Chicago, Illinois, July, 2013
Jim Edminster
Here it is the height of summer and where are the bees and
butterflies? My friend Steve reports from Minnesota that there are no
bees there either. I did see a few fireflies last night. (Do you call
them lightning bugs?) and the goddess
knows that if insects are going extinct why couldn’t the ants invading my
kitchen go first?
Let’s talk mini-climates:
in my medium sized yard I’ve had to adjust from full shade to nearly
full sun (because as you know if you’ve followed my rantings in this column – a
neighbor, no longer a friend, cut down two enormous trees that shaded my yard.)
The knowledge that mature yards generally get shadier is catching up even with me – beebling about the
garden I noticed that the peonies I brought from my mother’s yard in Kansas didn’t
bloom. Neither did the German iris and
the Siberian iris in my parkway.
Why? Because they had become
enshrouded in new shade. I had to scout
my yard, find a patch with more sun and plan a plant move. It has to be soon –
sun plants may hang on in the shade for awhile but they’ll eventually
succumb. Pack your bags, ladies – we’re
moving to new digs!
I live in one of the densest areas of Chicago but
something has incidentally evolved
vis-à-vis a view that I really like:
sitting by my pond/waterfall if I look straight down my yard I see
nothing but shades of green. I’m in the
country with no trace of people or their buildings.
All this greenery even tweaked with white, yellow and purple
foliage gets, umm, a trifle monotonous.
Five or six blue horses scattered about help and so do the large blue
pots I’ve put around. When I worked at
Gethsemane Gardens in Chicago I learned (Plant Pot Perfection I) from Carol
Rice who trained all the folk in her section how to wow the customers. Example:
large red/purple ti plant at rear, garten-meister fuschias next (green
& white with pale orange blooms), and chartreuse creeping jenny over the
edge of the blue pot. Or – red-leafed
canna in back, two miniature yellow tropical evergreens next, three tall
verbena bonariensis between them and purple and green striped zebrinas
(wandering Jews) tumbling over the edge.
Here’s this column’s recipe which has already been tried out
on my garden club with no complaints:
