Why I Oughta...

Earlier this Spring, we moved our Strawberry plant from the center of the main raised bed to a separate, stand-alone pot that could allow it to spread out a bit.  Due to that stress, I'm thinking that I stunted the plant's growth this year as this morning I was able to pull just one - the first! - berry off. Granted, it is a bit early, as last year it wasn't until late June that we were getting a lot of fruit .  Nat and the girls enjoyed this one berry and Nat said it was delicious.  Makes me want to go out and buy a few more plants.  I know it takes multiple seasons for them to start paying off/bearing lots of fruit, so we better get started now to have something by next Summer.

Last night, we took the two girls out for ice cream at BrainFreeze and stumbled upon a series of live musicians that were playing around the City Centre.  Turns out, the Elmhurst City Centre group is hosting an event series called "Block to Block Party" every Wednesday and Saturday night from Memorial Day to Labor Day. The Party consists of live musicians at four locations around the downtown area.  We saw three of them and they added a nice atmosphere to the area.  It didn't hurt that it was an amazing night out. The notion of live, acoustic music played two nights a week in town every week is a nice one and...in my mind...is a bit of a differentiator.  I don't know of any Western Suburban Downtown area that does something like this?  Maybe other's do indeed have a musician in place, but the scale at which this is executed (4 musicians two times a week all summer) is pretty great.    Will it get people downtown?  I'm not sure, but it certainly can&#

Last week, we picked up one of these Baptisia Australis plants at Luurs Nursery last week.  It is commonly known as Blue False Indigo.  We bought because we liked the look and the fact that it was named Perennial Plant of the Year didn't help.   According to Wikipedia , the Cherokee Tribe used it to create blue dye. I planted it in our front yard and Nat quickly said that we should go back and buy a few more.   It seems to have taken root and the rains we've had the past few days have certainly assisted it finding a home in the bed.

Last week, we stopped by a nursery in Hillside and found a nice Pinky Winky Hydrangea Tree that we loved.  The only issue was the price.  It wasn't cheap.  On Saturday, I took both girls over to Menards and while out in the garden center, I saw the same variety and about the same size, but for less than half the price.  Into the cart this thing went. Our plan calls for something like this as a way to add some height to our northern set of beds along our walkway from the garage to our deck.  I put it in the ground yesterday after I cleaned up the one sucker near the bottom and gave it a big drink. I've had mixed results with hydrangeas so I want to stay on top of this one water-wise so it has a good chance at establishing itself this summer.

I picked up two S piked Gayfeathers at the Elmhurst Garden Club Plant Sale a week or so back. They grow tall and provide some height in a perennial garden and they do well in full-sun, so they'll - hopefully - do really well in the backyard right to the West of our family room.  I put them in and the greens are doing really well even though the Babe stepped right on one while she was chasing a wiffleball.  Which...as her father is a GREAT excuse for trampling my plants, btw.

Back a few Saturdays ago, we stopped by the Elmhurst Garden Club's annual plant sale which was held at the Park District's Abby on St. Charles Road . We didn't arrive too terribly early, but there was still a good selection available.  These sales tend to focus mostly on perennials with a few nicely planted annual pots put together. The prices tend to be pretty good and the variety was just fine for us.  They had things broken down into shade vs. sun perennials and a wildflower section.  I always gravitate towards the ferns in the shade  section, but either they only had a few or they were already picked over when we arrived as they only had Ostrich and Painted Ferns available.  Both of which we already have.  The Ostrich variety do really well for us, and we're on our second year with a Painted Fern and it came back well - even after being buried for a few days under mulch. We ended picking up two wildflowers and Pink Plox that the Babe picked out.  Of course,

At this year's annual Google I/O Conference, the team at +Google   announced a bunch of things, but the first one that I *experienced* first-hand was the "extra Awesome Somethings"  in Google+ photos. Using some programatic intelligence, the team at Google has started to 'drop' little surprises into your photo collection on Google+ when you take bunches of photos at once. As an example, Google+ 'gifted' me these two neat things.  First, an animated GIF (JIF?!?!)  of the Babe and then this composite of the Bird. Pretty neat stuff.  Thanks  +Google+  !