Sunday In the Park Tour

If you are looking for something to do this Sunday and are a lover of gardens and architecture, I strongly recommend you come to Lincoln Park.  I will be giving a tour at the Lincoln Park Conservatory and other architects and docents will be talking about their work in the Park.  Even if you've been to Lincoln Park a hundred times, you've ever seen it like this. 

Sunday in the Park: A Lincoln Park Field Trip

Sunday, June 26, 2011

10:00 a.m.

The Pleasant Home Foundation invites you to join a Sunday field trip in Lincoln Park on June 26. During the walk, architect Christopher Payne will discuss the Lincoln Park Conservatory (J. L. Silsbee, 1890 - 1895); the Lincoln Park Conservancy will lead tours of the Lily Pool (Alfred Caldwell, 1936 - 1938); Paul Steinbrecher, AIA, Interactive Design/Eight Architects, will describe the Comfort Station/Carlson Cottage (J. L. Silsbee, 1888) restoration project (2008); and Harry Soenksen, AIA, Studio Gang, will interpret the Nature Boardwalk (2010).

This walking tour is a benefit for the Pleasant Home Foundation that operates the George W. Maher-designed John Farson House in Oak Park as a house museum. The group will gather at the entrance to the Lincoln Park Conservatory at 10 a.m. and end around 1 p.m. at Cafe Brauer. This walking tour will be held rain or shine (no refunds).

Cost is $25 per person. Space is limited and advanced reservations are required.

Call Pleasant Home Foundation at 708-383-2654.

Firsts of the Year

The past few days we saw a transformation at the Tiny Bungalow. 

We had our first butterfly of the season.

We had our first raspberry from our own bushes.

We made our first container of pesto from the basil in the garden.

Summer is certainly upon us.

What's going on?

Maybe it is better if you didn't ask.

Props to the garden

No, I didn’t win any awards or anything like that.  Instead, the props I am referring to are to shore up my tall plants after a rainstorm.  It has been raining pretty hard for the past two weeks and though it has done wonders for the growth of my garden, the flowers are looking a bit droopy. 

To prop them up, I spend time in the garden with a small bag of twist-ties, my clippers, and some bamboo sticks.  I like using the bamboo because it is sturdy and because it blends in with many of the stalky plants.  From the street, you can’t even tell that everything is tied up. 

The twist ties are convenient and easy to move and remove.  With the flowers getting bigger, this becomes a daily activity: propping up the plants so they don't look like a steam roller just went over my yard.  I wish there were ties that were made of a material that just decomposed in the garden.  I don't like using string and cloth because you can't adjust them over time and they are a bit more obtrusive. 

If anyone has other ideas for tying up the perennials, I’d love to hear them.

[insert cliche garden photo here]

I do this about four or five times a year.  I can't help it, I love my flowers.  At the very least, this becomes a good almanac, chronicling when the flowers bloomed each year at the Tiny Bungalow.  Last year, the blooms came about a week or two earlier.  Things look good so far.  

Sweet William, or dianthus barbatus, really is an under-rated flower.  It is very showy, it smells great and any moron can grow it.  I have tons of it that came from a wildflower seed blend I cast in the yard years ago.  I am starting to spread it around with the seeds from last year's flowers.  I have about eight different colors of these so far and there seem to be new colors popping up throughout the season.

The penstemon digitalis is another beauty this time of year.  I was lucky enough for the goldfinches to spread around a little seed and I now have new ones popping up around the yard.

My foxgloves, the digitalis purpurea pink, is looking good this time of year as well.  It started flowering today.  These too are now being spread around the yard and if all goes well, I should have about 8 or nine decent clumps of these next year.  They really have the coolest flower.

A weekend to relax. Well, sort of.

It was my birthday this weekend so I didn't do too much around the house.  I have a three week plan to "finishing" the yard.  This week is the herb garden, which I finished.  We put in curry, rosemary, basil and already had lavender, oregano and two types of thyme.

My daughter got into the gardening act, insisting that we have a strawberry plant.  She also got a begonia and a small flower from our visit to Day in Our Village.   The next two weeks will be spent finishing the baskets and then planting the vegetable garden.

There is a bit of action in the garden.  We got some dark red sunflower seeds and scattered them around.  They are coming up and should be a nice addition to the back yard.

I plant the wash tub with marigold seeds every year.  I then transplant these up front, once they are more mature.  They are all sprouting and looking good also.

Since it was my birthday, I was able to get myself a gift from my mom and dad.  I made an addition to the back yard.  I got a hammock that now suspends between the two posts of the pergola.  You have to move the table out of the way to use it but that's fine with me.  It will keep others out of the back yard when I am trying to relax.

The view is pretty great too as I can sit and watch the hops grow.

The Island of Misfit Plants

I've got an addiction.  Well, I actually have two addictions.  First, I like moving plants.  I am not sure what my problem is but I can't help myself from finding a "better spot" for my plants.  I usually curb this activity from July through August but for most of the rest of the non-winter months, I move.  My second addiction is "salvaging" plants.  I can not walk into Lowe's without walking through the distressed plant area and buying something.  This isn't so good because, despite increasing my planting area into the parkway this year, I have pretty limited space for plants.  

This past weekend, we got a lot of rain: perfect moving weather.  I planted up some of the pots in the yard and then started moving and salvaging.  I got these two plants below from a client's house.  I have no idea what they are but they have pretty pink and white flowers.  Hopefully they are not too invasive.  

I also moved around some of the scattered seedlings from the foxglove seeds I planted.  If even a small fraction of these make it, I should have awesome looking foxgloves all over on corner of my yard next year.

Below is a salvaged hydrangea.  I got it from a landscape company that was getting rid of all of it's damaged stock.  When I got it, two years ago, it was nothing but a twig and a couple ruffled green leaves.  It looks like it might actually flower this year.

Below are my latest buys.  On the left is the double-file vibernum that I got last year.  It is doing well despite my trampling of it while installing holiday decorations.  Just to the right of it is the latest buy, a sad looking columbine.  My wife likes columbine and I told her if I see one in the dying plants area, I'll rescue it for her.

The back yard is doing pretty good so far.  The hops have taken over a chunk of the pergola.  I imagine it will be completely taken over in a couple more weeks.

The garlic and herbs are doing well.  I just need to put in some basil and rosemary for this year.

The hostas are doing well also.  These were just tiny stumps last year so I am glad they perked up.  I decided to put the hostas, trilium and some lily of the valley together in the back corner of the yard.  It is different from other portions of the yard and being near the patio, I thought it looked nice.  By the way, I also have several Rose of Sharon plants in here - I grew them from seeds from my mom's front yard.  If anyone wants one, let me know as I will have to dig up and discard about six of them.

We put in peas this year also.  They seem to be doing well.  Maybe, if I can keep myself from moving things around up front, I'll get to planting the rest of the garden before July.