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Getting to Know Didiscus Lacy Blue - March 2026

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Yesterday, I posted the first "Getting to Know" posts about the set of plugs that I bought from Garden Club this year: Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue .  Next up is another blue bloom: Didiscus Lacy Blue .  This one is a direct recommendation from Erin the Impatient Gardener.  She mentioned that she grows these.  So...that's why I added to my cart.  So, what are they? Here is the listing from Floret : There is nothing like this super-productive, dome-shaped beauty. Each graceful disk is made of hundreds of tiny, forget-me-not-blue flowers, and the branching stems are smothered in buds. ‘Lacy Blue’ will flower for months, is slightly scented, and is the perfect size for bouquet work. Well...that sounds perfect, no?  They get 2-3 tall and need just 9" of spacing. Here is a photo from Farmer Bailey showing these growing in tunnels: Source via Farmer Bailey The Farmer Bailey growing guide mentions that they want some afternoon shade, so I think that mea...
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Getting to Know Lisianthus Celeb - Metallic Blue - March 2026

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Yesterday, I posted my Garden Club plug order and talked about how all six varieties are new (to me).   Lisianthus Celeb 2 Metallic Blue is the first one up.  I bought eight plugs and this is my first Lisianthus.  If you follow any flower farmer on Instagram, you can't go a week without hearing about Lisianthus.  They're rose-like and from what I've come to understand have good 'vase life'.  These "Celeb 2" Metallic blue are described by Garden Club as: The 'Celeb' series features large to extremely large, fully double, fringed flowers. This series dominates the Japanese Lisianthus market, and many of the cut flowers we see imported from Japan are Celeb types. Those Japanese gardeners.  They're so prolific .  Anything BLUE is of immediate interest to me, so the name made these an easy-add.  The photos show a more purple color, but we'll see what happens when/if they bloom: Source via Garden Club Ball Seed says : Huge blooms with strong, w...
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Location: Downers Grove, IL, USA
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Cut Flower Plugs Ordered for 2026 - March 2026

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This past weekend, I published the 25 items on my 2026 yard and garden to-do task list and included a number of cut-flower-related items.  Growing dahlias.  Supporting dahlias.  Growing more accent plants in the vertical garden.  All were on there.  But, so was another one - number 8: 8. Experiment with other cut flowers.  Plant them in the ground (in the garden beds) and add some variety to my arrangements. New varieties.  That means new (to me).   I'm a foliage gardener.  But, I have had so much fun becoming a flower gardener, too.  I've learned so much about dahlias the past few seasons and have found some flowering perennials that I can use in some cut flower arrangements, too.   But, this year, I wanted to try some new flowers that I can use in my arrangements.  Why?  Because, if you look at them, they're VERY dahlia-heavy .  That's not a bad thing.  But, if you're not changing and learning, you'r...
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Front Yard Island Bed Shape and Edge Corrections - March 2026

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Yesterday I posted my annual to-do list of 25 items I'm aiming to tackle this growing season .  I'm starting off with an early win by taking-on Priority item #2 on the list one-day-in.  I've talked about how I've adopted what I call the 'lazy bed extension method' of using three factors:  1.  Cardboard to smother the existing turf grass. 2.  A mix of (municipal) biosolids, leaf litter and composted manure + topsoil. 3.  Time. That 3rd factor (time) is why I'm going at this garden upgrade in March.   Here's what I wrote for #2: 2. Priority Project 2:  Expand and fix the edges of the front yard island bed .  But, use a ‘fewer curves’ approach to making a curvilinear shape . Last year, I planted Coleus (which was great) and Supertunias (which weren’t), so strike the right balance between colorful annuals (maybe mirror what I put in the front porch bed) along with some coleus for foliage. I also included further down the list at #12 a "Fall ...
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Location: Downers Grove, IL, USA
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2026 Yard And Garden To-Do List

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'Tis the season for setting my goals for the yard and garden this year.  As I've done for the past few years, I've put together my annual "To Do List" as a way of keeping myself on track.  Thanks to this here garden diary and posts like this one ( early, early look post ) and this one ( last year's final tally ) and this [ 2026 to-do ] tag help make putting together this list much easier.   Like anything in life, in order to be successful in the garden (or...I should say...in order for ME to be successful...), I need a goal.  A target.  Otherwise, I'll be aimless.  Will I get some things done?  Yes.  But, are they the most impactful, most critical, most enjoyable parts?  Maybe?  But, when I sit down and think about what I want to accomplish both short term (this season) and as part of a longer-term approach, I find that I can reference this list as the season goes on to ensure that I'm spending my time and resources effectively....
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Finishing The Pizza Oven Enclosure - Veneer Mortar Temperatures- March 2026

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I've recently posted about a number of [priority projects] for 2026 and (at the same time), I've been drafting my full 2026 to-do list.  That's typically 25 items that help keep me focused in the yard and garden.  One of the items near the top of that list is going to be:  finish up the pizza oven enclosure. Last week, I burned the first small fire in the oven for the season and talked about getting motivated to finish it.  A big part of that finishing is applying the exterior brick.  However, I need the temperatures to improve and stabilize before I can get busy.  Here's what the specifications sheet reads in terms of application temperatures: 50 degrees for 72 hours after application of the mortar.  According to *some* models , we should be hitting that 50-degree average right around early April.   Last Fall, I applied just a handful of bricks to the rear part of the structure - figuring I'd LEARN how to apply the bricks on the part of th...
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2026 Priority Project #3: Finish the Pizza Oven Bed "Garden Edit" - March 2026

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We're moving on to my #3 Priority project for 2026.   First one was to stop fighting nature (nature finds a way) with Oakleaf Hydrangeas . Second was to re-cut the edges of the front yard island bed .   Today, I'm posting the details of #3:  finishing a project that I started two years ago:  A Garden edit.   I wrote about this earlier this year and talked about how I relocated a colony of All Gold Hakonechloa Japanese Forest Grasses from around the tree swing tree and moved them to the other side of the yard.  I moved them right before I began excavation for the backyard pizza oven.  Now that the oven foundation is built out, I had the bed extended around it last year, creating a long empty border.   My plan has been to fill that border with a series of Hakonechloa Macra (straight variety) grasses .  Both from the Oak tree 'backwards' and 'forward'.   Here below is the area that needs to be populated: And here, b...
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Location: Downers Grove, IL, USA
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