A Lovely Day in Central Illinois!

I apologize to any and all who saw this post before I added my text. I hit publish instead of save. DUH!!!


Today was almost a spring day. The temperatures have moderated a bit, the sun was shinning and the humidity was down in the low 40's. A wonderful day to go to lunch and shop.

I took Rose for a belated birthday lunch and we had time to just visit with each other. We talked of family and friends....but mostly we talked of garden blogs. "Did you see so and so's post on...Yes, and did you read about..." Well, you get the idea. We spend hours on the computer visiting our cyber friends and then we spend hours comparing notes on what we've seen and read. We laugh at the humor, marvel at the flowers, and are agog over the photography! It's so much fun.

As Rose has said numerous times on her post, we don't really shop-shop any more. We plant shop. And even though both of us have spent the next year's grocery budget on plants already, we just had to check out our favorite garden stores to see if they had any sales. They did! We really didn't get carried away, but oh how we enjoyed looking-still.

When we pulled up to one rather expensive nursery, we were greeted by this planter. It's 48" long and must weigh a ton as it is making the iron fence sag a little. But wouldn't that make a statement hanging on your fence or deck.

After several stops at nursery's we decided to go to the 'Idea Garden' at the U of I. It has only been a short month since we were there last, but we couldn't get over how much it has grown and how the plants have filled out. This was in the children's section. A little hard to tell from the picture, but it is a lion. I love his mane.

The elephant was just sooo cute, and has a blue streamer coming out of his trunk, just like he is spraying water!

Honeysuckle, 'Dutch' it was called.

An oval garden with annuals in the middle and a border of Sedum Angelina. I have that. Bought it this year. That's what I am going to do-make and border of it on the bottom edge of one of the burms.

Hen and chicks-no name with this one. I am really infatuated with these.

And this one is huge! Echevarria, 'silver spoon'. We saw so much more and spent longer than we intended to, but every time we went to go, we would see something else and have to go look-you know how it is.

When I got home, I waked around my gardens, and while not as extensive as the ones we saw today, I am happy with them.

My yellow Asiatic lilies are ready to pop.

I have my first cone flower of the season.

Don't let anyone tell you these are hard to grow, or that they don't self seed like crazy. This started out as one plant 3 years ago!

My 'bearded tongue' is blooming and it, too, has self-seeded in 3 or 4 spots in this bed. It is a gentle self-seeder and has done better at placing itself than I could have.


Yesterday, I weeded. And weeded. And then I weeded some more. The thing about all this rain we've had is not only does it make the plants grow-the darn weeds are loving the rain too!

I finally got around to a project I have been wanting to do for a couple of years now. Doesn't the edge of this bed look horrible?

Now, This is better! But, and that's a big but-it was a lot harder to put that edging in than I was led to believe.

Do you see any lilies in this picture? No? Just the dreaded false sunflower that I have been trying to eradicate for 3 years now.

Okay, now the lily has some room to breathe and bloom.

Corn update! This picture was taken 3 weeks ago.

This is the corn today. And this is on high ground. Just out of view, over a little rise-there is what is left of a big pond that formed from all the rain. No corn growing there now. It will have to be replanted.

I hope your garden gets what it needs this week, whether it be rain, or sun, or dry or warmth or cool!

In The Good Ole Summer Time....!

The joys of being young on a hot summer day! Dressing in Papa's t-shirts and running through the sprinkler on a day that reached 91, is an pastime handed down through the ages. Oh to be young again!


We unexpectedly had 3 of our granddaughters this weekend and of course that meant we had all 7 girls. We absolutely love have the girls with us. Each personality is so different and enjoyable to see.

Waterfall, Midwest's version. This is rain water running out of a field of planted corn taking with it valuable topsoil. We had another 3 + inches Friday night and Saturday morning. There is just nowhere for the water to go.

Drainage ditches are running brim full and rivers are out of their banks. We have flood warning out for several counties and some low lying areas are being evacuated. Thankfully, we live in a higher area and have only suffered a damp basement. I feel for the farmers trying to get their crops in the ground and seeing the ones already planted standing in water. Food prices will go up as a direct result.

On a lighter note, "Mr. Lincoln" delivered 2 perfect roses this weekend. This rose is always a reliable bloomer.

And speaking of roses! The blooms on this root stock have delighted me and all the neighbors who keep asking what kind it is. I guess I am going to leave it another year. It is hard to cut down something that is blooming it's heart out.

I've gotten most of my containers planted and am happy with the results. The rain has kept them watered and they seem to be growing great guns. This is an old bird bath that doesn't hold water anymore, but I couldn't throw away. Instead, I have used is as a plant stand for a couple of years now. This one is planted with 'Ipomoea-Sweet Caroline' bewitched, 'Penstemon' apple blossom, and zinnia 'Profusion Cherry'.

Another barrel, planted with pink and purple wave petunias, sweet potato 'Marguerite' and a 'Pentas'.

This one, one of three sitting by the back door, has a 'pink suberbena', 'Batata' sweet potato vine, and a 'coleus-jade green'. I also have a pink 'dragon wing', dark blue 'superbena', 'pride' coleus-a pink and green combination of color- more 'profusion cherry' zinnias and caladium bubs planted in the other 2.

One of my granddaughters who is 9 is a budding photographer. She took a few pictures of my flowers. This is a 'blush' impatient that is planted in a container that fits around the umbrella pole over our patio table. When it fills in a little more I will show it to you.

This is a close up of the pink 'superbena'. I though she did a pretty good job.

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I hope those of you who need rain get some this week, and those of us who don't have a dry spell. In other words, have a great week of gardening!

(I apologise for the look of this post-blogger is doing it's own thing today!)

The Rains Came and The Garden Grew!

With the coming of spring, I had settled into a pattern of posting 3 times a week. This seemed reasonable as I was also trying to work in my long neglected gardens, keep some semblance of order to my home and of course read favorite gardens blogs. All worked well for many weeks, except for the house work. But the last couple of weeks my time seems spent on things out of the realm of my control. For that I apologize. Of course the fact that my Internet was out for almost 48 hrs. again did leave me unable to post. It seems lightning struck the tower we get service from. Therefore, this posting will be full of pictures I have been wanting to share. I will try to keep the commentary brief-I promise.

I was able to get most of my containers planted this week in between the rain and storms. I am mostly happy with them, but we shall see how they look when they fill out. I used a new-to-me product in some of the smaller pots. It's called 'Soil Moist' and is granular form. The idea is to mix a bit with your soil and it soaks up water releasing it when the soil starts to dry out. This sounds like a good deal for someone like me who about the 1st of August gets very disillusioned with watering.

The morning after I potted and after a 2 1/2" rain the night before, I went out to see how the containers fared. I came upon this one and thought, "who put ice in my plants?!" Then it dawned on me, these were the granules full of water! So it does work...and it does look like ice.

This week was moving week. I moved all my house plants out. It always feels so good to get them out of the house-less cluttered looking. I know Carol posted about this and how when you bring them in you take a chance of bringing bugs, but they do so well out there during the summer.

Rose posted about all the rain we have had and how much water there is everywhere, but I wanted to show you the 'Wetlands' area I posted about a few months back. I know there were geese and ducks nesting is this area. I hope they are alright.

Update on roof. Attempt #3 at getting the leaked fixed. It helped. Now instead of Niagara Falls, I only have a dripping faucet. They are coming back!

When plant shopping this week, I saw this tree at my favorite garden center. I had no idea what it was and of course forgot to ask, but another blogger(I'm sorry can't remember who) posted a picture of this tree this week and said it was a tulip tree. Anyone know for sure?

Another mystery bulb has bloomed It really is a chocolate color.

My purple iris show up as blue in pictures and the blue one looks purple. This is on a nearly nonexistent stalk.
Roses are blooming! Betty Prior looks like she has 2 different colors, but I'm sure the red ones are from the root stock. Not sure what to do about it though.

This is growth from root stock and a long gone hybrid tea. I posted earlier this year that I had several of these in my gardens and wasn't sure whether I was going to leave or remove them. This was the only one that came back this year...problem solved.

My 'Double Delight' is blooming, but I am going to have to move this one as she is now in a lot of shade.

Martha Stewart's 'Heritage' yesterday.

'Heritage' today!

One last iris picture, I promise!! (well 2 last ones)
This is supposed to be white like the next one. I think it must be cross pollinating with the purple ones.

And if you need rain-give me your zip code and I will try to send you some. Have a good gardening weekend!

Iris, Peonies, Rare Birds!

It is amazing to me how rain and sun and warmth can make a garden grow so quickly. While we have had some very nice days-days that were even hot, our nights have been cool. Down in the 40's a lot of the time. These past few days we have stayed in the lower to middle 60's and the humidity has increased. And no matter how much you water dry and thirsty plants, there is just nothing like a good drink of rain for them. So when you combine all the elements, the garden explodes with new growth, buds and blooms.

Friday felt like a typical July day with lots of humidity and hot temperatures and chances for severe thunderstorms. Just before dark, they came! In short bursts of enormous energy, it rained 2 1/2" accompanied by wind and lots of lightning. Thankfully, we had only a few small limbs down. Saturday, hubby and I worked on cleaning up the outside. We had a trailer full of garden trash from last fall and this spring and of course our ceiling tile had all been thrown on as well. We took it out to his brother's farm and dumped it in a pit to be burned later. To get to the pit we waded water and had mud to our knees throwing the trash off the trailer. While hubby sharpened the blades on the mower, I took a rolling magnet around the yard and driveway to pick up any stray roofing nails. He mowed our hay field(it had been 3 weeks since we had mowed) and I took the power washer to the stone patio. Both jobs took the better part of the afternoon. I finally finished my chore and came in to take a much needed shower. He stayed with the mowing and then broomed the cut grass and got it hauled off. Needless to say, we were both tired. But it felt good to get the yard and outside back into shape.

Today, I took time to check out my gardens as well as the flowers at my Mother-in-law's. I was surprised at how much things had changed in just a couple of days.

I am not too sure what this flower is. I remember planting small bulbs here a few years back but have no other recollection about them. Still, I enjoy their dainty yellow blooms.

A Martha Stewart 'heritage' rose is just about to open. This is a deep red that almost looks like velvet. Maybe the Japanese Beetles will stay away long enough for some of my roses to show pretty blooms.

Good old 'Betty Prior' is full of promise. It is a great standard in the world of roses. She has few petals and looks old fashioned(which I like) and is not a fussy type. Even the beetles leave her alone.

The columbine that I planted years ago, is in full bloom. It has spread from one small plant to several all over the end of that burm and looks such a pretty purple mass.

My Iris has another bloom, and this one is even bigger than the first one.

In my last post, I talked about my MIL's iris and wanting to transplant some of them to my garden to keep them going in the family as she is now in a nursing home. Today, I decided to see just what she had. These yellow and bronze are one of the ones I think of as old fashioned-original iris.

And of course the pale all yellow ones.

These, too, were some of the very first iris I remember as a child in my grandmother's yard. My granddaughter calls these "root beer flowers". She thinks they smell like root beer. Well, maybe a little.

Oh my! Look what else she has in her iris beds. This is a huge rust colored one.

Such a bright yellow!

And these purple and white ones are gorgeous.

This is a pale pink on top with a hint of yellow then a lavender towards the bottom. It looks like an orchid. I am going to be very busy this fall!

I also found more peonies than I remembered. A pale pink double with darker outer petals.

A truly enormous double deep pink one.

And lastly a pale pink to white double. I feel a case of peony envy coming on!

Then as a treat for all you bird lover's, I wanted to show one of my shots of rarely seen birds. Lisa, are you ready for this?

Okay, maybe they aren't really rare. But I did see them in a very unusual spot. We went to a small town ice cream place this afternoon and while sitting out under their umbrella, up walked these two chickens. I think they must have come from the outskirts of the town, but seemed very much at home pecking around the trash can.

The latest update on our roof. The work was completed late Friday afternoon. Or so I was told by the men as they left. However, and this is a big however! The heavy rain we got Friday proved them wrong. I had a virtual waterfall in the front part of our living room. I didn't get a picture of the water actually pouring through as I was too busy setting out bowls and buckets and towels. This picture was taken the next morning. We have a skylight in this area(separate from where we have the new ceiling tile) that lets in much needed light. After moving the love seat and putting down the towels, etc. I called the contractor. He came over in time to see the leak. "Did this leak before?" "Well, yes-a little recently, that was one of the reasons for the new roof." DUH! He did promise to make it right...to his credit, but when? Hopefully tomorrow, before it rains again! I am keeping my sense of humor about this as I have always wanted a water feature. But maybe outside would be a better place for one.

This week is supposed to be a really warm one here. So I am looking for the gardens to grow triple time now. I hope your week is warm and that your gardens grow before your eyes.