The passing of time in the garden

It's December 30.  The rain is slowly melting all the snow and two robins--from the flock of 50 or so that did not head south--are in the trees outside my window.  It's hard to say when autumn ended and winter began.  However, notes from my autumn "sketchbook" tell otherwise...

The dark clouds and the strong, persistent winds. The rain as it briefly dashes at the kitchen window. The pair of hummingbirds at dusk, darting around the back patio. The glow of the red salvia, thriving in the cool autumn weather and more vibrant than at any other time of the growing season. 

The lantana, sending up bushy flower-packed stems as if it lived in California, not knowing the frost will blacken its leaves in just a few weeks.  The half moon glowing through wispy clouds after the rain. The large black turkey vultures, soaring on the winds, a sign that they will be migrating south. The sharp contrast of the gaillardia's red and yellow petals as they spill over the retaining wall.

The honeysuckle berries, red orbs that hug leafy branches with leaves that are turning chartreuse. The deep red and rust leaves of a purple ash across the street in the woods. The constant song of crickets, even outside the workplace along a busy urban street. 

The way most of the trees and shrubs still remain green but knowing that it won't be too long before their trunks and branches are bare and exposed.  The raucous cry of bluejays as they travel back and forth over the oak woods hugging our road for a good two miles. The bright chrysanthemums in orange, yellow, deep rust and violet--splashing color in front of shops and on porch steps. The deep burgundy-leaved Pennisetum rubrum, planted in the border, much larger than its brethren in containers.

The castor bean plants, bowed to the ground by the damaging winds. The crispy, delicate leaves of the Japanese maple, Waterfall, as it begins to brighten with its autumn color. The striking pinks, reds and orange of the dragonwing begonias that spill over their containers. 

The hundreds of feathery dill seedlings that are carpeting the potager. The handful of white Queen Anne's lace blooming along the roadside. The feathery needles, soft and delicate, of two Austrian pines, planted by the old horse corral near the farmhouse once owned by Milt, a printer who spent his retirement grafting and planting fruit trees on his seven acres.  The way Milt once casually said to us, "Oh, you should be grafting your own.  Just use RootStock number A Something-Or-Other," and the way he made it sound so simple. 

The walnut trees yet to be, planted by Milt in the adjoining old farm field.  The dead burr oak tree in front of his farmhouse--a quiet giant that sprouted more than two centuries ago--doomed since it cracked in half, withstanding high winds not much longer, and likely to crash on a very still, sunny day when least expected. The handful of leaves that cling to corky twigs on those behemoth arms in an upper section of the tree that's barely alive. The story he told of a young girl--a member of the first family that owned the house--who sat swinging from the tree until she saw three Potawatami Indians on their horses riding toward the house.  The log cabin that sits snugly inside the house, enclosed with 20th Century amenities like wallboard. 

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Pondering the Poinsettias

Quiet Contemplation in the Greenhouse

There are many things to be thankful for and to reflect upon as the year grows to a close. Garden designer Patti Kirkpatrick, who helps design and plant the hummingbird garden and indoor displays at the Bird Haven Greenhouse and Conservatory in Joliet, is grateful for the "Black Scallop" ajuga (Ajuga reptans "Black Scallop"). It's a "living mulch," she says, "and the 'Black Scallop' is truly black."

Kirkpatrick also is thankful for the great volunteers who help with plant sales, and, she adds, "Most of all, I am thankful to be working with Mother Nature as an artist's medium. It is ever-changing, always challenging, most rewarding. Just to enhance her work, be it for a short time, is such an opportunity. And the appreciation of others who enjoy it is beyond words."

Take some time this holiday to visit your local greenhouse or conservatory, take a deep breath and sit down to contemplate.   

For those in the Chicago area, consider visiting the Bird Haven Greenhouse, 225 N. Gougar Road, Joliet. Hours are 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. daily; closed holidays. Check out jolietpark.org or call 815-741-7278.

Good Reads for Winter

Garden books may come and go but one of that will always have a place on my bookshelves is Elements of Garden Design by landscape designer Joe Eck. He and Wayne Winterrowd (who passed away earlier this year), co-wrote A Year at North Hill.  They transformed North Hill, their garden in Vermont, over the last 30 years into an incredible setting. Eck has written other books, but this one, published in 1996 in paperback, is 164 pages, sprinkled with black and white illustrations of his garden and divided into simple, short chapters on style, color, structure and so on. It’s something you can read at night before dozing off to dream about your garden. My copy has yellow highlighting throughout.


One sentence in particular hits home:

“Tentative and spontaneous additions to a garden space can often become its most serious liabilities.”

Many gardeners can relate to that experience. Especially in spring when, after a cold, miserable winter, we long for anything green. And buy it on impulse. This arbor was one of those spontaneous purchases that I later lamented. Made of white plastic resin, it stood out at night like a searchlight. It glowed even without moonlight. During the day, it caught one’s eyes no matter what else was in the garden so I moved it. And painted it. And then plunked two smokebushes on either side.


With a little paint I had transformed what had been a jarring liability into a “doorway” leading to the side yard. This spring I’m going to restrain myself from such purchases. Maybe.

—Nina Koziol

Annuals Make Good Planting $en$e

One way to rein in your plant purchases next spring without putting a damper on your dream garden is to use annuals-especially those you can start from seeds sown directly into the garden. For 15 to 25 bucks--the price of one or two flats of flowers or hanging baskets-y-ou can buy a fistful of seed packets that will produce hundreds of plants in a rainbow of colors and shapes.


Some annuals, such as morning glories, hyacinth bean, cardinal climber and moonflower, climb by leaps and bounds. Sunflowers, in shades of red, cherry, gold or white, turn their “faces” throughout the day to follow the sun. Some annuals are fragrant, like the night-scented tobacco flower, and others can add zing to a flower arrangement.

Chives, kale and strawflowers from seed

Unlike perennials, which typically return every spring, but usually flower for just a few weeks, annuals tend to bloom their little heads off from late spring right up until frost. When they finish flowering, they produce seeds and then head for that garden in the sky. You can collect the seed for freebie flowers next year and rearrange where you use them for a new look.


By sowing annuals from seeds, “your world opens to plants you never knew existed,” says garden designer Patti Kirkpatrick of Joliet, Ill. “My advice to newbies and other gardeners is to just try it.” Each spring, she sows seeds of Chinese forget-me-not (Cynoglossum), which offers shades of blue and pink and will bloom in full sun to light shade. “It’s a must for those tiny little flower arrangements.”


Some annuals, such as four o’clocks (Mirabilis jalapa) will self-sow in spring if you let the seeds drop in the ground come fall. “Four o’clocks are excellent for nighttime pollinators, like the hummingbird moth,” says Nancy Kuhajda, Master Gardener coordinator for the University of Illinois Extension in Joliet. Among her favorite annuals for sowing each spring are zinnias, larkspur, love-in-a-mist (Nigella), cosmos and cleome, also called spider flower for its wispy petals. “Cleome is great for sunny places where nothing else will grow,” she says.

And there are annuals to suit every garden style. The uniform shapes of marigolds, begonias and salvia make them excellent edging plants in a formal or geometrical planting bed. But the more willowy and wild-looking annuals, such as cosmos, sunflowers and amaranthus, are best for a loose or more natural-looking flower bed.

“A lot of annuals look garish in a natural border,” says Jill Selinger of the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe, Ill. “You see geraniums or petunias in a natural planting and they just don’t jibe.” In her own garden in the conservation-minded Prairie Crossing subdivision in Grayslake, Ill., Selinger sows seeds of the tall, fragrant tobacco flower (Nicotiana sylvestris) and Italian White sunflowers. The heirloom morning glory, called Grandpa Ott reseeds on its own each year, with a slight vengeance. “It comes back great and they were coming up everywhere, but you can get your little trowel and flick out the ones you don’t want.” Or give them away to those other gardeners who are watching their wallets.


Successful Sowings

Many gardeners who try seed-sowing outdoors for the first time get frustrated when few or no plants germinate, says Nancy Kuhadja, Master Gardener coordinator for the University of Illinois Extension in Joliet. Here are her tips for getting seeds off to a good start.

“Wait for soil temps to warm,” Kuhajda says. “Seeds planted in cold soil often rot or succumb to disease before they can germinate.” The last frost date for the Chicago area, for example, typically takes place about May 15, so in that region plant mid-May or later.


Prepare the planting area. Loosen the top few inches of soil with a trowel and rake it smooth before planting.

Read the seed packet. “Most people plant seeds too deep. The depth should be only double the size of the seed,” Kuhajda says. Some seeds need light to germinate, so simply sow the seeds on the soil surface and press them down lightly with the palm of your hand.


Show ‘em the light. Most annuals require six or more hours of summer sun. However, many will tolerate light shade-the result being fewer flowers.


Water gently, deeply and slowly. “Just like a baby, the tiny seedling is vulnerable,” Kuhajda says. Use a water-soluble balanced fertilizer once the plants are 4 inches or taller.

Thin out seedlings. “Either mix seeds with sand for better spacing or prepare to pull some seedlings out. Crowded plants are not healthy plants,” Kuhajda says. Mark the area with a labeled stick or seed packet so you don’t accidentally pull out the new seedlings.


-- Nina A. Koziol    thisgardencooks.com

Rodent Patrol

This little guy (or gal) is one of several that have come and gone through our garden the past few years. For almost two decades we rarely saw a fox.  And then one spring there were pups, born under a neighbor's garden shed.  

They lounged under the birches like young cats, yawning, stretching and  chasing one another around the garden.  The coyotes have now been chasing the fox and that is troubling.  I'm hoping they can share the habitat, but only time will tell.  When the fox are present, the mouse, vole and chipmunk population is under control.

Seed Catalogs Galore!

The winter solstice hasn’t quite arrived but the seed catalogs are piling up. A few arrive every day. For the most part they are packed with glossy photos of stunning vegetables in rainbow colors. Many, like Johnny’s provide exceptional horticultural information, as good as most vegetable gardening books. There’s Seed Savers Exchange and Shepherd’s Kitchen Garden Seeds…all delightful with their own assortment of goods. But I like to look at old seed catalogs.

They have a charm like none other. Old line drawings, lithographs, some with watercolors. This one from 1917, meant to get people interested in their “War Gardens” offers a wonderful peek back into the world of home gardening almost a century ago.

So what catalogs have you received and what seeds will you buy for the coming year?

Oh, Dear.

Sometimes we feed the birds. And then there are the four-legged birds. Bambi. Outside the kitchen window the other side of the snow-laden window box eating off the plywood platform we set on top of the birdbath to keep it from freezing. In the morning, there are nuthatches, chickadees, downy and hairy woodpeckers, gold finches, English sparrows, a fox sparrow, a pair of winter wrens, blue jays and cardinals.

Not all at once, but visiting sporadically as they make their way from the suet feeders, from the tall seed feeder next to the 60-foot spruces and then this platform feeder. In the afternoon, the deer come to finish off the seed. Later the field mice are no doubt out there and at dusk, the fox, coyote and raccoons dine on the slim pickings. How do YOU protect your plants from four-legged critters?

Winter Whites: What the Fashionable Squirrel is Sporting

My friend Jan lives several miles east in another suburb south of Chicago. While Olney, IL claims to be the White Squirrel Capitol, there is a small population of albino squirrels that enjoys hanging out in Jan's many oak trees. This fall, they were chowing down and storing acorns. Although their white fur makes them stand out like sore thumbs in summer, it's a great camouflage once the snow is on the ground.

There are four squirrel species in Illinois:

The fox squirrel, red squirrel, eastern gray squirrel and the southern flying squirrel.

The gray squirrel's fur typically is gray on the back and white to light gray on the belly. Melanistic (black) or albinistic (white) variants occur in Illinois. Black-furred gray squirrels are found in Fisher and Gibson City, IL, and albinistic individuals are common in Olney and in northeastern Illinois. Especially in Jan's backyard...

Paths of Desire

This is a wonderful book that would make a great gift for any gardener. Here’s my interview with Dominque Browning that ran in the Chicago Tribune a few years back.

Of paths, passions and ponderings

Dominique Browning follows the road less gardened to discover what really matters in her personal landscape

Into each garden, a little turmoil must fall. Disasters happen. There were turf-digging, grub-searching skunks. Marauding teenagers. Obstinate neighbors. Dying trees. And a collapsing retaining wall that eventually crushed a hefty perennial border. Dominique Browning has experienced them all in her garden in Westchester County, N.Y. , and carefully chronicles each in her new book, "Paths of Desire: Passions of a Suburban Gardener" (Scribner, 256 pages, $24).

She observes these mini-tragedies along with ethereal events -- hordes of fireflies ascending after a thunderstorm. Flickering candles casting shadows as birds settle in for the night. And, in the front yard, a small forest of sassafras with leaves that light up the autumn sky.

But this is not just an account of one woman's gardening joys and woes. It is a journey -- sometimes bittersweet -- that slowly reveals the importance of family and friends, lost love and renewal. "We get so caught up in the right plant, right place, we forget what it means to walk or sit in the garden. What do you discover? What is it about?" Browning asks.

Editor in chief of House & Garden magazine for nearly a decade, Browning is not your typical gardener. She keeps no logs of what's been planted where or what should be moved. She spends more time pondering than planting. She says she's hopeless with plant names and disorganized in the garden.

"Sitting and thinking are as valuable a sort of industriousness as kneeling and digging. No one needs to prove, yet again, that a garden is labor intensive," the 48-year-old Browning says. One of the pleasures of her job, she says, is the opportunity to snoop into other people's lives -- through their gardens, kitchens, dining rooms and living rooms and the objects they reveal.

But not long after Browning joined the magazine, her garden was snooped upon -- by someone curious about what she might bring to the magazine's content. The perpetrator slinked around back and discovered Browning's set of aluminum lawn chairs with plastic webbing (they cost 40 bucks at a yard sale and brought back fond childhood memories). The news was promptly blabbed at a hoity-toity dinner party, where it got back to her that the chairs were pronounced, well, tacky. Old. Cheap. A disgrace.

She shrugs it off with a laugh. "You can never say that one style is in good taste or not. Good taste has more to do with how things are put together. Tasteful is when there's unity. Things don't jar. It's interesting and comfortable," Browning says.

A serene place

Her house and garden, which is just shy of a half-acre, are an anomaly. The house sits on a street lined with neatly cropped lawns and tightly pruned shrubs. It's hard to spot, nestled behind the quarter-acre woodland filled with tall, thin sassafras, a thick understory of rhododendron, white-flowering azaleas and English ivy.

"She's left the front yard very wild. There's a beautiful feeling when the wind whistles through the trees," says Stephen Orr, special projects editor at House & Garden. "The main feeling you get is a sense of enclosure and serenity in a very pretty place."

The garden languished along, with Browning, in post-divorce flux, for several years. When the retaining wall finally crushed a row of frothy-flowered tree hydrangeas, Rose of Sharon bushes and perennials, Browning began the slow process of restoration and discovery -- of herself and the garden.

The New Back Bed, as she calls it, now features lavender, hollyhock, phlox, foxglove, mint ("Oh, the mistakes I made," she writes in the book), sedum and daisies. She crammed, moved, tended, lost, yanked and killed a variety of plants. "You can never know what will work until you try it. And there's a value to wandering around and contemplating" before acting, Browning says.
The side yard, called The Wandering Garden, was transformed as more than two dozen declining hemlocks were replaced with flowering shrubs, more evergreens, hostas, Solomon's seal and other wildflowers and a winding path.

In a far intimate corner, two Chinese bronze dragons with ferocious grins -- snapped up when Browning felt the "magnetic rays" of a local consignment shop calling her -- flank two comfortable wood chairs. Layers of viburnum, laurel and hydrangeas front tall evergreens nearby. "It's not fussy. I tend to be informal inside and out. It's a place to relax and think," Browning says.

Steppingstones and mulched trails meander through the yard. They are Desire Paths, as landscape designers sometimes call them, places that draw you along to someplace special.
Perhaps the best parts, Browning says, are the garden's scents, sounds and textures, deciding what to plant where and watching as the garden matures.

Sit a spell

Places to sit and reflect are abundant indoors (there's a couch in the kitchen where her sons prefer to dine a la coffee table) and outside (she dragged a chair around to different spots where she could leisurely muse over the placement of permanent benches, beds, borders and a little Buddha statue). Plastic jungle gyms, uncontrollable eyesores (courtesy of the aesthetically challenged neighbor and his dead Volkswagen bus), all are the stuff of suburbia, she says.

"It's a book I read with a pen in hand, ready to underline the telling phrases that I wished I had written," says Carolyn Ulrich, editor of Chicagoland Gardening magazine. "There are two types of garden books -- those that tell how to do things and those that tell us why we bother. I prefer the latter, which is why I took such pleasure in her book."

A self-proclaimed procrastinator who enjoys nothing more than considering all the possibilities, Browning finally brought in the Helpful Men -- electricians, masons, carpenters, a landscaper, plumbers. They fixed a badly crumbling asphalt driveway (only after she twisted her ankle on the way back from a fancy fete in gown and heels); the century-old concrete retaining wall (which collapsed as she stood before it one morning garbed in a nightgown with coffee cup in hand); and a variety of other calamities.

Browning's journey has taken some 15 years or so and was first revealed in an earlier book, "Around the House and in the Garden: A Memoir of Heartbreak, Healing and Home Improvement" (Scribner, 208 pages, $12).

About time

Contemplating instead of weeding or pruning has its benefits. Some time ago, Browning decided to compartmentalize her life -- work really hard at her job but make sure her weekends were free for family, writing, reading, playing the piano, puttering with perennials or just sitting and watching.

"I realized that my young son was talking to me one day, and I hadn't heard a thing he said. I was losing time with my kids. When I was at work, I was thinking about the kids. And when I was home, I was thinking about work. I was never where I'd need to be."

“What people can learn from her is not the practical or how-to, but an attitude," Ulrich says. "You learn that gardens take time, at least the ones you create yourself and are truly yours."

SNOOP PATROL: What’s on Dominique Browning's nightstand?

Like Dominique Browning, we, too, enjoy the part of our job that gives us entree (and poking-around rights) to people's homes and lives. We enjoy it so much that we have formed our own Snoop Patrol to peek inside medicine cabinets, in really private spaces or under dinnerware for makers and markings. We unveil our crew's first report with our findings from Browning's Westchester, N.Y., home.

1. One thing on your nightstand: A little teddy bear abandoned by one of my children. (It sits next to a stack of books including "Peter Pan," Marie Antoinette's biography and "Great Expectations.")

2. One thing on a living room wall: A sepia photograph of a pristine white bird by Jack Spencer.

3. Something in your house from your childhood: A couple of stuffed animals lying hopelessly somewhere.

4. Three condiments in your refrigerator: Mustard, mustard and horseradish. I love mustard.

5. Three things in your medicine cabinet: Perfumes -- Joy, Chanel No. 5 and Vacances, which means vacation.

6. Where do the dirty dishes go? I hardly ever use the dishwasher and I'm tidy -- I do the dishes right away.

7. Color of your living room sofa: A pale buttery yellow chintz with lilac and blue flowers.

8. Maker of your everyday dinnerware: Stangl.

9. Maker of your fine china: Royal Worcester collected in college (and much more). I have a china fetish.

10. What is the one "thing" you would opt to save from your house: My piano.

© Chicago Tribune and Nina A. Koziol

Get out the hose or buckets!

The Morton Arboretum issued this urgent press release recommending that folks in northeastern Illinois water their evergreens Now! Our hoses were stowed for the winter, but I'm definitely hauling a few buckets of water out to the young 'Gold Coin' pines and a few others. I wish it would rain already!

LISLE, IL (November 16, 2010) – As leaves dropped off trees this fall, something else dropped too: soil moisture. Amid the continuing dry spell, The Morton Arboretum urgently recommends that property owners water their evergreen trees and shrubs right now to maintain their health and vitality, and to guard against winter injury.

O'Hare International Airport received only 2.46 inches of rainfall since September 6, compared with the normal 6.59 inches, a deficit of 63 percent, according to National Weather Service (NWS) figures. The Arboretum, the NWS station for Lisle, IL received 2.95 inches of rain since September 6; a 57 percent deficit compared with the normal 6.8 inches. “The soil is extremely dry,” says Doris Taylor, who heads the Arboretum Plant Clinic, which provides free advice to the public on tree and shrub care.

Evergreen trees and shrubs “exhale” moisture 12 months a year. They require adequate water, even after other trees drop leaves, right until the ground freezes. A lack of proper moisture in the soil can leave plants without proper energy reserves for healthy growth next year. Also, as sun and winds dry out leaves (including evergreen needles) in winter, they are susceptible to winter-burn, which shows up in the spring as brown and scorched leaves.

The Arboretum recommends property owners ensure that the top 12 inches of soil around evergreens is kept moist until the ground freezes. To help determine a soil’s moisture level, a homeowner might find that a metal rod or stiff wire is the most

convenient tool. As the homeowner attempts to push the rod or wire into the ground, very dry soil will provide a great deal of resistance, and indicate the need for watering.

Certain types of evergreen plants are particularly drought-sensitive, including hemlocks, boxwoods, arborvitae, rhododendrons, hollies, and to a lesser extent: white pine.

Mulch is very helpful for conserving soil moisture. Organic mulch – such as long-lasting hardwood bark, composted hardwood chips and leaves – should be spread up to 4 inches thick around the tree. Keep the mulch from directly contacting the trunk. Avoid recycled plastic or rubber mulches – they do not provide nutrients and may create a barrier preventing oxygen and water from penetrating the soil.

The Morton Arboretum is a world-renowned leader in tree science and education, working to save and plant trees. The 1,700-acre outdoor museum features magnificent collections of 4,117 kinds of trees, shrubs, and other plants from around the world. The Arboretum's beautiful natural landscapes, gardens, research and education programs, and year-round family activities support its mission – the planting and conservation of trees and other plants for a greener, healthier, and more beautiful world. Check out www.mortonarb.org,

The Long Goodbye

Fall back. The clocks were set an hour earlier when daylight savings time changed the first weekend in November. Dusk now settles in long before dinner is on the table. It was finally time to pot up and bring inside the last of the dragonwing begonias, some purple, green and white-striped Rhoeo and a pot of sedum. The workshop is filling up in spite of my mantra, “don’t bring in so many plants this fall.”

There’s the giant jade plant my mother bought more than a decade ago. A purple-leaved oxalis is planted at its feet. Pots of purple tradescantia and cordyline line the top of a bookshelf in front of a sunny window.

There are pots of coleus, including Radical Raspberry, picked up for a buck at a Michigan farmer’s market in September. And numerous cuttings of the mother plant rooting in water, alongside sweet potato vines, all of which must be potted up. But that’s nothing compared to my brother Greg’s indoor garden this fall. “He must have at least 200 coleus cuttings under lights,” my mum said. “You should see them.” I can only imagine. Especially after he transformed a spare bedroom into the Plant Room, where come deep winter, he will begin sowing seeds of annuals, tomatoes, herbs and more.

I want to say goodbye to the summer gardening season, stow the tools and forget about digging, pruning, weeding, fertilizing, watering, deadheading, pinching, mulching, composting...but it’s too difficult. So, in come the plants and on go the lights. Maybe not 200 annuals to brighten our workshop, but a few dozen. I'll do that as soon as I plant the 400-plus tulip and daffodil bulbs and some Asiatic lilies. And then there will be rest. Until seed starting begins in earnest come March. Yes, time to fall back...into the easy chair.

Where do you go for garden inspiration?

Where do you seek inspiration for your garden?

Oftentimes, in spring, we are "inspired" at the local garden center or nursery--caught up in the color and textures of spring flowers after a long winter.

But come autumn and through winter, I draw inspiration for both my garden and my writing from natural areas--whether it's a walk in the woods surrounding our home, or to this nature preserve in Michigan--a stand of dying red pines, which will give way to native trees and shrubs through the careful hand of the DNR's naturalists.

It could be our local prairie, where red-tail hawks glide high on a current in search of lunch. Or plantings at the botanic garden and the arboretum. Or perhaps it's at the water's edge where trees cast their autumn reflections while fish surface to grab an insect.

Maybe it's a book. The writings of John Burrough's, an American naturalist from the late 19th Century, and of Wendell Berry, provide insights and feelings about land both natural and cultivated. And soon it will be a walk or a cross-country ski across the fields after the first few inches of snow falls. Fulfillment comes not just in planting a few containers or snapping up a new variety of perennial or shrub. It's about observing nature around us, both in our own gardens and in public places.

Waiting for a bus along Chicago's very busy Michigan Avenue in the past few weeks, I've spotted brown creepers, moving from the base of the honey locust trees, in search of insects during their migration south. The temperatures have dipped below freezing in our garden, yet the next day, there are golden skippers--butterflies looking for nectar on the still-blooming salvias. And honey bees doing the same thing. Observe. Reflect. And bloom.

Made in the Shade: Designing a Shade Garden

This is an Oldie but a Goodie....

Nina A. Koziol

The Victorians had the right idea. On hot summer days, they retreated to chairs and benches under a leafy canopy of spreading trees, surrounded by a living room filled with cooling ferns, shrubs, vines, and wildflowers. Come high summer, when sweltering heat and humidity are enough to wilt most gardeners, the shade garden continues to offer a welcome respite. With its dappled sunlight and morning dew, the shaded nook is a delightful place where gardeners can focus on plants that thrive on limited amounts of light.

Unlike their showy counterparts -- zinnias, day lilies, and roses -- the unusual, variegated foliage of shade-loving plants offers a display of muted greens and blues that lasts longer than many flowers. Shady gardens are often a fact of life for those who dwell in old houses, from residents of urban row houses with courtyards cast into deep shade, to the owners of venerable homes enfolded by mature trees and shrubs.

While some folks lament the fact that they must garden in the shade of towering trees or nearby buildings, others recognize the wonderful possibilities such sites offer. The Victorians, for instance, were so fond of ferns that they created ferneries -- collections of lacy, delicate-leafed fern specimens -- that thrived in shady spots near the house. Similarly, in the early years of the 20th century, trellises, loggias, and pergolas were a favorite means of establishing shady spots to the rear or side of an Arts & Crafts bungalow or Colonial Revival home.

If your house is blessed with an abundance of shade, bear in mind that not all shade is equal. Shade varies in degree from partial (or open) shade to full (or dense) shade. When tall trees allow a great deal of bright light to reach the ground, the result is partial shade. Walls, fences, and other solid structures in close proximity to the garden tend to create full shade.

While full sun generally means six hours or more of direct sun each day, partial shade provides direct sun for only three or four hours. Plants in full shade get bright, reflected light, but little or no direct sun. Paying close attention to where the summer sun crosses your property at midday will help you determine how much shade you have.
Mature trees with large, spreading crowns -- maple, oak, hickory, and elm, for example -- are the dowagers of the shade garden. Trees with finely textured leaves, like honey locust and the silk tree, send more dappled light to the ground than the dense canopies of sugar maples.

If you are starting from scratch and your garden has space for a shade tree, select one that grows well in your locale. Medium-sized ornamental trees, such as dogwood or serviceberry, provide a suitable canopy for smaller sites. You can also create a shade-garden version of a forest understory with small- to medium-size shrubs, such as stephenandra, viburnum, variegated dogwood, or holly. An arbor, loggia, pergola, or high fence can create shade when there is no room for trees or large shrubs.

Where adjacent structures shade urban gardens, cloak the walls in vines that thrive in limited light. Choose from climbing hydrangea, with its fragrant white flowers and peeling bark, or old standbys such as English or Boston ivy, or Virginia creeper. Some flowering vines, including silver lace vine and a few varieties of clematis, will take more shade than other climbers -- although they produce fewer flowers than when in full sun. In small urban gardens, you can prune a large shrub such as witch hazel, pagoda dogwood, or Japanese maple to resemble a small tree with an arching canopy.

For smaller gardens or shady sideyards, use a combination of unusual plants rather than just one or two species. For instance, the delicate, showy stems of corydalis mix well with native bleeding heart, shooting stars, or miniature hosta. In moist areas, add a splash of red with scarlet lobelia or coral bell -- both favorites with hummingbirds.
Create visual interest by combining plants with contrasting leaf forms. For example, the delicate fronds of the maidenhair fern pair nicely with the coarse leaves of pachysandra, a groundcover. The large blue crenellated leaves of the fragrant, flowering heirloom hosta 'Elegans' contrast well with the soft delicate sprays of astilbe flowers.

Think of the shade garden as a small forest complete with a carpet of groundcovers such as periwinkle, hosta, epimedium, and ivy. The white- and silver-splashed leaves of lungwort and lamium 'White Nancy' light up a shady spot, as will hostas with variegated or chartreuse leaves. The shade garden is a restful place where the tracery of shadows, whether from trees or manmade structures, makes for an interesting play of light on your own private forest floor.

Tips for the Shade Garden

• Other than moss, few plants will grow in very deep shade. In places where no direct sunlight reaches the garden, you can paint nearby fences or walls white to reflect all available light.


• To increase the amount of light reaching your garden, consider limbing up a tree. Use a long-handled pruning tool (available at garden and home supply centers) to thin lower limbs or inner branches.


• Plant carefully beneath a mature tree. Poking too many holes near the base may disturb the tree's shallow root system. Instead, mulch the entire area with shredded wood chips to conserve moisture and help keep weeds to a minimum. Gradually add groundcovers underneath the tree's outermost branches.


• Ferns, iris, and other shade-loving plants need plenty of moisture. If rainfall drops below 1 per week in summer, water your plants regularly.


• Few shrubs require full sun to thrive, but many will do well in full shade. The deeper the shade, however, the more difficult it is to grow plants that prefer full or partial sun.


• Plant spring-flowering bulbs, such as daffodils, under trees where they will bloom before the trees leaf out. Intermingle them with hosta, which will conceal the leaves in midsummer.


• Add native woodland wildflowers, such as bluebells, trillium, or Solomon's Seal, to a shade garden.


• For a low-maintenance garden, use shade-tolerant groundcovers and perennials and incorporate a few annuals -- impatiens or tuberous begonias -- for spots of color.


• Adding a birdbath or fountain to your shady retreat will bring wildlife up close. And, like the Victorians, furnish your leafy outdoor room with a bench or chairs for full enjoyment.

(c) Nina A. Koziol and Old-House Journal

A Plant Collector's Sanctuary

A visit to the yin-yang garden of Judy Kloese

(c) 2010 Nina A. Koziol of http://www.thisgardencooks.com/

Photos (c) 2010 http://www.shirleyremes.com/

Plant Collector. Master Gardener. Native Plant Enthusiast. Composer. Transformer. These are just a few of the labels that Judy Kloese wears. In the 34 years since she and her husband Lee moved to Batavia, she has developed an exquisite garden that began as a blank slate around their new home. The only hint that this sprawling 1 2/3-acre garden was once farmland is the old milk house that sits behind the pumpkin patch.

“My grandfather had said ‘if it doesn’t provide fruit, don’t plant it’ so I started with an orchard,” Kloese said. Although the apple, cherry and apricot trees she planted in the 1970’s have slowly declined or died, she has added hundreds of new trees and shrubs, many, such as bur oak and red bud, that she started from seed or grew from seedlings. Two bur oaks and a scarlet oak are now more than 25 feet tall and the arborvitae seedlings, planted as an English-style evergreen privacy hedge tower over a border of perennials.

“The kids were young and trees take little care,” Kloese says. “It was a learning experience. As soon as I got a house, I discovered these latent botanical tendencies.” By the 1990s, with her three children grown, Kloese, a pre-school teacher, had time to pursue a Master Gardener’s certificate, take additional gardening classes and for 12 years, she’s worked at Midwest Groundcovers in St. Charles.

“This is a learning process—every year we make the beds bigger,” she says. The bucolic setting is filled with English bluebells, snowdrop and allium in spring to coneflowers and prairie grasses in summer. Her tree collecting has produced a Korean maple with great fall color—“a tough tree as an alternative to the tender Japanese maples,” she says—to Carolina silverbell, striped-bark maple, dogwoods, hickories, sweet gum, katsura and tulip tree. Although she begins designing the gardens in her minds’ eye, she eventually puts the designs on paper.

In some ways, she has designed a yin-yang garden, where formal meets informal and native prairie plants rub stems with cultivated perennials. The fine-textured fountain-like leaves of prairie dropseed provide a sweeping edge to a flower border that includes Joe Pye weed, prairie dropseed, ‘Blue Heaven’ bluestem grass, helenium, prairie smoke and amsonia. Elsewhere, tightly pruned boxwood is used for the same effect as an entry way to another garden room flanked by two European beech trees.

Ponderosa pines, Swiss stone pines and white pines—started from seed in a cone—provide color and texture in winter. Striped-bark maple is growing under an ash tree that will be replaced.

She and her husband cut the grass together with two small mowers but the lawn is slowly shrinking to make way for more plants. “We do it for exercise twice a week,” she says.

“What I particularly appreciate about Judy Kloese’s garden is her love of trees, says garden coach Shirley Remes (http://www.shirleyremes.com/) of South Elgin. “She plants trees every year with an emphasis on natives.”

Last year, Kloese was one of 18 candidates from across the state who received a certification in perennials from the Illinois Certified Nursery Professional program. “She is a plant collector extraordinaire,” says co-worker Kevin McGowen of Midwest Groundcovers in St. Charles . “She has pretty much everything under the sun.”

Although garden is low-maintenance in summer, needing just a few hours care a week, Kloese says, “I’m hoping I can let things go as we get older and just maintain the edges of the beds. There are plenty of native and [spring] ephemerals so the trees will grow into woodland.”

But, after casting a critical eye across the garden, the plant collector in Kloese says, “I just need more places for plants.”


Plantswoman Judy Kloese of Batavia shares these tips:

Good Read. “If you only could have one garden book, it should be a reference book and my favorite is the ‘American Horticultural Society A to Z Encyclopedia of Garden Plants.’” (DK Publishing, 2004, 1,104 pages, $80.)

Start Small. She starts many trees from seed in pots and then transplants them into prepared areas of the garden.

Room with a View. “I plant almost everything so I can see it from indoors.” Her next project is a pergola that will provide a shady spot to sit. “It will be placed so I can look out and into the sunny areas of the garden,” she says.

Recycle. “We never throw anything away, we reuse things.” When they replaced the patio, the stones became the base of the fire pit. The milk house-turned-garden shed was rescued from the developer’s wrecking ball and a dead apricot tree was transformed as a trellis for a climbing hydrangea vine.

Favorite Sources:

Midwest Groundcovers, 6N800 IL Route 25, St Charles. 847-742-1790 or http://www.midwestgroundcovers.com/

Possibility Place Nursery, 7548 W. Monee-Manhattan Road, Monee, 708-534-3988 or http://www.possibilityplace.com/

(c) 2010 Nina A. Koziol and the Chicago Tribune.

Time for a new Yew? Foundation Planting for Today's Homes

How to choose foundation plantings that suit your home

By Nina A. Koziol

For many homeowners, a house without an edging of greenery around the perimeter is like a painting without a frame. Throughout the Midwest there are countless home landscapes that typically flaunt a row of evergreens — usually junipers or yews — that were planted decades ago and now are often overgrown, sickly or sheared into tight little balls and cubes.

"It's like parsley around the turkey," says landscape architect Scott Ogden, who, with his wife Lauren Springer Ogden, wrote "Plant-Driven Design: Creating Gardens that Honor Plants, Place and Spirit" (Timber Press, 2008).

Ogden's family moved from Texas to south suburban Flossmoor during his high school years, and looking back now, he says, "I remember being shocked at the landscaping. In Texas, houses don't have basements so people don't hide the foundations the same way."

It hasn't always been fashionable for houses to don green skirts. Like lawns, foundation plantings are a relatively modern concept in residential landscape design.

Until the late-19th century, many physicians actively discouraged the use of foundation plants, warning that dark, damp shrubbery pressing against the house invited the dreaded scourge of tuberculosis. By 1870, the high stone and brick foundations of increasingly large Victorian homes were softened and cloaked with fragrant, showy shrubs that provided delicate, sweet-smelling breezes inside and out on warm summer days: Mock orange, summersweet, lilac, viburnum, roses and fothergilla were some of the popular shrubs planted under windows, at the corners of the house, and flanking doorways.

Then as now, the key is to keep plantings in scale with the home and choose lower-maintenance plants that will thrive in the available light, soil and moisture conditions.

Revamping that planting

Junipers planted more than 25 years ago — and clipped into a rolling wave of green — cover the entire front of Sharon Vojtek's town house in Palos Heights.

"They look tired, they're prickly and they collect every leaf and branch in the fall," Vojtek said. And they're slowly engulfing the window. In this instance, it's often easier to remove the shrubs — trunks, roots and all — and replant from scratch, says landscape designer Marcy Stewart-Pyziak of The Gardener's Tutor in Manhattan, Ill. "Plants don't last forever and if you get 20 or 30 years out of a planting around the house, that's pretty good."

A good place to start analyzing your home's landscape is from across the street. Consider replacing declining or overgrown shrubs with dwarf or slower-growing specimens that are more in scale with your house.

"From a design standpoint, a foundation planting can be part of a composition that extends right out into the lawn or up to the sidewalk," Ogden says. "You don't have to do the ‘line-'em-up-and-shoot-them' kind of thing. The [light] exposure creates a lot of planting opportunities."

On the north side of the house, Ogden suggests using plants that appreciate the extra shade and cool temperatures. In the Chicago area, that could include hydrangeas, ferns, hostas and boxwood.

"On the east exposure, plants like roses, which enjoy protection from the hot afternoon sun, might be an alternative," he said.

On south- and west-facing exposures, ornamental grasses, witch hazel, viburnum, butterfly bush and sun-loving perennials will offer multi-season color.

Keeping it green

Many homeowners are not eager to part with their evergreen foundation plants because they want some color during winter. Picking slow-growing replacement plants with interesting needles can sometimes help solve that problem.

"The most common error is to plant too much, too close to the house and too close to each other," says Rich Eyre of Rich's Foxwillow Pines Nursery (richsfoxwillowpines.com) in Woodstock. "Dwarf conifers (evergreens) extend the life of the planting bed because the growth rates are slower than the species and there is less maintenance and pruning needed."

Two of his favorites for full sun include Picea pungens ‘St. Mary's Broom', a flat, low-growing blue spruce that grows about 1 foot in 10 years, and Chamaecyparis pisifera ‘Lemon Thread', which grows about 3 feet in 10 years and produces bright yellow foliage on graceful, drooping branches.

"In a shaded spot that gets morning sun, you can grow ‘Jeddeloh' hemlock (Tsuga canadensis ‘Jeddeloh')," Eyre says. It's another bright green spreading mound that also grows about three feet in a decade.

There are environmental considerations as well.

"I expect any landscape elements that deserve a place in our living environment to deliver some level of real performance and benefits," says landscape architect Marcus de la fleur (delafleur.com) of Chicago. "The whole concept of foundation planting — or any other pure decorating scheme of planting — makes my neck hair stand up. People would never buy a car with only two or three wheels just because it's pretty, but that is what they are doing with their landscapes."

He notes that homeowners should think about landscape treatments that could help with moisture management around foundation and basement walls rather than simply selecting plants on merits of their looks alone.

Moisture-loving plants, such as hydrangea, Siberian iris and astilbe and some native plants work well in planting beds where the downspout drains, Stewart-Pyziak says. Her native choices include sweetspire (Itea virginica), elderberry (Sambucus), turtlehead (Chelone) and spicebush (Lindera benzoin).

"In areas that have morning sun and afternoon shade, hydrangeas do very well and look good when planted in groups of three or more," she says. Depending on the style of a home, she may use Annabelle hydrangeas and rugosa roses around entrances to evoke a cottage garden feeling. Around midcentury modern homes, she opts for ornamental grasses, including the native prairie dropseed, which she combines with perennials and low-growing shrubs.

Scott Ogden also adds a more subjective consideration when choosing the plants that surround your home.

"Plants should mean something to you or you'll never have a relationship with that place," Ogden says. "Consider using plants that have a special meaning, like grandma's lilac, peony or a clump of iris, and think about how to incorporate those kinds of plants into the planting."

© 2010 Nina A. Koziol and Chicago Tribune

Edible Encores

If you want fresh herbs, vegetables or flowers for your table, you could make a run to the store. But it would be a lot faster and much more satisfying if you could simply step outside to pick what you need. And, if you sow seeds rather than buy plants, you can save some big bucks this summer.

”People often think that sowing seeds is more complicated than it is,” says Renee Shepherd of Renee’s Garden (www.reneesgarden.com), a specialty seed company in Felton, CA. “It’s really not that hard and it’s fun.”

It’s all in the timing. Although many Chicago-area gardeners wait until Memorial Day to plant their vegetable gardens, there are many cold-weather crops that can be grown from seed just as soon as the soil can be cultivated.

Jeanne Pinsof Nolan of The Organic Gardener (www.theorganicgardener.net) in Glencoe started sowing vegetable seeds in midsummer and will continue into September. “My heavy hitters in spring are peas, spinach, radish, arugula, kale, collards, lettuce and turnips,” says Nolan, who sows these cold-hardy specimens in early April. Cold-hardy crops can withstand some freezing temperatures and hard frosts without injury. They prefer cool growing temperatures—once the soil reaches 45 degrees, lettuce seeds will sprout. Early spring planting and harvest is a must because these robust plants tend to lose their flavor and quality once warm weather arrives.

Late April through mid-May is the time to plant frost-tolerant vegetables, such as beets, carrots, cabbage and chard, which are not as cold-hardy as the others but can withstand light frost. Their seeds sprout in soil that’s 50 degrees or warmer, so they can be planted 2 to 3 weeks before the average last spring freeze, which usually occurs about May 15 in the Chicago area, give or take a week.

Some Like it Hot

Tender vegetables, such as snap beans, corn and summer squash are injured or killed by frost and should be sown after May 15. Last are the real heat lovers, such as lima beans, cucumbers, herbs, winter squash and pumpkins, which need very warm soil--70 degrees or more--and warm air to sprout and thrive and do best when planted after June 1. (Tomatoes, peppers and eggplant fall into the heat-lovers category, but because they take a long time from germination to harvest, the seeds are best started indoors about mid-April.)

Sowing lettuce and radish seeds every 10 days during spring offers a nonstop harvest. “If you buy a six-pack of arugula or cilantro plants, you’re going to be disappointed because they bolt [flower] quickly,” Shepherd says. And once arugula flowers, the leaves become bitter. It’s less costly to pull the spent plants and sow more seeds. ”And, there’s nothing worse than having a million beans for three weeks and then none,” she says. “There’s a good reason to plant them again and again.”

Landscape designer Vicki Nowicki of Liberty Gardens (www.libertygardens.com) in Downers Grove sows bush beans, beets and chard once a week through June and July. As she harvests a row of beets, for example, she sows more seeds. “I also plant more summer squash throughout the growing season because after a certain point, squash vines start to peter out and I like to have new, fresh plants coming along.” Peas are planted again in late July and she sows spinach through August for fall harvests.

Petal Power

Veggies aren’t the only thing you can pick at the end of summer. Sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, marigolds, celosia, strawflowers and asters are some of the annual s that can be sown from seed weekly from May 15 through September for an ongoing supply of cut flowers. Dill and fennel flowers also add fragrance to an arrangement.

”The health of your garden is improved by introducing flowers,” Nolan says. Blossoms bring in beneficial insects that prey on the destructive ones. Some, such as nasturtiums, borage and chive blossoms, are edible, Nolan says, and can be used to garnish a salad. Before you dine on any blooms, make sure the seed packet notes that they are edible.

Gear up

Choose a spot that gets at least six hours of direct sunlight. Vegetables, herbs and most flowers do best in soil that’s easy to cultivate, fertile with organic matter such as compost, and drains well after watering. For sowing in pots, choose containers that are at least 14” wide and deep and fill them with good quality potting mix. And study the seed packet. The “days to harvest” generally refers to how long it will take from the time the plant sprouts leaves to when the fruit is ready for picking. As much as 7 to 14 days may be added from the time you sow the seeds until germination. The average autumn freeze date occurs about October 15, so if a vegetable needs 40 days from sowing to harvest, you can count backwards to determine when to plant for autumn harvests.

“Seeds need moisture from below so start out with a planting bed that’s been very well hydrated,” Nowicki says. ”You don’t even need to make a row. Use your thumb and make an indentation according to spacing on the seed packet.” She places 4 to 5 seeds in each thumbprint and, when they have a few leaves, she cuts down all but the largest, healthiest one. That may seem like a waste of seeds, but if you don’t thin the plants to the recommended spacing on the packet, you’ll have a tangle of stems and leaves and little to harvest.
And make it a family affair. ”Direct seeding is a great thing to do with kids,” says Nolan. “It’s an absolute miracle for them to see a carrot seed and then see the carrot. Don’t get too discouraged if seeds don’t sprout--try again. Seed isn’t that expensive.”

Seed Sources

Stock up on seeds at your local garden center or check out these seed catalogs:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seed, 866-OLD-SEED, www.rareseeds.com
John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, 860-567-6086, www.kitchengardenseeds.com Renee’s Garden, 888-880-7228, www.reneesgarden.com
Territorial Seed Co., 800-626-0866, www.territorialseed.com
The Cook’s Garden, 800-457-9703, www.cooksgarden.com
Thompson & Morgan, 800-274-7333, http://www.tmseeds.com/

Keep it Growing

The following planting dates can help you develop a succession plan for your harvest:

April 15: Kale, Kohlrabi, Leaf Lettuce, Onion, Pea, Spinach, Turnip
April 23 to May 15: Beets, Carrots, Chard, Mustard, Parsnip, Radish
May 15: Snap Beans, Sweet Corn, Summer Squash, New Zealand Spinach, Annual Herbs
June 1: Lima Beans, Cucumbers, Okra, Pumpkin, Winter Squash, Annual Herbs
June 1 – July 30: Keep sowing Snap Beans, Beets, Carrots, Endive, Annual Herbs
August: Sow Lettuce, Radish, Chinese Cabbage, Turnips, Peas
September: Sow Lettuce, Chard, Mustard Greens, Radish, Spinach

(c) 2010 ThisGardenCooks.com and Chicago Tribune