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Garden

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE GARDEN

May 4, 2016

I got a message from a friend and blog reader the other day who asked, “How come you aren’t blogging about planting?”

It’s a fair question, this being primarily a gardening blog. The fact of the matter is that it’s still really cool here and there is very little to plant. I did sow a few very small areas of peas, lettuce and argula a couple weeks ago and there’s pretty much nothing to report on those.

But there are other, somewhat random things happening in the garden that I don’t feel are worth a post, but maybe worth a little update.

I took my first trip to a nursery over the weekend. The whole world is out shopping at nurseries because of course Mother’s Day is this weekend and people equate Mother’s Day with the time to plant. That couldn’t be further from the case here, but old habits die hard. I think the nurseries here push annuals and hanging baskets for Mother’s Day in part because they know things will be set back by the cold and people will buy more later. Our last frost date isn’t until May 10, so it’s way too early to be thinking about planting annuals here.

That said, I, of course, bought a handful of annuals, because I just couldn’t resist and I suffer from plant-related FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out). So I grab things when I see them and nurse them along in the greenhouse until it’s time to plant, usually around Memorial Day.

A lot of people have asked about my greenhouse. Here’s an affiliate link to it. I really love it, but it’s important to keep in mind that this is a temporary structure. The plastic cover ripped quickly last year and the company sent me a replacement, but the same thing happened again this year. It’s a tiny tear on a seam that I easily fixed with tape, but I think it’s worth mentioning.

Oxalis ‘Molten Lava’

I’d been to neither of the two nurseries I visited on Sunday, which is rather alarming as I thought I’d been to every nursery in a 50-mile radius. The first was not great, but unbeknownst to me they were holding a sale with very small, single plant hanging baskets for $5 each. There was a cop directing traffic into the parking lot! It was really no way to experience a nursery for the first time. Mostly it was just chaos.

The second nursery was amazing and I eagerly signed up for their frequent buyer program because I have a feeling I’ll be going back many times. Even my husband knew about this place and it was completely unknown to me. I’m so disappointed in myself. They were still waiting for a lot of deliveries but they had a huge, clean, well organized annuals greenhouse with exceptionally well cared for plants that were not overpriced. I picked up three Oxalis ‘Molten Lava’, which is not new, but new to me. I love its mounding habit and orange to lime foliage.

Speaking of the greenhouse, it’s starting to fill up and I’m happy to report that everything seems to be doing well despite the cool weather. The exception is the sweet peas which are looking a little anemic and I think they desperately need some feeding.

That is only about half of the dahlias. The tubers that haven’t sprouted yet are still in the house. Where in the world am I going to put them all?

I worked on the garden to the north of the house this weekend for a long time and looking out the upstairs window it looks like I’ve made very little progress. I did, however, repaint the obelisk we built several years ago. I finally found a spray paint line with better color selection: Montana Gold. Granted, it’s about twice the price of a regular can of spray paint (about $8), but the colors are worth it and the coverage is great. The old apple green faded and I gave it new life in a bright turquoise.

The new color is a bright turquoise.
The old apple green was great too.

I think this year I’ll grow some climbing nasturtiums up it for some additional color. I removed the goji berries from this raised bed because they got too big and their big, thorny canes, were reaching out and grabbing me. I’ll find another spot for them, but for now they are living in very large nursery containers.

That’s the report from here. I’ve been gardening until dark, setting a goal of filling a tub trug with weeds after dinner every night that it’s not raining. I’m so happy that the sun doesn’t set until about 8 these days.

What’s up in your garden?

annuals dahlias greenhouse oxalis paint
by Erin @ The Impatient Gardener 
8 Comments

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Comments

  1. Lisa Greenbow says: May 4, 2016 at 8:36 pm

    What with working, remodeling and sailing I don't know how you have time to blog. So good to see that you are getting ready to garden some. It has even been cool, overcast and windy here for most of the spring. My annuals are just sitting in their pots waiting for some nice hot sunny weather.

    Reply
  2. Stephen Andrew says: May 4, 2016 at 8:39 pm

    Love the new obelisk color! I also think it would look lovely in black. I'm not doing any gardening until back from vacation and I might move to vacation so maybe I won't do any gardening at all. The eager people make me giggle with their doomed purchases. My neighbor planted her deck pots with orchids. I politely told her it was a bad idea but she wants to forge ahead.

    Reply
    • Stephen Andrew says: May 4, 2016 at 8:41 pm

      PS: locked my phone and set it down next to china I bought for thanksgiving. Consider me off my high horse re eagerness

      Reply
    • Erin Schanen says: May 7, 2016 at 2:41 am

      I love the idea of black. Maybe next year! You showed excellent restraint with the neighbor with the orchids.

      Reply
  3. Ms. Wis./Each Little World says: May 4, 2016 at 10:58 pm

    Last frost date is the same here. How many times have we seen snow in early May? Love those Oxalis. I will be buying herbs and annuals on Friday but not planting them yet.

    Reply
    • Erin Schanen says: May 5, 2016 at 2:41 pm

      Do you go to the Rotary Botanical Garden sale, Linda?

      Reply
  4. Rachel says: May 5, 2016 at 1:26 pm

    I'm really curious about the nurseries you loved. I live in SE Wisconsin and would love to know more about them.

    Reply
    • Erin Schanen says: May 5, 2016 at 2:50 pm

      Hi Rachel! Oh, I'm happy to name names and share my experiences at various nurseries in the area. The "new" nursery I discovered was Superior Lawn and Garden in Kohler. I was so impressed with how healthy everything looked. Good prices on plants, but I thought they were high on other things like potting mix.

      The other nursery I went to was a small one called the Mustard Seed and that was such a scene it's probably not fair to judge them on the one experience I had there. There were a ton of plants that didn't have prices and were not even marked with tags and seemed to be a lot of nursery stock still growing out, which is fine but a little frustrating.

      If I'm buying a very important tree, one that I want to make sure is very healthy and is truly an investment, Johnson's nursery (main nursery in Menomonee Falls and another one in Cedarburg) is my go-to. But you'll pay for their expertise and very high-quality plant material.

      I used to really like Minor's in Brown Deer, but I've cooled on them a little. They have a lot of selection but I don't feel like their big nursery stock—trees and shrubs—are really all that well tended and they often have form problems. But the prices tend to be very good, so I usually end up there. I love that they put their plant list on their website. Why don't all nurseries do this?

      A few others that I used to go to constantly have gone a bit downhill in recent years: Flower Source in Germantown and Caan's in Sheboygan come to mind. I still go there, I just don't like them as much as I used to.

      Honestly my go-to spot for annuals is our local True Value hardware store which has amazing selection, knowledgable staff and the best prices I've found anywhere.

      Drop me an email if you want more info on any of these! [email protected]

      Reply

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The Impatient Gardener

Do you love gardening? Me too! I'm Erin and I garden in Southeastern Wisconsin, zone 5. The Impatient Gardener is all about real-life gardening: the good parts, the bad bits and even the funny stuff. It's part information, part inspiration and a little bit commiseration. Thanks for visiting.

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Erin Schanen 🌿 The Impatient Gardener
I fell in love with gardening through container de I fell in love with gardening through container design and it’s probably still my favorite type of gardening. My trip to Philadelphia area gardens was full of so many excellent ideas. For several years I’ve been enamored with clustered pots, but in my opinion they work best when they are able to stand alone in a space. And you probably know me well enough by now to know that as far as I’m concerned, the bigger the pot, the better. Feast your eyes on these beauties and use your zooming fingers to really get into those nooks and crannies. 

Don’t forget to save your favorites because you know you’re going to be looking for them come next spring. 😀

Photos 1 & 2: Amazing container cluster at @longwoodgardens  that works particularly well because of the restraint used in the design. Also how many different ways is the universe going to tell me I need to grow agave before I actually listen?

Photo 3: This was probably favorite display I saw the whole time and of course it’s from the masters at @chanticleergarden This is a master class in texture. It’s also probably not attainable for the average home gardener because it relies heavily on tropicals that need proper overwintering in order to reach a good size. But there’s no reason why I (or you) couldn’t use this as inspiration to create a similar feel with other plants. 

Photo 4: Strappy foliage, bright orange and colorful pots create such a good doorway collection at @chanticleergarden 

Photo 5, 6 & 7: Similar colors were used at a patio doorway at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm home garden. A pot is perfectly framed by an arbor off a side patio. The front entrance has a pink theme (and an amazing feature pot that I couldn’t show here because all my shots are vertical). 

Photo 8: Back to @chanticleergarden where I could have studied this container planting for an hour just to soak up all the detail. 

Photo 9: And while I love a pot with a lot going on, never underestimate the power of a simply planted, gorgeous pot, like this one at @abunting64 garden Belvidere. 

#gbfling2023
I think every garden probably needs a little bit o I think every garden probably needs a little bit of water, even if it’s just a bird bath. All of the fabulous gardens I saw recently in the Philadelphia area incorporated water into them. Here are just a few examples of how lovely these water features were. 

@paxsonhillfarm @northviewgarden @brandywinecottage @longwoodgardens #gbfling2023
Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the vi Gardens must have places to relax and enjoy the view even though we all know that most of us rarely take the opportunity to use them. The seating I saw in gardens in the Philadelphia area reflected their gardens and all were special. 

Make sure to share your favorite!

Photo 1:  I adored these perfectly lichen-covered chairs at @brandywinecottage

Photo 2: Great lichen game on this bench at Wayne Guymon’s mind-blowing garden WynEden. 

Photo 3: Perhaps my favorite seating moment of the whole trip was this chair in @jennyrosecarey @northviewgarden . Not only was it perfectly lichen covered (are you sensing a theme here?) but a volunteer cleome was growing right up through the middle of it. Unfortunately this photo of it isn’t grata because by this point in the trip my phone (I didn’t want to use my DSLR in the middle of the tropical storm so I switched to my phone) was getting very grumpy about the rain. 

Photo 4: I’d be happy to hang out on these chairs in @abunting64 ‘s gorgeous garden Belvidere. I loved this space. 

Photo 5: Color was the name of the game on this patio at Steve and Ann Hutton’s Owl Creek Farm. 

Photo 6: The most original table and benches I saw were at @abunting64 garden. This was a portion of the garden that was actually on the neighbors’ property adjacent to Andrew’s. It had been a vegetable garden but is getting a bit too shady so it will soon have a new life. 

Photo 7: We visited Barbara Tiffany’s Mill Fleurs in a deluge, which is a shame, and dotted throughout the property are examples of her husband Tiff’s amazing furniture. This was, called the Centipede was upholstered and quite different from the others. All were amazing works of art. 

Photos 8 and 9: The @scott_arboretum at @swarthmorecollege had some excellent seating, from brand new @deebenarc chairs to more lichen-covered charmers.

#gbfling2023
*** I can already see that some people do not unde *** I can already see that some people do not understand humor so let me just say this: 1. I was fully aware of the escaped convict situation (I’m an avid follower of the news, which is common for us journalists). 2. It’s ok to laugh about the fact that I’ve missed the Longwood meadow twice through weird circumstances while being a rational adult and realizing that I’m not making light of the situation that led to the meadow being mown. ***

I missed seeing @longwoodgardens beautiful meadow the first time I visited so I was excited to see it the second time. Not so fast! Turns out it had to be mown down during the search for an escaped convict who was hiding out there (at least that’s what I was told was the reason for the mowing). He’ll never see goldenrod the same way again! 😀

That whole situation was really unfortunate for @longwoodgardens (not to mention everyone who lives in the area), which had to be closed for about a week while the hunt was on!
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