Why I Oughta...

My 'shade garden' grows.  I picked up these Storm Seas bulbs at Costco and put them in the ground this weekend on the northside of our house next to the hostas and ferns.    They're supposed to be a hearty bunch (much like a hosta), so I'm hoping they'll produce some nice (non-green) color on this side of the yard.

Last week, we went to Menards to pick up some plants and I'll be honest:  we were a little disappointed with their selection.  They don't seem to have given a lot of care to the plants and many were already dried out. In the shade section, however, they had some nice hosta varieties that were thriving.  I picked up three kinds - mostly so I could have a firm grasp on the differences between the ones in our yard. First is the Brim Cup Plaintain Lily.  Has nice yellow tips.   Planted a few of these on the west side of the fence on the northside of the house in the shade of the Cleveland Pear Tree and south of the walk.   Next is the Great Expectations.  Light green variations on the center of the plant.  Planted these on the northside, both east/west of the fence.  One in particular is right on the walk in the backyard on the north of the walk. Finally, is the Fragrant Blue Hosta.  We have some of these around, but I wanted to add a new one for comparison.  This

My favorite of all our plantings in our yard are my Ostrich ferns.  I've successfully transplanted some of them from the south fence line to the north fence line.  Since then, I've tried to add a few different varieties of other ferns and have only had one come back year/over/year:   a Japanese Painted Fern .  It has come up again this year and I've worked hard to pay some attention to it over the past few years. This year, I picked up three small containers of these (above photo) "Autumn Brilliance" ferns.  They're adored by fern folks.   I put in all three on the northside of our house, just south of the walkway in between some of the hosta plantings. From Wayside Gardens : One of the showiest Ferns in recent years, Autumn Fern 'Brilliance' is a dazzling display of color for every season. The fronds turn from bright copper to soft green to russet-orange again, all on an evergreen habit that looks great in the partly-shaded bed or border!  

Bad news here at the Parrillo homestead.  Our trusty double jogger had one of the front forks snapped right in two.  I've put in an inquiry to Valco Baby to see if they sell the part.  Fingers crossed.

Just like in year's past, Nat's peonies are popping up - and that is what really means Spring to me. Here's my post from 2013 .   And here are the photos of these same peonies in 2010 , 2011 , and 2012 .

 I'm loving my new Chief Illiniwek shirt.  Nice way for the athletic department to cash in on the Chief without really using the Chief! Thanks, Nat!

Most every year, I document the return of the peonies in our yard, but this post isn't about that.  Hopefully, I'll get to that later this month when they emerge. This post, is rather, about this unknown bulb poking through the mulch.  I don't quite remember what it is, but give us a few weeks and we'll know!  Our yard is finally emerging from it's long winter's slumber.  I've gone out and done poop patrol once, but as we start to play more in the backyard with the girls, I'm going to have to get back out there and clean up even more.

I came across this jacket in the basement of an estate sale in Elmhurst over the weekend.  They wanted just $2 for it, but I couldn't pull the trigger.  Had never heard of St. Lawrence University.  A quick Google search tells you it is in upstate New York .  The house had a lot of artistic items in the Estate Sale - including paintings.  The jacket made a long trip both from New York, but also from way back in 1956.  Hopefully, someone else found it and it found a nice home and not in the bottom of a dumpster.

I was expecting something different from Martha.

We start 'em young at the Parrillo household. If you read our family blog (which you most likely don't!), you've seen a few of the photos over the years of the girls on this very important day in our house:  election day.  I think I've chronicled (over there) every time we've taken them to the polls. For some history from this blog: Here's a photo of  the Babe back in 2010 when she voted for the 2nd time. And  here's the first time The Babe came to the polling place back in 2010 when she was just a month old . After all these years of supporting Tom Cross, we got our first chance to vote for him on the ballot.  It felt nice!