Category: Flowers

Sunday Feature: Golf Course Gardens

One of the most interesting places I’ve found to admire gardens is out on the golf course.  Most try very hard to create a very natural, beautiful setting to enhance the experience, which I definitely appreciate.  The gardens and landscaping also work to integrate the courses into their surroundings, which make them a perfect haven for wildlife (see previous post: Wildlife on the Golf Course ).  It seems as though the course gardeners often put as much energy into the gardens as they do into the actual course.   I’ve found that the gardens can be very calming, the blooms and scents can cheer up a dismal game, or in some cases, they can make you laugh when you come across a random pumpkin patch.  Enjoy some of the photos from the courses I’ve been on this year.

South Carolina

kiawah

 

 
kiawah

 

 
kiawah

 

 
kiawah

 

 
IMG_4453

Illinois

IMG_3243

 

 
Links of Carillon

 

 
Links of Carillon

 

 
Links of Carillon

 

 
Links of Carillon

 

 
Flagg Creek

 

 
Flagg Creek

 

 
Flagg Creek

 

 
Flagg Creek

 

 
Flagg Creek

 

 
IMG_3268

 

 
Flagg Creek

 And then there’s the pumpkins.  We watched these grow all summer, not quite sure what we were looking at.  Perfect conditions, the pumpkins were huge!

Flagg Creek
 

 
Flagg Creek

(I do have to give a shout out to all my golfing partners who tolerate my running off to take a quick picture. Can’t always do it, but try to when it doesn’t interfere with the “pace of play”. When I think it might, those pretty scenes just have to be tucked away in my memory 🙂 )

It’s a Great Day to be Red: Part 2

After my last RED post, my son’s cross country team went on to win the IL State Championship for the first time in team history. And when it comes to sports, I am one of those weirdly superstitious people who think that, somehow, something I’ve done makes a difference in the results. So, I figured I had better do another post in support of their trip to Portland for the Nike Cross National (NXN) Championship Race.  They made it to the Championship Race as an at-large team, so there was a lot of nervous waiting the last two weeks until the committee decided who those teams would be.  We couldn’t be more excited for them.  This is such an honor and hopefully not a “once in a lifetime event” for the team.  So, to offer my support again, here’s some more fabulous RED pictures.

 

Norfolk Pine

 

poinsettia

 

poinsettia

 

 

poinsettia

 And even snowmen and Starbucks are in the act!
Cheers to you, boys!

snowmen salt and pepper

starbucks coffee

 

Credit for first five photos are to Photos by Peggy

Happy Halloween!!

Happy Halloween!

IMG_4122

Halloween is always a mixed bag weather-wise here.  I’ve seen everything from 70’s and gorgeous, to 30’s with snow, and everything in between.  This year looks like a rainy, yet rather warm day and not very windy.  In the scheme of things, I guess not too bad.  But then, my kids are past their trick-or-treating years (I think) so I don’t need to worry about how to get their costume over their winter coat, or trying to figure out how to trick-or-treat with an umbrella.

When the drizzle stopped for a little bit this morning, I went out to see how the colors were changing and the garden faring.

For some reason the dying hostas looked so interesting today…

Hosta
Hosta
Hosta
Hosta

My “schizophrenic” tree, as a fellow blogger so aptly named it, is continuing on it’s own odd path through the fall changes…

maple colors

The maples, burning bushes and serviceberries are just glowing these days…

maple in fall colors

Burning bush

 And this mess I’ll talk about tomorrow… 

IMG_1338

  Trick or Treaters are arriving!  So glad they weren’t scared off by the rain!

Moving Some Rocks

The last couple of weeks, I’ve been trying to get some spots in the garden in order before it got too cold. One is shown here:

Stephi Gardens

Stephi Gardens

It’s a spot that in theory should be a good way to have dealt with the slope of the garden as opposed to the level patio. The problem that developed was that the small foot or so of garden that aligns with the lower grill area, just has become a place for dirt, leaves and other random outdoor junk to collect and wash onto the patio. Plants haven’t seemed to want to grow very well there, so it just became an a dirty eyesore. We had originally planted purple tuurtleheads and bee balm in the area, then added some other plants as things died back.

So finally this year, I decided this area needed a change. I had the stones moved forward to the edge of the brick and some plastic added to keep the dirt from washing in. There’ll be a bit of a slope, but it can’t be worse than the ugliness of what I am dealing with now. Neither of those original plants did great in this locations, so what’s left of them I’m moving them to other spots.

Moving the plants–a clump of turtlehead roots

Purple Tutleheads
and some very scraggly bee balm that needs more sunlight.

Bee Balm

The spurge that does do well here, I’ll split in the spring.  It’s about 5 years old so probably ready to split.  I’ve also been been finding such interesting Coral Bells (Heuchera) lately and they seem to like it here.  I’ll try to add some more of them and some interesting hosts and astilbe to round it out.  I’m hoping this impoves the look and keeps the patio a little cleaner.

Here’s what it looks like now, honestly not much better, but getting too cold to really do much.  The rest of the plants to be added and moved will need to be done in the spring.  At least I’m ready!

Stephi Gardens

Stephi Gardens

 

 

Purple Beautyberry Bush

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the Morton Arboretum for the Glass Pumpkin Patch. In the parking lot, right next to the car was the most gorgeous bushes with brilliant purple berries on it.

Beautyberry

Beautyberry

Thankfully, the Arboretum does a great job in labeling everything, and I could find the tag telling me what it was.

Beautyberry

 

Callicarpa dichotoma is a native of China, Japan and Korea and grows best on full sun-part shade in zones 5-8.  It seems to be pretty hardy, generally free of serious pests or diseases, and is a fairly small shrub growing full size to about 4 ft x 4 ft.  It has small unimpressive pinkish-lavender flowers that bloom in late summer, but the berries that ripen in September and October are quite dramatic. A favorite of the birds, it holds its berries well into winter.  It should heavily pruned down to about 12 inches in late winter or early spring to have the best berry production.

This shrub looks like an excellent and interesting choice to replace my half dead redtwig dogwoods.  My local nursery carries C. dichotoma “Issai” which seems quite similar to the variety at the Arboretum.  Might be a little late now, but I will check into it in the spring.  Have you seen this stunning shrub?

Brrr, it’s Cold

As expected, we sunk down below freezing Tuesday night. Glad I got the last of the vegetables harvested. Surprisingly, many of the garden plants actually looked pretty good in the morning, but we’ll see after 2 days of below freezing temperatures overnight.

I ended up leaving the single perfect rosebud on the plant. In the morning it was still tightly closed, just half the size as the day before.
Rosebud

The coleus and petunias showed their unhappiness by curling up their leaves and petals like they were trying to stay warm.
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image

Then later yesterday, I headed up to Michigan for a quick visit to my mom’s. The drive was interesting, both from the quirky weather and the seemingly random changing of the colors. I would have expected a gradual transition as I headed north, but instead, the colors were highly variable, with some places still green, others showing beautiful colors, then still more already bare. This morning, we woke up to this–

image

image

Not sure I’m ready!

First Frost Warning is Coming Tonight!

I feel pretty lucky that we’ve squeaked out an extra week or so before the first hard frost has hit the Chicago area. NOAA has issued it’s first freeze watch for the area for tonight, almost a week my after the average date for my area.  We might even get some flurries! Chicago is a little difficult to know what will really happen weather-wise at any one spot in the region, since Lake Michigan and other land features create a lot of micro-climates that skew local temperatures and precipitation.  You can check out your first frost dates on Dave’s Garden.

Even so, I think tonight will be it for the plants. I went around yesterday and took some last pictures of the flowers and harvested the last of the vegetables in preparation. I’m always a little sad this time of year, when the garden still looks so inviting after having finally recovered from the harsh mid -summer conditions. Yet I know it is only a matter of time till it’s over.  It’s like the plants want that last hurrah before going to sleep for the winter, or for the annuals, to go out in a blaze of glory.

Final Garden Harvest–having just been in Charleston, I am going to use those green tomatoes!
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 The garden is still in bloom

sedum

hydrangea

hydrangea

petunia geranium

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cosmos

rosebud

marigolds
Some of the trees are showing their colors, but not very uniformly or brilliantly. Some are showing the stress of  2 harsh summers and disease, while others haven’t even begun to change.

purple ash

branched maple

maple

It’ll be interesting to see what it al looks like tomorrow. I’m torn as to whether I should bring in that beautiful single rosebud to protect it, or see what happens if I leave it.

Coleus

I’ve been away from blogging for a few days while my husband and I took a wonderful quick trip to Charleston, SC.  As I mentioned in my Kiawah blog (and also the one on Kiawah dining), we’ve flown to the Charleston airport numerous times with the family to go right out to the beach, but never made a side trip to Charleston.  I am currently writing up that trip for a “Travel to Charleston” post, but in the meantime there were some interesting gardening ideas that I thought I’d write about.

The first is about Coleus.  Seems an odd choice, but I have become quite a fan of this fairly simple and common plant.  I remember back in the old days, we used to have them as indoor houseplants.  As long as they got some sunlight, kept them evenly watered  and kept pinching them, they grew great.  Of course, I did none of those, so I got ugly, leggy plants that I think even got mites or something.

Fast forward to today. I have slowly been using them as annuals in pots around the yard. This year I filled 3 pots that are in dappled shady locations with just coleus seedlings that I picked up cheaply at Home Depot.  I didn’t really plan it out very well, other than something needed to go in those pots. But much to my surprise, my husband has remarked on numerous occasions how much he likes those coleus pots that surround his grill area.  They have turned out to be so colorful and interesting, and have been fun to watch as the summer has progressed.  In fact, they still look great as fall colors starts to settle in around them.

coleus 4

coleus 3

coleus 5

They’ve been simple to keep looking good.  Keep them watered, they definitely let you know when they need it, and pinch the flower stalks periodically to keep them bushy. At this point I have let them flower and that’s added to their prettiness.  I didn’t fertilize them much, but I think like any pot plant, it helps.

So how does this relate to Charleston? As we wandered around this very wanderable city, coleus was everywhere. In pots, in window boxes and in gardens. I was so surprised to see it so many places, and I came to realize what a great mixer it was in the garden arrangements, both as a mass of one color, or a colorful mixture of varieties.

coleus 1

coleus 2

Seeing these beautiful garden spaces has definitely encouraged me to to think about how I can use coleus better in my own garden spaces.   They are so easy to grow and versatile in their uses, I’ve already been researching varieties and seed sources for next spring.  I will probably grow my own so that I can really plan out the right varieties for the colors, height and sun conditions better.  Unfortunately in Zone 5 where I live, coleus is definitely an annual so it needs to be grown each year or plant cuttings overwintered indoors.  If I can find a location to overwinter a few, I might do that.  But I better hurry, it’s getting close to that first frost here.

So if you’re looking for ideas as to how to grow and use coleus in your garden, check out these sites that I’ve started collecting for next spring. Does anyone have any more recommendations or ideas? Do you have coleus in your garden?

Southern Living-Colorful Coleus
Fine Gardening-Designing with Coleus
Fine Gardening-Sizing up Coleus
Tribtoday.com-Start Coleus Seeds Now for Spring
 Swallowtail Gardens Seeds
Burpee Seeds