Mish-Mash Seed GROW

This post is a mighty mish-mash of miscellany: my monthly Seed GROW post, an OOTS (public plantings) post, a seed swap update, and my favorite Dearborn Garden Walk photo revealed. Deep breath and we're ready!

Seed Grow: Nasty Mish-Mash
It's time for the August post for the Seed GROW Project. (August? How can it be August?!)

Well, things aren't looking so great. I admit I'm just not used to watering plants unless they are veggies. Which, incidentally this corn is, and I did water it, so I'm not sure what's up.

The two nasties are making a little progress up the trellis. Yeah, the hops in the center isn't looking so hot, either. They need more sun and more water, methinks.

The close-up of one of the flowers, with the cute little raindrops, is however, I'm sure you'll agree, noogie!

Out on the Streets — Because Late is Early!
I've lost track of when the official Out on the Streets is, but VP likes us to show public plantings in our area and I've been collecting a few photos.

There are always plenty of wonderful public plantings in my "adopted" (wish I lived there) city of Chicago.

See?

Nice aquatic plants at Trump Tower...

...and regular planters as well. This could change my entire attitude to Mr. Combover.

This photo is purely gratuitous, showing a scene from the Transformers movie being shot in Chicago.

Back in Ann Arbor, and practically in my backyard, is this 15-acre wetland preserve in Mary Beth Doyle Park. It was created two years ago to help reduce flooding and improve water quality in Malletts Creek (into which it flows). It's also aflutter with wildlife.

The wetland has a large central basin that can hold up to 15 million gallons of rain and water runoff during storms. This prevents flooding and reduces phosphorus input from Mallets Creek into the Huron River by a third. Native plants (flowers and grasses) are planted along the edges, and their long roots help clean the water. It's been fun checking the water level whenever I bike by. It's about half full in this photo, though you'd have to see the edges to really tell.

Gray-headed coneflowers (Ratibida pinnata) in Doyle Park.


This traffic circle in Pittsfield Village (Ann Arbor) is well maintained.

Washtenaw Community College where I teach has a few nice planters.

Michigan Avenue in downtown Ypsilanti has nice planters, too. Other parts of town have hanging baskets with ornamental grasses.

This photo is purely gratuitous, showing the Ypsilanti Water Tower, right across the street from my alma mater, Eastern Michigan University. They done teache'd me to write real good.

Had to stop for this bus stop in Westland (south side of Ford, just east of Wayne). It's so out of context with the surrounding area. I suspect the owners of next-door Thrifty Florist planted and maintain it. Good for them!

Save Your Seeds for the Swap!
I know it's early, but start thinking about what plants to save seeds from, to get ready for my third annual snail-mail seed swap in early January (for us winter sowers, holla!).

Favorite Photo — Kew Knew?

Cheryl came closest to guessing that my favorite photo from the Dearborn Garden Walk was this weathered Kew sign. I like the other photos you guessed, especially the stairwell and metal edging (but not those shoes, so not those shoes!), but the Kew sign is by far my favorite. I greatly enjoyed a visit to Kew Gardens in 1999 and it remains one of my all-time favorites. Aside from that, I love mass transit and the sign is in the style of the tube logo. Plus, I love the beat-up, forgotten look, with even the vines covering it being withered. And how even though the sign has holes in the corners, it wasn't even nailed to the fence, just stood up against it.

Plus, the houses on the tour run about $6 million and no expenses were spared in garden design. I'm sure many vignettes were created by professional designers (not even gardeners!), so this forgotten little sign, in an otherwise meticulously cared-for garden, really appealed to me and totally made my day.

Are you still awake? Thanks for stopping by and slogging through this mammoth entry!

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

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I broke up with my garden today

My garden has seemed a bit too big for a while now. Things that were initially mere blips on the garden radar have lately felt overwhelming and insurmountable. A very hot summer kept me inside a lot, and weeds have taken over. My tomatoes were a big bust this year due to marauding raccoons and suboptimal sunlight. There's so much to plant and transplant yet this fall, which I normally look forward to but which this year feels defeating.

Today I planned to dig out seven overgrown junipers that need to go to make room for other things I like more, which have been waiting to get in the ground since June. Five of the junipers are 4' tall x 6' wide, the other two are 5' x 8' feet, though I'd trimmed those back considerably already.

I normally like digging out shrubs--it's hard work but it's gratifying when it's done and it's a good way to get out aggression! First I cut off the branches of the first shrub, which filled two yard waste bags, so I could see where I was digging. Then I dug. This was extremely arduous because the soil is so dry and the roots are far down. I barely reached them at all. I get rashes if I touch certain evergreens and even though I was wearing long sleeves, long pants, socks and closed shoes, I could feel my neck and the back of my legs start to itch. The underside of my foot where you push on the shovel was a little sore. An hour and a lot of digging passed, but still no progress even finding the roots, and the base trunks were not loosening even an eeny beeny tiny bit!

To say I was getting frustrated would be inaccurate. I was swearing at random things (yes out loud), and even called a squirrel (my favorite wildlife friend!) an expression favored by residents of Deadwood. In a fit of fury I jumped down on the spade too hard, onto soil that was too hard, lost my balance, and toppled onto the adjacent juniper in a big flailing heap.

Before I mention what happened next I have to tell you that gardening has been my passion for many years and I have gardened in many different settings. I'm very much a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-stuck-in kind of person, a modern-day Rosie the Riveter. My arms, my energy, my determination, and my will are strong. I'm not afraid of hard work and I've always done my own heavy lifting. And, let's face it, I'm so goddamn stubborn that a whole army of buckthorn is no real match.

That being said, we return to me face down in a juniper (which would have been pretty funny if I hadn't been in a mood). I wasn't hurt, but I found myself balled up in a fetal position crying like a baby kitten who can't find its mama. Well, OK, not really crying because I think the sweating dehydrated my ability to produce tears, but that's not the point.

The point is, I cursed my garden, listing all its failings and all its demands, and everything I had ever done for it, and for what? What had it done for me? Huh?! I used a lot of sentences involving "you always" and "you never" and finally told it to get the hell out of my life, only in much more colorful language.

I squeezed my eyes shut, crossed my arms, and pouted, waiting for it to beat a hasty retreat or at least apologize. I fantasized about doing a major ecological burn and thoroughly enjoyed imagining certain things engulfed in flames. I envisioned an alternate garden, a kwoot widdle patio garden, so sweet and demure.

Feeling a lot better, I opened my eyes and was greeted by wonderful color. My garden gave me flowers, clearly as an apology and peace offering. Embarrassed, I apologized also and asked it to take me back. It smiled and said, "I'm not going anywhere."

Which is all very fine and good and smile smile smile happy, but... I still have one partway dug out juniper and six to go and, honestly, I'm tired. I don't know what the solution is. I don't know how to make a large garden smaller (I'm not ever going to convert beds to lawn and my plants are already low care, I never water!) or how to keep up with it more or how to regain some of the enthusiasm I once had.

I suspect it would help to do just a little bit every day, rather than feeling like I have to do perform big miracles all at once. And I think I just need to get back to work. Right after I have lunch.

P.S. My favorite ass-kickin' companion suggests 1) I learn to focus the camera and 2) to intimidate the problem out of existence! Easy peasy.

Added 9/18: Photo update. Three of the five shrubs in the first bed are dug out. Even though my BIL has a pickup and could probably get those chains for me, there isn't a clear path for a vehicle to access that bed. I found digging as far as I can and then soaking the hole for a few hours makes it possible to get at the deepest roots. A second bed has two really big ones and access to the street. I may ask my BIL for help but he has so many projects that I don't like to bother him if I can do it myself.

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Sundries Sunday

Fasten your seatbelts, my friends. We've got a lot to cover!

Volunteering at Kempf House
I was excited to discover that Deborah Burling was looking for garden volunteers at Ann Arbor's Kempf House. Deb created a Master Garden Plan and Guidelines, which we are following to restore and repair the garden to the 1890s-1920s period. (After having researched, planted, and maintained an 1860s fountain garden at Cobblestone Farm for five years, I was ready to move on to a non-leading role volunteering in another historic garden.)

Kempf House was built in 1853 in Greek Revival style, but interprets life in the late 1800s. I'd been inside a few times, with my friend Carole, to help decorate for Christmas.

My assignment today was digging soil out of the beds between the fence and sidewalk, moving the soil to other parts of the garden, leveling the area, and adding mulch.

At my first volunteer session on May 9, I weeded around the base of this gorgeous saucer magnolia (Magnolia x soulangeana). It's over 100 years old, and I was sorry to have missed its pink blooms.

Update: Deb just emailed me a photo of the tree in bloom in April!

I also pulled a ton of goutweed (Aegopodium podagraria) out of various beds--those suckers have crazy roots. I was so glad I had my Fiskars hori-hori with me, because it sure helped. (Thanks again, Gen!)

I swear, the German connection is incidental! Ne, wirklich!

One of the "grilles" mentioned in the sign.

I took this photo last time. I love how the bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis) intermingles with the hosta. The bloodroot flowers early, before the hosta is fully unfurled, and will die back later, letting hosta steal the summer show.

Star-of-Bethlehem (Ornithogalum umbellatum) was blooming today...

...as was this NOID lemon yellow day lily. It had a nice scent. The plan is to plant more lilies.

This large NOID rose caught my eye. I liked how the leaves are backlit by the sun so you can see the leaf veins.

I'm warming to roses... I love how the rugged calyx and the serrated, darker leaf margins.

Touring My Garden
Lots going on; too much to write about.

I haven't seen the groundhog all season, but someone has eaten my beet foliage. I'm pretty sure it was raccoons, a species I haven't had trouble with before. Someone also ate most of my marrowfat peas, but (knock wood) two remain.

The turnips remain intact...

...as do the radishes, which are almost ready to harvest. (All these veggies were winter-sown.)

Even though columbine are notorious self-seeders, I've always had trouble growing them in the garden. I have a few plants, but they only get maybe two to five blooms each. Then I find this columbine growing in extreme shade in the brick pathway next to my deck. I get it, Mother Nature, and appreciate your sense of irony.

Speaking of which, for the first time ever I had trouble getting nasturtium seedlings to sprout... and look what I found growing in the bin with my potatoes! I ask you!

Tooling around North Campus
Last week I was meeting my friend Mary Helen for lunch, and decided to ride my bike the 5 or so miles. I was huffing and puffing, but I didn't have a heart attack. I could even pedal up all the inclines, even those I used to have to walk up. And I made amazingly good time. I was just starting to feel the tiniest bit smug when the Universe humbled me: a 60ish-year-old gentleman (a regular guy in street clothes, not a super-aerodynamic bike racer) passed me at a clip that made me feel like I was standing still. Heh.

I had my camera with me and used the extra time before lunch to take some photos of the University of Michigan's North Campus. Allium, with no yellowing leaves!

I almost fell over, I was so shocked to see this Alexander Liberman sculpture. Not just because I oohed and aahed about his work at Meijer Gardens, and totally have a thing for orange, but because I'd never noticed this piece before, despite having been to this part of campus dozens of times over the eight years I worked nearby. Let's just say my job left me preoccupied!

I also like the Wave Field, which reminds me of Native American mounds.

The mounds are only maybe 3-feet tall, but I went ahead and rolled down one anyway. You kind of have to. Well, OK, you might not, but I did.

"Dude, some lady in a bike helmet just totally rolled down the mound!"

Lots more to catch up on, but I'm heading into the garden now. Happy Sundries Sunday, everyone!

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July Garden Blooms

You might think this is five days late, but really it's 26 days early (holla!) for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day. This gorgeous Rocky Mountain beeplant (Cleome serrulata) came in a Rocky Mountain Native Wildflower seed packet from BBB Seeds. (It gets the coolest legumey-/beany-looking seed pods.)

...as did this noogie cute Coreopsis tinctoria--I mean, even the bud has gorgeous color.

A little splash of color.

...and close-up.

My 'Uchiki Kuri' squash is just wonderful on many levels. Its bright yellow flowers are so sunny and friendly...

... and attract many busy pollinators (look at the hind legs, noogie!).

...and, oh yeah, it has fruit, too.

My first rose ever 'Golden Wings' is doing well, despite being in my care. Thanks, Nancy Lindley, for the recommendation.

The chocolate cosmos buds are nearly black (!)...

...and open up a warm reddish brown.

The planter on my north-facing side porch (the only non-veggie container I have) is looking really good. I planted those Coleus from seed! The elephant ears (Colocasia 'Illustris' crica 1902 from Ann Arbor's Old House Gardens) come in the house over the winter, and ferns I have up the ying yang and treat as annuals. Bizi doesn't normally photobomb (!) my shots but she gives a good size reference.

This Echinops reminds me so much of Chihuly's Blue Moon at Meijer Gardens.

The bud of this cup plant (Silphium perfoliatum) is just so so sweet all tucked up and ready to rumble. The plant gets 6-7 feet tall and will have little yellow flowers. Mine is planted entirely in the wrong location (not enough sun, too dry) but it gets to over 5 feet. (I mean to move it every year and somehow never have.)

Cup plant has a square stem that shoots up through the leaves, and collects water. Larger insects like bees and butterflies drink from this water, whereas tiny ones get stuck and the plant absorbs them to help it grow. (H/t to Prairie Moon Nursery for the carnivorous bit.)

One of the sunflowers that grew from spilled birdseed.

I have three rose of Sharons, two purple and one white, along the bed that divide next to my neighbor's driveway. I got them as tiny sticks in 2004 from a person in my master gardener class, and now they're at least 6 feet tall.

My balloon flowers tend to get very leggy because I forget to cut them back in time.

This huge clump (maybe 10-ft. wide by over 5-ft. tall) of native sunflower (Helianthus divaricatus) is in my south wild bed.

Helianthus divaricatus up close.

Ligularia stenocephala 'The Rocket' does indeed rock it in my east wild bed.

I have two huge clumps of gooseneck loosestrife (Lysimachia clethroides 'Marlene'), which I painstakingly keep in check each spring. I'm not usually one to do garden things painstakingly, but a friend and coworker, who has since passed away, gave me these when I was first starting my garden and I can't bear to get rid of them entirely. (I have no idea what the real cultivar is, I call them Marlene in her honor.)

I have tons of clumps of Rudbeckia, even in shady locations.

A few large clumps of native bee balm (Monarda fistulosa)...

I found this heart-shaped chomp in the bee balm leaf and immediately thought of Katie.

A few cultivar bee balms (Monarda didyma) have self-seeded where they want to go.

Many clumps of Echinacea, including this big one (I was envious of Rose's clump before realizing I have my own, lol!)

Front of the house, looking south. Yes, friends, things are looking a little wild at Garden Faerie's Musings this year.

I love the bright fuchsia of this swamp milkeeed (Asclepias incarnata)... and I love that Asclepias is a public way of saying ass...

I don't know who this buggy is on my milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), but I bet one of you can tell me.

Ah, orange. Glorious orange. Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) is one of my favorite flowers. Attracts butterflies, my favorite color, no big surprise there.

Yes, it really is 4:30 a.m., this is not a scheduled post. I've been up since 3:00 because Jimi, Radioactive Cat, has been yowling (meowing is too quiet a word) non-stop for about 8 hours. He had radiation (iodine) therapy for a thyroid problem and has to be isolated for two weeks, which he doesn't understand at all. I can only have limited contact with him. We're both a little exhausted! (Dear ASPCA: The photo shows him in the car right after I picked him up from the vet; he is in my spare bedroom now, not a tiny cat carrier! Also, I don't wear fur except what has been shed. Thank you.)

Update: I just got clarification from the regular vet who wasn't there yesterday when Jimi was discharged: I only have to isolate him at night (because he usually sleeps next to me and 8 hours is too much exposure) and if I leave the house (so I can be sure he doesn't use Fiona's litter box or eat her food). It's a good thing I'm a self-unemployed hermit I work from home!

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