Zephirine Drouhin has never looked better. She is blooming with wild abandon on my Chicagoland garden gate. Zeffy, as she is affectionately known at Antique Rose Emporium, is officially a zone 6 rose. I’m zone 5 and I needed a thornless rose on my garden gate. Call me silly, but . . . → Read More: Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – Best Blooms EVER On Thornless Rose]]>

Photo by Kevin Penczak

Zephirine Drouhin has never looked better. She is blooming with wild abandon on my Chicagoland garden gate. Zeffy, as she is affectionately known at Antique Rose Emporium, is officially a zone 6 rose. I’m zone 5 and I needed a thornless rose on my garden gate. Call me silly, but I don’t think anyone should get hurt walking through my gate. I couldn’t find a thornless zone 5 rose, so I ordered Zeffy.

For the first few years, my Zeffy was bloomless as well as thornless. That was when I was overprotective trying to keep her alive in zone 5. I’d cut her almost down to the ground in the fall and mulch heavily for the winter. Wrong. Now I’m being less cautious. We’re still protecting her with winter mulch, but not cutting her down, and were finally rewarded with blooms aplenty. She’s made my garden her home for 10 years, so she has made it through some bad winters and well as the recent easy ones. I’m hopeful she will continue to flourish.

Photo by Kevin Penczak

Photo by Kevin Penczak

Now that we aren’t’ killing her with kindness, the only pruning we’ve done the last few years has been to keep her under control. I help the canes wrap around the gate, cut dead wood, and cut back any canes that don’t add to her beauty. I trim her whenever I want and whenever I want. No real rules.

Zeffy is in full sun. She does get some black spot, so far nothing horrible. With so many canes, I sometimes just take out a whole cane instead of individual leaves to control it. I also feed her about 4 times a year.

Now that we’ve finally got this figured out, I’m hoping for a repeat performance this fall. In the interim, I’ve got a clematis growing up the other side of the gate, hoping it blooms during the summer months while Zeffy rests.

Speaking of repeat performances, join me at Bertholds Garden Center on June 22nd for ‘Creativity in the Garden’ at 1:00. This presentation debuted at the Chicago Flower and Garden Show this year. I’ll be happy to present it again in Elk Grove Village.

Do you want to know what else is blooming in the June garden? To see what other bloggers have blooming on the 15th of every month, visit May Dreams Gardens – Bloom Day for our Garden Bloggers’ Bloom day entries.

That moment was just . . . → Read More: Zone 5 – Favorites On The 5th – Open Days Program]]> Bill Kurtis drove me around his garden on a golf cart. Boy was I surprised. I figured the kind person offering to chauffeur us around Bill Kurtis’s garden was one of the workers. Actually, it was one of the workers – the one who just happened to be Bill Kurtis himself.

That moment was just one of the joys from garden tours I’ve taken through the Open Days Program of the Garden Conservancy. That’s why I chose to tell their story and make their website the one we will visit for this month’s installment of Zone 5 – Favorites on the Fifth.

The Garden Conservancy makes it possible for you and me to visit gardens all over the country that are not normally open to the public. Gardens like Bill Kurtis’ garden in Mettawa on July 28th. It does cost $5 to get in. No, Bill doesn’t need the money. Proceeds from the Open Days Program support the national preservation work of the Garden Conservancy such as the rehabilitation of the gardens on Alcatraz Island (really), as well as local nonprofit organizations. Spend another $5 that day and go to Camp Rosemary for an exhibition of elegance. You won’t be disappointed.

The June 23rd garden in Barrington is well worth going to. The Olsen’s have 15 acres and 2 gardeners. We were suitably impressed last year and highly recommend it. Granted, your garden will pale in comparison, which can cause considerable feelings of inadequacy. Go anyway.

You can see the schedule for Illinois on the Conservancy website.

As Forrest Gump said, ‘Open Days is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get’. This much I do know – It’s gonna be good.

From the Garden of Faith, Hope & Love FB page

There is a picture deep in our minds of what a gardener looks like, and the enchanting time they spend enjoying their garden. The image is serene and peaceful. Perhaps something like this one, complete with a graceful young lady gathering roses, clad in . . . → Read More: Gardening Imagined vs. Gardening Reality]]>

From the Garden of Faith, Hope & Love FB page

There is a picture deep in our minds of what a gardener looks like, and the enchanting time they spend enjoying their garden. The image is serene and peaceful. Perhaps something like this one, complete with a graceful young lady gathering roses, clad in a beguiling white dress.

Then there is reality. My gardening look is really much closer to Lucy’s. Lucy is our dog, the oh-so-dirty dog you see below. She and I run around the yard getting dirtier by the minute. Fortunately, Lucy seems to have a wonderful built in cleaning system. Our little white American Eskimo doesn’t often need a bath. I on the other hand, often need to be hosed off before I’m let back in the house to take a shower.

Somehow the two concepts mesh together when I’m in the garden — I (often) feel serene and peaceful like the lovely lady, while I’m looking dirty and disheveled like the dog. The rest of the world disappears for me and I am consumed with the task at hand. Often even with total joy.

Perhaps our young lady continues her fashion statement by wearing shoes like those designed by Madelyn Gaul. Madelyn took her inspiration from the Chinese Zodiac calendar’s year of the dragon. Madelyn says the Dragon is strong and magical. The dragon better be strong and magical in my garden. Strong to move rocks, magical to get all of the work done.

No dragon shoes for me. I would be more likely to wear raggedy washed-out shoes like these. Exactly like these, as a matter of fact.

My imagined musing of a gardener at the end of her day would include sipping iced tea on a garden swing surrounded by beautiful blooms. Oh wait – this is a picture of my garden swing surrounded by beautiful blooms. And it’s no surprise that the peaceful serene gardening lady in a white dress is absent. Someday she will be there. Someday.

You may find this hard to believe, but only 37% of the folks in Chicagoland have a flower garden. Of that 37%, only 13% have lilacs. Of those 13%, only 7% cut the flowers to make bouquets.

Ok, so I made up the statistics, but the principal is true – not everyone has . . . → Read More: Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day – Share Those Lilac Blooms]]>

You may find this hard to believe, but only 37% of the folks in Chicagoland have a flower garden. Of that 37%, only 13% have lilacs. Of those 13%, only 7% cut the flowers to make bouquets.

Ok, so I made up the statistics, but the principal is true – not everyone has lilacs. With your help, we can wipe out the sad state of lilac-less-ness for one and all in our fair city. I’m doing my share by bringing in cut stems to work. Won’t you help by sharing yours too?

I’d show you pictures of our lilac bushes themselves, but that would be embarrassing. Did you know you are supposed to cut them back after they bloom? I did. But we haven’t done it.

Some of our lilacs are as big as a tree, needing Mike to do most of the bloom cutting for me. Even our Sensation lilac is a gangly sad looking thing. Both situations are our fault and need to be remedied after this year’s blooms are done. We should have been cutting out the stems that are bigger than 2″ in diameter. That would have given us a balance of new and old stems. The bush would have topped out at about 8’ and provided an abundance of flowers that I could reach. Oops.

This is the year we’ll do better. The pruning needs to be done right after they bloom. I’m putting in on my calendar. We won’t wait long as that would result in destruction of next year’s buds. We can rejuvenate the Sensation lilac by cutting out up to 1/3 of the stems. Some are overgrown, some are butting up against another bush, some are rubbing against each other, and some are just plain old unattractive.

The other lilacs are hiding out back where we forget about them. They are horrendously overgrown. Perhaps that is why they are hiding. Getting those back in shape will take more effort. Lots more effort. We should cut them almost to the ground and hope they recover to bloom in a few years. I’m not sure I have the courage for that.

For now, I’m going to fill some more vases and enjoy the moment.

Do you want to know what else is blooming in the May garden? To see what other bloggers have blooming on the 15th of every month, visit May Dreams Gardens – Bloom Day for our Garden Bloggers’ Bloom day entries.

You might ask why — why the obsession with dahlias? That question is easy to answer with . . . → Read More: Dahlia and Plant Sales]]> Believe it or not, spring is coming. And so are plant sales! Our dahlias are hardening off outside, with some 400 of them going to various sales. Another 100 will be planted in our garden.

You might ask why — why the obsession with dahlias? That question is easy to answer with pictures. Feast your eyes on Cinnabar.

And Drummer Boy.

Yes, these are all pictures from our yard, actually Mike’s part of our yard.

As President of the Central States Dahlia Society, he is intimately involved with all aspects of dahlia growing. That includes making sure that you can grow them too. He recently spoke about dahlias for the Arlington Heights Garden Club, and will soon do the same for Rolling Meadows.

Please come to the sales and share the joy of passionate growers like Mike. His passion gets plants to you that are ready to go into the ground. They’ll flower starting in August, way earlier than if you plant tubers in the ground yourself in mid-May.

Upcoming sales include:

Here is a screen shot of general plant sales I received recently from the Garden Clubs of Illinois:

Happy planting!