - sun earlier today - and 50's!! Woo-hoo! A lot of melting going on. Forecast: rain tonight. By Tuesday morning 3-7 inches of fresh snow. Drat. So, good thing I took some pix this morning.

I did this one extra big so you could actually see what I'm so excited about. :)
I have little tulip sprouts showing up in several areas of the gardens. It gives me great hope for beautiful things to come.


A lovely clump of coral bells. I love the spring greens and purples.

My ornamental grass didn't fare too well after the last heavy, wet snow. But I'll be cutting it to the ground soon, so not a problem.

My bowling ball crop is looking spectacular!! :)

A sure sign of better things to come is water appearing around the edges of the lake. This is looking east...

and this is to the west.

And this is straight out from shore. Yup, the little things you see on the ice are fishermen. It's still thick enough to walk on.

a new garden?

Okay, I'm kind of psyched. Some blogs I've visited lately have been showing garden photos from last year - instead of snow, snow and more snow - and quite a few gardeners are thinking about plans for this spring. Thank you - started me thinking about my own garden plans!

One area I would really like to do some major revamping is our driveway. We live on a narrow dead-end street that would probably qualify as an alley. Parking is at a premium. But what I've noticed for us is that we need tons of parking only 2 or 3 times a year. Wouldn't it be easier to arrange the parking we need for those 2 or 3 times instead of having this huge open (and might I add, ugly) driveway along the street?

When we first moved into this house, the gravel area you see in the above photo was a grassy area that was about 18-24 inches lower than the street. It's enclosed with a cement retaining wall that runs along the street and back to the garage. When our sons started driving we filled in that lawn area to enlarge the driveway. It was a good choice - for years we really needed all that room for cars. But I'm thinking it's time to make it look pretty and more inviting again.

We still need room for cars and boats and utility trailers in the driveway, but I'm thinking maybe I could dig up a portion of the driveway along the street and fill it in with good black dirt and plant a pretty little boulevard garden. I'm thinking about tall ornamental grasses with shorter plants in front (toward the street) - and, oh yes, a couple of nice rocks to hopefully keep people from driving through my lovely new garden. We would still have room for the utility trailer and to store a boat in the winter. The trailer would be at least partially screened from the street, which I'm sure would make some of our neighbors happier. And our kitchen door and patio area would be partially screened from their view. I'm thinking lots of happier people!!

So, this is where you all come in. Our street isn't as heavily sanded and salted in the winter as a lot of places, but we still get a fair amount. I'll need to plant things that are fairly salt tolerant - both from salt spray and salt in the soil. So far my research has led me to believe that Karl Foerster reed grass is the perfect solution for the screening part. Have any of you grown the Karl Foerster? I'm also looking for shorter plants to fill in around the rocks and in front of the grass. If any of you have suggestions - for tall or shorter plants - I'd love to hear them.

There are lots of primary roads in the Cities that have beautiful plantings, so I can do some research here also and see what cities and counties have chosen for their salt-tolerant plantings. I'm so excited about this! Keep your fingers crossed that I can come up with a plan that both Mark and the city will approve!! An added plus is that I really like ornamental grasses - but can't have them in the main gardens because Kobie eats them - I mean eats them to the ground on a regular basis. This would be an area that he doesn't get to visit without supervision. Gosh, it's beginning to feel like spring! :)

Mother Nature does her own decorating for the season

This is what I woke up to today (and, yes, the sun was fully up before I even opened my eyes this morning!). Seriously, Mother Nature is the Queen of Outdoor Decorating!

turning colors in the gardens

I'm not doing very well on getting caught up in Blogland - but soon - promise!! We've had some gorgeous days, and I've been taking advantage of them. Soon enough I'll be spending more time inside, so I'm feeling the need to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather. Yesterday I went to lunch with my French classmate, Susan. Our teacher, Nadine, is in France visiting family, and she sent us an email. We checked our translations of her email with each other and then tried to come up with one to send to her. She'll get a good giggle out of our sentence construction, I'm sure!

I mowed the yard when I got back home yesterday. Today I washed windows and the porch screens. The dogs haven't been inside long enough to even re-slobber them yet - nice! We have a very small house - but it has 27 double-hung windows, 4 fixed windows (leaded glass by fireplace and two small ones in our bedroom), 6 basement windows, and 5 doors with windows. That is a ton of window washing!

I realized today that I have more iron pieces to share with you - what a surprise! :) I completely forgot about them when I was taking photos before. I also found several things still blooming in the gardens. And, finally, some of the plant leaves are turning pretty autumn colors.

The top photo is of geranium leaves - that bright red one is stunning. The second photo is my miscanthus ornamental grass. And coral bells in the bottom photo.

ornamental grasses

We have just had a really beautiful weekend - warm temps and sunny skies. It was a little on the breezy side, but... Peter (also a Twin Cities blogger) left a comment on my previous post that after this weekend, we might be able to think winter will pass us by. I suppose that won't actually happen, but we can certainly enjoy the days like today that we are given.

I wanted to show you the ornamental grasses. They still aren't turning from green to red, but the seed heads are really pretty. With all the wind we've had the past couple weeks, it's been fun to see the movement in the gardens. All three photos are of miscanthus - sorry, I don't remember the name. (One of my plans for this winter is to dig through files and see if I can come up with names for most of my plants - or even SOME of my plants! So, maybe I can share more information next year.)

7 random garden facts

Over a month ago, Kitt at "The Kittalog" tagged me to do a "7 Random Garden Facts" meme. (And you didn't believe procrastination was my worst habit!) I'm not sure why, but this has been a hard one to do. So I'm just going to write 7 things that jump into my head right now, and that will be that. Kitt - thanks for tagging me - I probably seemed like a natural for this meme - but evidently, not so much!!!!

Early this summer, we were out on the boat one day cruising the shoreline, looking at houses and yards. I said something like - but why don't these people do gardens???? Without missing a beat, Mark said, "Maybe they have lives." OUCH! But yes, my first garden fact is that if you're really into it, gardening takes a heck of a lot of time.

Nothing has to stay in one place forever. An alternate definition for gardening could be: moving things around in one's yard. I have some plants that move yearly - some gardens that undergo complete renewals every year or two... you get the picture. I love that if you goof or change your mind or whatever, you can grab a shovel and do it over!

Gardeners love to share their gardens. They love to have people walk through their gardens and ooh and ahh over everything. They love to talk gardening. If you garden, you can strike up a conversation based on gardening anywhere in the world. This is the primary reason I started blogging - to have people ooh and ahh over my gardens. :)

And, they love to share their plants. Plants always need dividing, etc, and most gardeners are thrilled to share their extras. My experience has been that gardeners are very generous.

Being able to grow plants in the dirt outside does not necessarily mean you can grow plants in little pots in the house. Indoor and outdoor gardening are two very different talents.

The more you play in the dirt, the more confidence you will have in your abilities to garden. Most of my gardening friends and I have acquired our design talents from doing. (I'm not actually claiming that I have talent, but I'm better at figuring out what I want than I used to be.)

When we first moved in here, we had an almost totally shady yard. I grew up on a farm. My mom's gardens were total sun. So I went to a small nursery near our home and asked them to design a shady garden for me. The gardens themselves are long gone, but I still have some of those plants - snakeroot, turtlehead, geranium, Jacob's ladder, lungwort - things I didn't even know about when I started. Everyone has to start somewhere, and it's okay to get some help.

And, because I took so long to do this meme, a freebie: Rototillers (and the men who run them!) are a gardener's best friend!

more late summer blooms

On our walk through the garden yesterday, we found a surprising number of things still blooming, reblooming, and just starting to bloom. Maybe I'm the one who's tired - not the gardens!! Here are more photos.

dianthus (pinks)

Queen Anne's Lace

native rudbeckia or coneflower
These all started from seed brought by the wind or birds or ??
They bloom, like, forever! I love it!

plantegenia hosta
these blooms smell sooooo good!

dahlia

turtlehead

little blue stem grass

just starting to turn burgundy and develop seed heads

the phlox are winding down, but still some color

"David"

"Hawkeye Belle"

(this rose is just covered in blooms again)

one of the dahlias

hibiscus are still going strong

mallow reblooming

shasta daisy

"Autumn Joy" sedum, just starting to show color

hibiscus bud starting to open

delphinium reblooming

(surprising because I neglected to deadhead the first blooms)

one of the caladiums in the garden

whiskey barrels

We have a new house going up kitty-corner across the street from us. It's been under destruction and construction since last November. I don't know that they're really close to getting it finished. We're very ready for it to be finished.

There have been a zillion BIG trucks and not so big trucks on the street during all this. During the winter, we store one of our boats in the driveway, so our driveway was fairly safe from big truck traffic. However, once the boat went in the water, we needed a defensive measure, and we settled on half whiskey barrels. The barrels can be moved if we need the parking (Mark put a false bottom in them, so they're only half filled with dirt - so pretty lightweight). After we put them in place, we realized that the drivers of the big trucks wouldn't be able to see them, so we also had to put in some steel rods with reflective tape tied to them. We've actually become quite fond of the tape blowing in the wind - it's not a classy look by any means, but it's not trashy either. If we decide to put the planters out next summer, I'm thinking Mark should make some nice heavy-duty shepherd's hooks, and I'll have some hanging baskets instead of using reflective tape. Maybe a little classier! The driveway expanse actually looks way better with the barrels there, so it may be a look we use for a few years. Next year, I need to put more drape-y plants to hang over the edges of the barrel, but for a spur-of-the-moment, quick trip to Home Depot, I thought they came out looking okay.

Anyway, they're looking kind of good right now, so thought I'd show you what I did.

One of my neighbors gave me a pot of purple fountain grass for my birthday, so I used that in the end one - with persian shield and double red petunias. The persian shield isn't super showy with the fountain grass, but I'd definitely use it in a container again.

The next 2 barrels are planted the same: red cannas with a purple sage and some white spiky flower around the bottom. Now that the cannas are starting to bloom, it's looking good. My first time trying cannas, so very fun.

At the other end, I have a Knockout rose and a purple sage of some kind. I love the rose and plan to put it in the gardens this fall.

By the mailbox, I put a barrel full of coleus. It gets very little sun there, and it's filling in very nicely.

garden stuff

These are pictures of my beautiful ornamental grasses - that for most of the winter lie flat on the ground under snow!! I'll have to cut them back soon. I have to put them on the lakeside of the fence, otherwise Kobie snacks on them constantly and they never grow taller than 5 or 6 inches. He is such a help in the garden! Looking at the holes and skid marks in the garden, I'm amazed that any plants survive - between rabbits, squirrels, and dogs, the flowers have to be pretty tough.

I just went out and looked, and I have quite a few things showing up. The peony on the west side of the house (by the side door) is showing some pretty red shoots. Also have Jacob's ladder, primroses, and coral bells showing green. The dwarf and tall bearded irises have green too. I can't wait to see the first blooms.

My new roses all look like they survived - hope so! Last year at the Arb sale I bought 9 new roses. It took me all summer to find places to put them all, but they were roses I had been hoping to get at some point - and there they were! I planted 2 gallicas - Charles de Mills and Apothecary's Rose. A cabbage rose - Fantin-Latour. A moss rose - Alfred de Dalmas. These are all old garden roses and will only bloom once, but the scent and blooms make it worthwhile. Plus I love the idea of having roses that were discovered or introduced hundreds of years ago. The other roses I put in were all shrub roses - Country Dancer, Hawkeye Belle, J.F. Quadra, Souvenir de Philemon Cochet. And that's only 8 - hmmmm - maybe I just WANTED 9! I guess if you add in the 20 or so that I already had, 8 is quite enough. Of course, there are dozens more I'd love to try. Thinking that big old maple tree might just disappear sometime when Mark's on a business trip - I need more sun!