Call of the garden center brings wild, bleary-eyed gardeners

Buy.  Buy.  BUY!!!!

It's 5:16 a.m and spring migration is in full swing. A male robin, hopped up on hormones, sits on a branch near the bedroom window whinnying like a loose stallion. In the woods across the road, thousands of other birds--mostly males--slowly join in the non-stop series of twittering, cackling, pleading, wailing, cascading calls.

A fox sparrow repeatedly croons what sounds like, "All I have is what's here dear, will-you-will-you take-it?" And there's a house wren trilling from the top of his newly discovered birdhouse--and his lungs--also too close to the house. Wrens have been clocked warbling the same melody more than 600 times. Each morning. Over and over.

The sun is nowhere to be seen when the performers begin their warm up.

Ornithologists have a word for this early cacophony: dawn song. There's another word for it: not printable. (Just kidding, all you ornithologists armed with your big honkin' binoculars, spotting scopes, bird calls, sunscreen, notepads, digital cameras, pencils and 3-pound field guides.)

I like the bird alarm clock. It's early and I can chug back some coffee and peruse seed catalogs before heading out to the garden center to get my post-winter fix. It's a sickness. I have enough plants. I even wrote in my garden journal: Don't Buy Any More Plants. Less is More. Mass things. Get rid of one-sies. Simplify.

And, to scare myself into a plant austerity program, I recently penned a three-page list of garden chores that must be done this spring: Move the dawn redwoods. Move the katsura. Give away the pagoda dogwood and the deer-chewed paperbark maple.

These trees are small--5 feet or so--and easy to move if you get them dug and transplanted before they leaf out. They were impulse buys from springs past. Schlepping the plants to the car, I decided that they'd grow in my yard whether they liked it or not. When I saw them all bloomy and green, I wanted them. It was spring and I was overtaken with Plant Lust.

I'm turning over a new leaf this year--impulse plant purchases must stop. Besides, there are 328 packets of seeds that I snapped up for only a dime each last fall. They were arranged alphabetically in the garden center's sale aisle. I couldn’t believe my luck, everything from Ageratum and Aconitum to Cinderella pumpkins and coral-colored cactus-flowered Zinnias.

It was November and the cashier was a bored, gum-popping high school kid who asked if it wasn't too late to plant zinnias so close to Thanksgiving. Oh, no, I said, waving several packets of hollyhocks, cosmos and ornamental chard under her nose. These are next year's garden--they'll be great.

I practically skipped out of the store with my Beautiful New Garden, all for a measly $32.80 plus tax.The seeds are stored in several boxes next to my desk. I suppose I could plant some of them but I'm too busy looking for Really Big Plants. Big bloomers like cherry-red ‘Knockout' roses and that new ‘Endless Summer' blue hydrangea.There's something about spring that sends a gardener's hormones into a raging imbalance that says Buy Plants, Buy Lots of Plants.

Perhaps it's the lengthening days. Or the smell of the earth after a rain.Most likely it's the sight of fresh new trees and shrubs waiting for a home. They represent my Ideal Garden, filled with hope and possibilities.

Creeping Charlie is staging a spectacular takeover of my beds and borders. It's recently hooked up with another insurgent--crab grass. They are closing ranks to form an impenetrable ground cover. But who cares? Those little irritations disappear with a trip to the local garden center where forsythia and roses are blooming alongside pots of magnolias, honeysuckle, serviceberry and pansies.

By early March, I'd already stopped at one nursery and bought a few tree-peonies-in-a-box, six elephant ear bulbs, some bare root purple asparagus, sets of red and white onions, white tuberous begonias and seeds of heirloom lettuce. Tree peonies are great. Their softball-size flowers look like crumpled crepe paper. Every gardener needs one. Or three.

And at this year's Chicago Flower and Garden Show at Navy Pier I just had to buy some tiny chartreuse-needled conifers from Rich's Foxwillow Pines--evergreens--Chamaecyparis pisifera 'Mops' to be exact. And a few new coral bells, a golden-tipped hemlock and a hosta.

There are plenty of fancy places where you can buy plants you don't need. I check out all the garden centers from Northwind in Wisconsin to Possibility Place Nursery down in Monee to Planter's Palette in Winfield and all points in between. I'll brake for plants a Kmart, Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Menard's, Lowe's and Jewel.

I found a lovely bald cypress on my sister's driveway last week. She bought it (on impulse--it's in our genes) and I convinced her it would perform much better in the wet spot in my yard. So home it came. I'm trading the paperbark maple for it if I can get it out of the ground.

In a few weeks, migrating whippoorwills will stop in nearby trees, their haunting calls heard long after dark, long past the 9 o'clock news. As I unload the car, neighbors sometimes hear the sad, plaintive call of My Mate as he chirps: "What? Another plant? What? Another plant?"

It's usually followed by the more insistent melody: "I'm not moving any more trees. No more trees. What, another tree?"

The spring equinox has passed and gardeners must yield to the siren call for more plants. After all, gardening is a Hobby. An Art Form. An Obsession.

I'm going to make a real effort at restraint the rest of the year.

There's a new product called Sucker Stopper. It's used on crab apple suckers to prevent them from sprouting once they're cut. It's too bad they don't make a Sucker Stopper for Gardeners. I'd keep a bottle in the car and spray it on myself each time I got close to the garden center.

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