Why I Oughta...

2024 is the year when I need to continue to remind myself to get more comfortable with flowers.  By that, I mean...I'm a gardener.  But, I'm a foliage gardener.  Because of my full-shade backyard, I've opted for focusing on foliage gardens - ferns, astilbes, shrubs, trees.   Last Fall, I bought a couple of late-season flowering perennials and decided that I needed to do more - specifically in the new IB2DWs (extended) bed that is a conifer garden.  At the end of last growing season (2023), I ran through my normal 'to-do list' grades, but I also wrote up some 'lessons learned' that included 10 things that I wanted to keep in mind including #6 :   6. Flowers continue to be a little bit outside my comfort zone. Change that. I started this Fall, but plenty more room to grow/go. Countertop arrangements need flowers. Try some dahlias, too. I've started down that path - at least in theory.   Back in December, I ordered some Dahlia tubers from Longfield Ga

Last year, I started to learn how to put together cuttings from our garden into countertop arrangements .  I made a number of them from late Summer to Fall that were primarily anchored by the Disneyland Floribunda roses.   By the end of the season, I came the conclusion that I needed to get outside of my foliage-gardening 'comfort zone' and start to add some flowers.    On a late-season whim (sale), I planted a few new (to me) flowering perennials including May Night salvia , coneflowers and some Agastache 'Blue Fortune' to the front IB2DWs beds.   I also pulled the trigger on a small dahlia tuber order from Longfield - where I pre-ordered some Melina Fleur (Decorative) and Cornel Bronze (Pompon) tubers .  My (current) plan is to put those in by the Disneyland Roses on the side of the house.    I also bought some Cut-and-Come-Again Zinnia seeds that I'd like to start inside and move to my containers in the back  - to replicate the look of a  combo of Zinnias and E

In my 2023 recap post, I included a list of ten 'lessons learned' or takeaways from the year .  They were a mix of looking back and a few looking ahead.  One of them was about flowers.  I wrote that " Flowers continue to be a little bit outside my comfort zone. Change that. I started this Fall, but plenty more room to grow/go. Countertop arrangements need flowers. Try some dahlias, too. " When I said that I 'started', that meant the late-season plantings like the Blue Fortune Agastache , a Pow Wow Wildberry coneflower , a pair of May Night Salvias and some purple foliage Pentstemons (all IB2DWS).    And, I've had a lot of fun with the Disneyland Roses - including in arrangements.   I've also done a little bit of dabbling with Dahlias over the years.  But, I've always treated them as annuals and haven't invested much in the tubers.  I grew Night Queens .  And some orange ones.  And Cactus dahlias, too .     Over the years, I've kept a

Earlier this Summer, I planted a series of Caladium tubers DIRECTLY in the beds on the southside - near the Fanal Astilbe colony .  I planted them right on the border of the bed and hoped they'd fill in the gap between the current perennials and the border.  These were bought as tubers from Costco and being a Zone 5b gardener, these are (for us) annuals.  They're also (at least to me) tropicals.  Why do I mention tropicals?  Because one of 2022 to-do items ( #14 ) was to work with more tropicals IN the landscape.  And #16 was to work with shade annuals .  This does BOTH of those things.   Five weeks after planting the tubers, we're seeing some action.  Below is a look at one of these Caladiums that have popped up: There appear to be five or six groupings of these white Aaron Caldiums that have emerged.  Once they all grow up and leaf-out, I'll take a group photo.   This is my first season growing a GROUP of tropical tubers in the ground and will be something I think abo

Earlier this Spring, Nat brought home a package of Caladium tubers from Costco that I finally got around to digging into the beds.  These are Aaron Caladiums that I'm treating as annuals as I don't anticipate digging these tubers up to store for the season.   Aaron Caladiums are described as: "beautifully refined element to add to a shady site; luminous white leaves with feathered dark green margins; a great border accent that will tolerate some sun" .  Here, below, is a look at the Longfield Gardens packaging showing the twelve tubers and the individual bags. I decided to dig them into the south bed where they can sit in front of the Fanal Astilbes that run part of the border .   You can see the disturbed soil in the photo below.   #14 on my 2022 to-do list was to work some tropicals into the landscape, so this checks part of that box.  And #16 on that list was to add some shade annuals.  These, too, check that box.  

Part of the newly carved out beds in our backyard - near our patio - are the only real shots we have for a lot of Sun in the back.  As part of the whole transplanting/order of operations stuff, I transplanted a bunch of our peonies up here and left some spots for annuals.  Well, I treat dahlias as annuals - and don't keep the tubers like a good gardener should - so when I found this bicolor dahlia at a good price, I grabbed it and popped it right into the ground.  It is called a "Labella Maggiore rose bicolor dahlia" and it seems to be off to a decent start in the ground: Below are the tags that show that it gets between 18 and 28" tall - so not huge for dahlias.   The colors on this particular variety remind me of the Disneyland Rose colors that we see later this Summer.  I've grown dahlias in the ground before over in this area and I think that will be a nice feature to replicate every year.   I'll keep these wet and then mulch them in shortly.

Back in May of this year, I shared my plans to plant some Dahlia tubers directly in the ground in one of our landscape beds along the south property line.  That post is here .   In that post, I described the two varieties - one being a semi-cactus and the other being a dinner plate. Specifically I planted three Big Brother Dinner plate Dahlias . And, I planted three Color Spectacle Semi-Cactus Dahlia s. Please go click those links.  And make sure my eyes aren't fooling me.  They're both orange, right?  Like, totally orange.  The packages of both show orange flowers.  And...I love orange flowers.  Well, I like orange most things.  But, have a special soft-spot for orange flowers.  Now, scroll back to the top of this post.  That's a couple of the Big Brother Dinner plate flowers about to burst open.  And now, check out the photo below.  That's one of the Color Spectacle flowers starting to open up. They're, ummm, not orange.  Right?  Those are tota

With the soil temperatures finally getting around 60 degrees in our Zone, I was able to get this year's Dahlia Tubers in the ground.  I planted them here - in the photo - along the south fence line right in front of the Teardown Hydrangea.  The Semi-Cactus ones on the left and the Dinnerplate ones on the right.    Last year, I put a few different types in containers and they did well .  I watered them in and will try to keep an eye on the spot in the next few weeks to hope that we get some growth out of the mulch.

Yesterday, I shared a couple of photos of some Elephant Ear bulbs that I am planning on putting in containers on the patio this Season .  Today, I'm sharing two more sets of bulbs - or in this case..."Tubers" is what they're actually called - for this Season.   Dahlias can be grown in the garden or in containers.  I think the pros put them in the ground/garden and then in Zones like ours (5b), pull them out of the ground in the Fall to store them over Winter.  But...they *can* be grown in containers.  Why do I think that?  Because of this article on the official site of The American Dahlia Society .  It walks you through how to grow them in pots.  (Hint...start them low and gradually add soil on top of them as they shoot up.) I think I'm going to try a little bit of both - putting some of our Dahlias in containers while putting others directly in the landscape.   So far we've bought two varieties of tubers.  First, a Dinnerplate variety called &q

Back in May, I posted about the first peony plant that we put in our backyard - a variety called Sarah Bernhardt .  Despite the fact that peonies are Nat's absolute favorite flower, we had gone almost a year without planting one.  (We did, however, have a foster peony at Nat's Mom's house .) I put this particular peony near the north fence line and after burying the tuber, I covered the area with mulch and marked it with a stick and then a stone ring.  We were putting together Fairy Gardens with the kids recently and I noticed that the peony shoots and broken through the mulch and we had some actual growth.  These are way, way behind what most normal, established peony plants look like by June.  This is normally the time we're cutting the blooms and bringing them indoors.  Since this was planted as a tuber this year, I was just hoping that we'd get these to emerge this year and that they'll have enough time to establish their root system before the dry/

At our old place in Elmhurst, we had a big, beautiful, sprawling Anemone plant that was a gift from Nat's Mom.  Turns out, Natalie had Anemone in her wedding bouquet and they were attempting to recreate it some time after our wedding and that involved the purchase of Anemone plants to take some cuttings from.  Nat's Mom ended up with a couple of these plants and gave us one - which I stuck in the sideyard of our house - right to the south of our front porch.  And it thrived!  Like, really thrived.   After a couple of years that is.  It started small, came back in year two and I think gave us just a couple of blooms.  But in year three and four and beyond?  It was big and wonderful.  Take a look at it blooming in 2013 here .  Just like the peony that the kids gave Nat for Mother's Day this year, they also picked out a set of Anemone bulbs - these St. Brigid Blend.  Which, I believe aren't the same plant that we had before.  Why?  Because this product listing says th

Back one month ago, I shared a photo of the Sarah Berhhardt peony tuber that I planted in our backyard and talked about how peonies are Nat's favorite flowers.  Unfortunately, before that one, we didn't have any peonies in our entire yard.  But, we *are* fostering one at Nat's mom's house out in Naperville and I plan on bringing that over to Hornbeam Hill early this Summer.  For Mother's Day this year, the kids all decided to buy a few bulbs/tubers for Nat and one of them is this Karl Rosenfield Peony  - which is a double bloom variety.  Around the side of our front porch, we have a couple of hydrangeas, but then a lot of blank, naked beds.  There is literally NOTHING in this spot on our landscape plan, so I decided to wing it.  It is south-facing, so peonies planted here would be getting some good sun and due to the downspouts and grading, this area gets a good amount of water.  So, just in front of the downspout off the porch is a spot that I stuck these

Just a little over a week ago, I posted the first peek of little sprouts of Dahlias and Elephant Ears poking through the soil in a pot that I started in our dining room.  Welp, fast forward a week and we suddenly have a lot of growth from three shoots.  But, I'm pretty sure that I planted four bulbs/tubers.  Three Firebird semi-cactus Dahlias and one Elephant Ear Black Magic .   The three plants that have grown all look alike, so I'm presuming that these are the Dahlias.  But, the Elephant Ear is missing.  Perhaps a little bit of excavation is called for to figure out if the Elephant Ear is, indeed, down there (or if I forgot to plant it!) and/or if something is wrong.  Maybe I planted it too deep? My hunch is that the bulb is still simply dormant - and that's not an uncommon problem based on a quick tour around the Web - and that with time, it will come up. 

Back in Mid-March, I posted about some dahlia tubers and Elephant Ear bulbs that I picked up at Menards.  Along with the kids, I ended up planting some of them in this big terracotta pot and got it started early in our dining room (which gets the most southern exposure).  In the photo above, you can see the early shoots emerging from the soil.  This is two Firebird semi-cactus dahlias and one Elephant ear bulb that make up the three plants you see.  As I've said before here on the blog, I've had very little luck with dahlias, so these are hopeful signs for this gardener.  Once we get past the freeze/frost date this Spring, I'll move this pot outside to the back patio so it can get full sunlight.  I'll also add some 'spill' to the pot once the garden centers start to have their annuals to fill out the pot.

Yesterday, I posted a photo of some "Night Queen" Dahlias that I picked up and planted indoors recently.  Today, I'm sharing a photo of another set of 3 Dahlia tubers that came home with us, too.  This one is called "Vuurvogel" or Firebird Semi-cactus Dahlia. And while the "Night Queen" flowers are small (< 4"), these are much larger (~11") and have petals that are shaped quite differently.  Hence the whole "semi-cactus" thing. What's a semi-cactus dahlia?  Glad you asked.  I asked the same question myself.  And found this answer from Gardeners World : Some of the most spectacular dahlias are cactus and semi-cactus types. With their spiky blooms, they can trace their lineage back to a single surviving plant grown from a crate of tubers imported into the Netherlands in 1872. Cactus and semi-cactus dahlias are some of the most eye-catching dahlias you can grow. Their star-like form means they stand up well to inclemen

'Tis the season for Spring bulbs/tubers to go in the ground and as I've done in so many year's past, I'm giving it a go with Dahlias this Spring.  Starting all the way back in 2010 , I've shared my adventures with Dahlia tubers.  I've planted them in pots/planters for our own yard and as gifts.  We've even bought and planted Dahlias of various types directly in the ground out front of our old house.  And we've had limited luck with all of them.  But, still, we persist.  Why?  Because behind Peonies and maybe Allium, Dahlias are right there at the top of Nat's favorite flower list.    These "Night Queen" Dahlia are the small version (not 'Dinner plate') and they're going to get an early start in a big pot inside the house.  I also bought a few other things that I'll stick in the pot together and once it warms up, I'll move the pot outside.  With our patio done and plenty of work to be done on the yard, I'm think