Hurry Spring!

These will be the only blooms in my garden this year on the first day of spring.

T.S. Eliot was wrong. It’s March, not April, that’s the cruelest month, at least for Chicago gardeners.

Some years, winter quietly slips away, allowing crocuses, daffodils and tulips to burst forth in a cacophony of color. Last year was like that, with record high temperatures in the 70s and 80s.

“In like a lion, out like a lamb,” as the old saying goes.

This year, though, the lion came and shows no signs of leaving anytime soon. The first day of spring is just 48 hours away but we have snow on the ground with more forecast tomorrow. Most of my flower beds are frozen solid. Night-time temperatures are expected to dip into the teens later in the week.




The first day of spring 2012 (left) and 2013 (right)




Magnolia blooming 2012, buds only in 2013

We've obviously been spoiled by mild winters the past two years. Waiting for spring seems more like waiting for Godot. What’s a gardener to do?

I’ve mostly been dreaming about what I want to do in the garden this year. Much of it will be damage control. Last summer’s drought killed one arborvitae and damaged two other trees in my garden. My weeping cherry tree also wasn’t looking too good last fall.

Will there be other victims? I’ll just have to wait until everything starts leafing out. I’m especially concerned about the plants I put in last fall. We had some very cold days in the first part of winter with no snow to protect them. I normally would have planted them earlier, giving them more of a fighting chance, but I was too busy doing the weeding that I had put off because of the summer’s high temperatures.

For now, I'm sharpening (and resharpening) my garden tools, buying seeds, looking at plant catalogs and doing some online research.
 
Of course, despite the whacky weather we get in the Midwest, I want it all: loads of color, long bloom times, hardiness, drought tolerance, sustainability and, oh yes, the ability to flourish in compacted clay soil. Is that too much to ask?

Once I make up my mind, though, I'm full of indecision. It always drives my husband and son crazy this time of year.

How are you bidding your time? And what are you planning to add to your garden this year? Milkweed and rudbeckia are on my short list so far.




Red, white and blue

Awake, thou wintry earth -
Fling off thy sadness!
Fair vernal flowers, laugh forth
Your ancient gladness!
~Thomas Blackburn, "An Easter Hymn"

For a look at what was blooming in my garden last year on March 20, check out The First Day of Spring.

By Karen Geisler

The Power of Rain

Today was a good day. It rained.

Not the light drizzle we’ve had occasionally this summer but a drenching, close-all-the-windows-and-cancel-the-car-wash kind of rain. The sort that makes you want to grab an umbrella, find a lamp post and do your best Gene Kelly imitation.

Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain (1952)

Credit: MGM/The Kobal Collection

You can water and water until the nozzle of your hose seems like it has become a permanent part of your hand, but there’s nothing like a really good rain to revive your garden.

Maybe it’s the temporary drop in temperature during a storm or the higher humidity that inevitably follows. Maybe it's the lightning strikes that fix nitrogen. 

I suspect it may have something to do with the quality of the water, as rainwater doesn’t have chlorine and other chemicals added by municipalities to keep us humans healthy.

But I don’t want to rehash the old arguments about the merits of tap water versus rainwater in the garden
 

All I know is that I kept my plants alive through the current drought with tap water. They didn’t really start looking decent again, though, until it rained.

Granted, it's not Hurricane Isaac, whose remnants barely grazed the Chicago area. This rain and more forecast later this week, however, are enough to revive my dream that this drought may actually end some day. I guess we can only hope.

Maybe this is Mother Nature's way of teaching us a lesson -- that despite our air conditioned houses, cars and trucks, despite our fancy crop irrigation systems, she's still in control.

While the drought isn't as noisy, flashy or as sudden as a hurricane or tornado, its effects will be felt in the Midwest for a long time to come. It also should give all of us a new appreciation for what the Dust Bowl, which stemmed from an even worse drought, must have been like back in the 1930's.

Remember that old Carpenters song, "Rainy Days and Mondays"?  I used to be like that. Rain was depressing as it meant I couldn't go out in the garden.

Not any more. Rain is now a cause for celebration.

As another song noted, don't it always seem to go that you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone.

By Karen Geisler



Traces of rain from a short cloudburst back in July

Summer Beauty

Allium 'Summer Beauty'

My Happy Returns aren’t happy. The Russian sage is threatening to defect. And my Bloodgood is screaming bloody murder.

Watering restrictions are everywhere in the Chicago area, courtesy of the drought and record-high temperatures. All this has taken a heavy toll on my garden.

I don’t know what I would do without Summer Beauty -- the ornamental onion that is.

This is one allium that definitely lives up to it name.  Its 1 ½-inch light pink balls are just starting to burst into bloom.  The color goes with everything. And unlike many alliums, this one keeps its strappy dark green foliage for the entire growing season instead of fading away once the flowers are finished. It even looks good once the blooms have faded (think star burst) so I leave them up for the winter.

Summer Beauty, which gets about 16” to 18” high and wide, is definitely drought tolerant. I think I have watered it only once so far this year, although it probably helps that I have it in a lightly shaded area.

It multiplies through rhizomes but not obnoxiously so. It’s just enough so you can divide them in the spring every few years and spread Summer Beauty around the garden.

Did I mention that it’s deer and rabbit resistant? Hardy in Zones 4 to 8? What more can a gardener ask for?

Summer Beauty is especially welcome this year as the only plants still blooming in my garden after our hotter-than-Hades weather are mostly cone flowers and dayliles.

Below are a few pictures from what probably is my garden’s last hurrah for this growing season.  I do have some fall bloomers – asters and sedum mostly – although I’m not sure how they will fare in this heat with limited watering. For now, I’m mostly concentrating on my trees and shrubs, which would be a lot harder to replace than perennials.

So enjoy these summer beauties (small s, small b). And stay cool!

(If you'd like to read about another allium, click here for an earlier post about the circle onion.)

(Plants referred to in the first paragraph are Hemerocallis x 'Happy Returns,' Perovskia atriplicifolia and Acer palmatum 'Bloodgood.')

Cone flowers (Echinacea)



Burnet (Sanguisorba menziesii)




Lavender Deal daylily (Hemerocallis)

By Karen Geisler

The First Day of Spring

A Leonard Messel magnolia in bloom on the first day of spring

Spring officially arrived in Chicago today with sunglasses, shorts and a sudden surge of flowers.

With a high temperature of 85 degrees, it felt more like a day in June than March. That was especially true in the garden where my magnolia burst into full bloom several weeks ahead of schedule and my weeping cherry tree started budding out.





Buds on a weeping cherry tree

Crocuses, a sure sign of spring, have already vanished thanks to the seven-day heat wave. Daffodils that were just poking their heads above ground last week are now resplendent in their yellow finery. And the flower buds on my tulips are starting to swell.

Unfortunately, it looks like this garden party may be about to end.

Colder temperatures are forecast starting Friday, with highs only in the 60's. That will be a welcome relief as it has never been this hot this soon in Chicago before.

I'm just hoping the night-time temperatures won't dip below the 40's now expected. If we get frost, all of my spring flowers will be little more than a memory.

Of course, that also may be true even with the cooler temperatures, which would still be above normal. All of my spring bloomers will be finished in a week or two at this rate. What will sustain me for the 90+ days remaining until summer officially arrives?

Guess I'll just have to cross my fingers and hope that some spring bloomers will be available for sale at my favorite nursery in the weeks ahead. It was too wet in my garden this past weekend to work on my spring clean up so I will definitely need some inspiration in order to finish.

Let's see....I still have to cut down last year's dead foliage, pick up the dried leaves, remove the chickweed, dig out the Queen Ann's lace that blew in from my neighbor's yard, finish the edging, spread the compost, prune my hydrangeas, start my vegetable seeds....



Hyacinths and daffodils in the garden on the first day of spring.

By Karen Geisler