1). I need ANY Anemone to thrive for me. I have tried for years to successfully grow a Japanese anemone. And each year there is promise early on in the Fall, only to see it all fall apart soon after.

I have relocated ‘September Charm’ three times in the past two years (yes, I am in denial) and they looked to be good and healthy and on their way back in September:            

And all I ultimately ended up with was one friggin bloom:

Anemones should work for me based on their requirements and I would kill for that late season color and unique leaf shape. But 2012 was yet another failure. So logically, I should give up and move on, right? Nope. I added an ‘Honorine Jobert’ this Fall and will try yet again.

2). I am not physically capable of growing tomatoes in containers. With all of the deer roaming my property and with the soil draining so poorly, I never entertained the idea of growing fruits or vegetables. To combat that, I figured why not grow them on the deck in containers. Can’t be all that difficult. 

Here are the wonderful results:            

This one can be chalked up to laziness on my part as I tend to forget how cumbersome the watering schedule is in the dead of summer. Throw in vacations where we are gone up to a week at a time and you have a recipe for failure.

But I’ll do it again …

3). Tropical plants and me do not mix. I tried to mix it up a bit this summer and added a few “tropical” plants and they looked out of place from the get-go:  

Maybe some day I’ll figure out how to incorporate these annuals properly, but for now it is not worth the time, effort and cash.

4). Keeping up with the weeds. Nuff said:

5). Taking things blooms for granted: I swear I have no memory of enjoying these blooms for even 10 seconds. I just assume they will bloom each and every Summer and move on to other problem areas. Bad job by me:  

6). I let my guard down and as a result, the mutha f’n deer ate every peony bud:

This was a first and one I’ll never forget. I went out to cut a few buds/early blooms for my wife and almost fainted in shock. Next spring, I vow to sleep outside with a shotgun in hand.

7). Poison Ivy is slowly taking over and I am terrified to try and stop it. I have three Russian Sage plants that are slowly being strangled to death:    

I am brutally allergic and fearful to try and save them. Maybe a blow torch?

8.) Collapsing/sprawling perennials. I get it. It happens. Even after I’ve taken the time to cut back earlier in the season or pinch a bit along the way, it is still inevitable. Especially with a lot of the native perennials. I should just grin and bear it, but there is no denying it doesn’t look good:  

I’ll continue to tinker with ways to control it (more appropriate conditions, staking, leaning on neighboring plants) but I guess I have to come to grips with the reality that this is going to happen no matter what I do.

9). I hate pink flowers on yellow foliage. Time to eradicate this problem:   

10). It may be time to label my plants. It is at the point where I can’t tell what is a weed or what is a native plant I stuck in the ground months ago:

I was confident for years that I could memorize where every plant was placed even when they were dormant in winter. Those days are gone as my memory gets worse with age and the number of plants has reached an extraordinary level.

There you have it. I could come up with ten more if I had the time, but this will have to do for now.

Coming soon – “What I did right this year”.

Prepare yourself for a short read.

John 

I knew that sedums are quick to grow in spring and would be perfect for disguising the spent daffodil foliage.

Fast forward to spring and the daffodils were in full bloom:     

After they were done blooming, you can see the foliage still looks OK (top right in photo below):

By the time late summer rolled around, you wouldn’t even know they were planted there:

Which takes me to today.

I found another spot for more daffodils (‘Ice Follies’):

They would planted between a Spirea ‘Snowstorm’, a bunch of siberian irises and a few grasses. I figured the irises would shield the dying foliage from the most common view and eventually, everything else would crowd out the foliage all together.

And so the hole was dug (and did it ever feel good to do so):

Bulbs placed accordingly (I usually plant just a few to test drive a new bulb I’ve never had before):

And then boom, the soil is back in, the mulch is raked back over and we are good to go:

Now we just wait until spring and hope the floral display delivers as promised.

John

This momentous day arrives around this time every year dating back to 1999.

It holds a special place in my heart and will continue to do so for years to come.

I take special precautions the morning of this event to ensure I can enjoy it to the max. 

The day packs such a wallop that by the time I fall into bed at night, I cannot move.

And this day often spills into the following day prolonging the festivities.

Can you guess the occasion? Are you waiting with bated breath? Well, here it is:

It is the first day of the year that … I get to enjoy … through the artistry of my wife … the most complex and deeply satisfying … wait for it … wait for it … FIRST F’N CHILI.

Surprised? Well let me tell you, this is a big friggin deal. I kid you not. And let me start with the back story.

My wife first dabbled in making chili back in 1999, before children, when we lived in our first house post wedding. She had never attempted to make it before and was sort of following a recipe she found on the internet. That first iteration was good, but nowhere near where it is today. Over the years, she experimented with adding to the original version until it reached perfection back in 2003. From that day forward, it was dubbed “Catherine Street” chili, named after the street we lived on.

Each and every year I am told we cannot dine on this chili until the weather cools down in early fall. I argue we should have it year round, but I get nowhere with the boss. I have to admit, I get it. It would lose some of its luster if we had it in the dinner rotation. So I stay patient and wait.

This chili has been served on various occasions including birthday parties, Christmas and New Year’s Eve, and everyone went nuts eating it.      

Quick cross sell alert: I have no right to write about cooking (just ask my wife) but I am absolutely an expert in eating as evidenced in my other blog that is all about lunch, that you can conveniently access by clicking here.

What I do know is that the ingredients in the chili include: chipotles, cinnamon, chocolate, beer, tomato paste, kidney beans, garlic, onions and Frank’s Red Hot sauce. My wife makes it by “feel” rather than exact quantities and each time it blows me away.

I mentioned before that I have specific preparations the day of the first chili and it is no exaggeration. Here they are in chronological order:

1. Extra long and hard morning run to remove guilt from the equation
2. Only yogurt for breakfast as it’s all about clean eating early that day
3. A light, sensible lunch to make room for stuffing my face later on
4. Plenty of water throughout the day to prevent dehydration
5. Loose, comfortable clothing to allow for the bulging of the stomach

So now back to today.

This year, there was an added bonus. My wife made the chili last night to allow it to do its thing in the refrigerator for twenty four hours. The more it sits, the more complex and flavorful it gets. It’s simple science.

Around 5:44 PM or so, I placed the pot on the stove and began to shake a bit watching it heat up. The day was really here. Here’s a quick glimpse of what I was witnessing:                        

You’re fired up too, right? I’ll invite you all over soon enough, don’t you worry.

The next step was to locate the beverage to accompany the feast. Check:

Now we get to a bit of controversy. My wife loves pouring her chili over corn bread. I have to keep it real and cannot allow that corn bread to take up any real estate in my stomach. I love the hell out of corn bread, but I have to stick to my guns and say “no”:  

When it’s warmed up and ready to be devoured, I take my seat at the table, ignore everyone, and dive the hell in:

I take it so seriously, that I didn’t realize that my wife snuck the camera to the table and snapped a pic of me about to take my first bite:

Do you see the concentration and excitement?

As I write this, I almost physically cannot move other than my two fingers typing away. And I love it. It is part of the process and a necessary evil.

I will be working from home tomorrow and can you guess what will be for lunch, say around 10:45 AM? You know it. The gift that keeps on giving.

Oh yeah, I love that woman.

John  

 Have a great weekend and as always, thank you so much for stopping by!

John

I have the same exact feeling each and every year by the end of September.

This year, I got it right.

I spend most of September (and early October), moving plants around to “better” locations, with better companions and also spend a ton of time incorporating newly purchased plants (gotta love the 50% off sales) into the landscape.

With the milder temperatures, it is a great time of year to relocate/transplant said plants in order to give them enough time to establish themselves before frost.

It is a time to evaluate how individual plants performed that growing season and whether or not their conditions allowed them to put on the best show. Those that underwhelmed or failed all together, get a second chance to prove their worth somewhere else.

Maybe they truly needed full sun or in fact, were not deer resistant.

Maybe the foliage colors or shape clashed rather than contrasted.

Whatever the reason, I love the challenge. It becomes puzzle-like and keeps me up at night. It’s invigorating. And I’m always convinced everything is in its right place (awesome Radiohead reference by me … never mind).

But here’s the problem. All the tinkering each fall holds me back from creating new gardens/vignettes/vistas. I can’t move on to new and exciting projects because the old ones just aren’t right. Two steps forward, two steps back (and a not so awesome Paula Abdul reference).

What’s invigorating is also maddening.

So I decided to take a step back and analyze my decision making process to see why I cannot put a ribbon on a garden bed and move on. Some possible reasons for this indecision:

1. Is it simply the nature of plants and a necessary evil of gardening? Trial and error?
2. Do I have gardening ADD and just can’t stop myself from tinkering?
3. Is there some psychological reasoning where I subconsciously never allow myself to see it complete?
4. Am I getting smarter each year and the transplanting is a result of that new knowledge?

To attempt to answer these questions, I took one particular garden bed and traced it from its origins to current day. Here are the results and what I learned from the exercise:

The original garden bed just as I started reshaping it and making it much larger:
                     

A few weeks later it was “completed” (ha). From left to right, there is a Weigela ‘Wine and Roses’, Rudbeckia, Spirea ‘Antony Waterer’, Sedum ‘Matrona’ and a few Daylilies:

Damn it felt good to have that done. But it didn’t last and here is how it unfolded.

• The Rudbeckia (Blackeyed Susan) almost immediately were covered in black spots and I had to cut them down in late summer. They never really came back fully the following spring and those that did, mysteriously reseeded in other parts of the yard: 

• The Sedum ‘Matrona’ were OK into the late summer but were eaten by some combination of deer/rabbits. I eventually moved them to a new location in the spring where they couldn’t be reached by the critters.

OK, we’re back on track … except we’re not. And here’s why:

• The Weigela ‘Wine and Roses’ never really bloomed or thrived and after digging it up, I realized it was just about sitting in standing water. Off she goes to another bed for her second chance.
• The yellow arborvitae just never really fit in. The color was “blech” and just uninspiring. For whatever reason, I went on an Arborvitae spending spree a few years back and now I’m stuck with them and they are underwhelming.
• The dwarf Bee Balms never survived the winter due to poor drainage.
• The so-called indestructible Spirea was covered in poison ivy and upon removal, was also suffering from poor drainage:

• The NSO just seemed a bit too tall for its location and was already showing signs of reseeding heavily. She needed to be in a more natural bed where reseeding was more acceptable.
• The Hibiscus was awesome for a while and I loved the fact that my daughter could see the massive blooms right out our back window:        

But the leaves were getting devoured in a prominent location which frustrated me to no end:

And eventually, I cut them down and relocated them to a spot where I “think” I can enjoy the blooms and they’ll have more space to grow:

After the Weigela was removed, I replaced it with a Salix (Dappled Willow) ‘Hakuro Nishiki’ figuring it would be OK with the poor drainage:

And it was … too much so. It thrived beyond belief but I knew it would soon outgrow its space. So off it went to a new location where I could keep it in bounds with an annual pruning and where it could be a strong focal point:

So now fast forward to today … and I have a new plan or the start of a new plan I should say. The bed looks awful but I have to ignore that and proceed with my plan. The newly added plants are small and look out of place, but I am determined to remain patient.

In the center of the bed, are two new hydrangeas that have been carefully planted and are a bit higher than ground level to improve the drainage. I’m banking on these popping with blooms in the summer (and they are my wife’s favorite so I wanted to incorporate more).

There is a Dwarf Alberta Spruce in the back of the bed as I know these have thrived for me and grown quickly in almost the same conditions in other parts of the yard.

I added a Feather Reed Grass ‘Overdam’ in the middle of the deck where the Dappled Willow was before.

The Spiderwort will soon be moved to a new location as they are too similar to the nearby Daylillies and I need something there that will good between the hydrangeas.

And finally, I divided a few Siberian Irises and added them to this bed hoping they’ll look good with the Panicum and Hydrangeas nearby:        

We’ll see how long this lasts as only time will tell.

As for conclusions drawn, I realize that all of the reasons I listed above come into play but more than anything else, it’s all about trial and error.

Yes, I should have known the Weigela needed better drainage but that individual spot seems to be worse than others in the bed, but who knew.

Yes, I knew the Sedum were vulnerable to deer and rabbits but I figured I would stay on top of the spraying.  Um, not really.

Yes, the Hibiscus needed more space, but I loved the idea that my daughter could see the blooms up close with ease.

This passion will last a lifetime and I know I will learn something new every day. How boring would it be if everything just stayed as is regardless of how good it looked. I’d eventually ignore it completely out of boredom.

I’ll get it right and wrong again but I’ll have a hell of a lot of fun along the way.

I ain’t changing.

John        

But the lettuce, basil and cilantro bombed big time.

And don’t even get me started on the tomatoes. Here is one of the few that didn’t rot on the vine:

I grabbed the already opened seed packets I had stored in the garage back in the spring:

And we were off and planting. Please note the uniform of choice:

The bed looks a lot better, eh? We could actually see the tomato plants, thyme, rosemary and basil again:

I have to be honest, my daughter didn’t make it all the way through as she disappeared in a flash after I sowed all of the lettuce seeds:

And I knew exactly where she could be found (sorry about the bright photo, more camera experimentation):

I figure every time I drag her out into the garden, I am adding a bit to her interest and “planting the seed” for the next time. Just maybe, some day in the future she’ll call me and ask if she can have some of my divided irises.

A dad can dream, right?

**Update – No lie, my daughter ran into the house this weekend to tell me that “our seeds” were starting to grow:  

Good times.

John

Boltonia ‘Pink Beauty’

Helenium autumnale (Sneezeweed)

Others continue to put on a show but are showing signs of wearing down:

Echinacea ‘Fragrant Angel’ (White Coneflower)

Echinacea ‘Fragrant Angel’ (White coneflower)

Blooms on Astilbe ‘Deutschland’

Some have put on a second show, albeit, not as dramatic as the first:

Nepeta ‘Walker’s Low’ (Catmint)

Phlox paniculata ‘David’

Many are just now showing signs of bloom for the first time:

Chelone glabra

Caryopteris ‘Sunshine Blue’ (Bluebeard)

Caryopteris ‘Sunshine Blue’ (Bluebeard)

Hydrangea paniculata ‘Little Lime’

Add to the mix the foliage changes starting to appear (as seen in my last post) and you have a cornucopia of garden loveliness.

Don’t you agree? Of course you do.

John