Best Garden Gloves, Ever!

I've never been the kind of gardener to use garden gloves. Part of it is probably due to sheer ignorance, but mostly it is probably cultural. I never really thought of the dangers or gardening and exposing your naked hands and arms to potential hazards in the garden. Cuts, scrapes, dirt under your fingernails and bug bites all seem to be things a gardener comes to accept. Garden gloves always strike me as being something for women.

For a couple of years I politely turned down companies who offered me garden gloves, for the reasons stated above, but then a year ago I met Alice Strong, owner of GardenBasket.com, at the Chicago Flower & Garden Show. It was there that she gave me a pair of Atlas garden gloves and told me to test them after telling her of my resistance to wearing garden gloves. She told me about how the gloves were originally designed for assembly line work and all of a sudden the idea of garden gloves seemed less feminine than before.

Chicago Spring Fling In Pictures

Didn't get a chance to take a lot of photos during Spring Fling but here are a few that I liked. My pictures of the Rick Bayless garden are over on my garden blog for ChicagoNow.com: Chicago Garden and my other post on the subject of Spring Fling is: Chicago Spring Fling in Words. Links in this post open in new window. If you hover your mouse over one of the garden photos you should get a description.

Macy's Flower Show 2009

Macy's on State Street ushers in spring with the flower show Dream in Color. For someone like me, who professes to hate pink flowers in the garden it sounds more like a Nightmare in Color. So I was surprised at my reaction of Dream in Color, I actually liked it! The annual flower show at Macy's on State Street is a holdover from the Marshall Field's era in Chicago. Full disclosure; I once worked at Marshall Field's when I was going to school and I was one of the anti-Macy's crowd when they bought the beloved Field's. I swore up and down to anyone who would listen that I would never step foot inside of "Macy's." Today was the first day I have been inside the store since it stopped being Marshall Field's.

A week or so ago, Marisa Reeves (Media Relations Manager for Macy’s East, North Region), offered to set up a tour of the show for local garden bloggers with the Jon Jones (Visual Director for Macy's on State Street) & Todd Pope (Branch Manager for Green View's Oswego location). My Skinny Garden & Garden Girl found time in their schedules to attend. And that is how my boycott of Macy's & pink flowers ended.

Deceptive Garden

Medicinal Plant Garden in Chicago

Recently I came across a small garden that I'd never noticed before at the University of Illinois Medical Center. It is the Dorothy Bradley Atkins Medicinal Plant Garden that is operated and maintained by the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy in the UIC College of Pharmacy for educational and research purposes. When I first came across the garden the plant names registered something in my brain but I couldn't figure out why they were standing out eventually it came to me.

Growing Elephant Ear Plants In Chicago

Elephant ear plants are herbaceous plants in zone 8 and above. In gardening zones that are colder they are treated as annuals and the corms lifted out of the ground and stored in a cool dry location like the basement of a home. Many gardeners grow these plants because the large foliage, that resemble the ears of an Elephant, help create a garden with a tropical feel.

Creative Garden Gate

This weekend I came across a very creative garden gate made of twigs that I assume the homeowner/gardener made out of branches from their garden. On a city street in Chicago among a row of nice homes and well maintained green spaces this little garden gate stands out when driving past it. I rode by it twice before I finally stopped and snapped this photo of the gate and wanted to talk to the people tending the inviting garden behind it but lost my nerve.

Abutilon theophrasti- Velvet Leaf

Abutilon theophrasti has many many common names- so many that I wouldn't be surprised if it had one common name for every star in the sky. Velvet Leaf, Indian Mallow, China Jute, Buttonweed and sometimes Elephant Ear are used to refer to this annual that is native to Southern Asia. It was introduced into North America in the 1700s where it made itself at home in roadsides, cultivated fields and gardens. Velvet Leaf is considered a noxious weed because it can considerably reduce crop yields as it steals water and nutrients from crops.

When I Collect Bells Of Ireland Seeds

Most of my Bells of Ireland have started to go to seed so I thought I'd post a picture of when I know to collect Bells of Ireland Seeds for those growing this plant for the first time or those that may want to grow it in their garden in the future.

The most obvious sign is when the bracts fade from green to the light brown color you see in the image above. If you look inside the bract you will see that there are (usually) four seeds that resemble a pie cut into four segments- occasionally only two seeds will form. I usually keep an eye on the seeds and collect them right after they've turned brown and a gap develops between each of the segments so I know they're ripe.

Last year when I first collected seeds from my plants I got a big surprise when I encountered the spines that develop below the bell-shaped bracts. When they're completely dry they hurt pretty bad so make sure to wear gloves when handling the spent blooms. There are also spines on the edges of the "bell" that you should look out for.

Previou entry: Bells of Ireland flowers

Lace Bugs

I decided to pull out some sunflowers in my garden that were starting to look particularly bad. The leaves were turning yellow or developing yellow spots and just generally not looking very good. While I was cutting them down and bagging the plants I noticed some small bugs on the leaves that I hadn't seen before. At first I thought they were crumbs or some kind of plant debris but then I started noticed them bouncing up and down sort of like a needle on a sewing machine.

Brown Lacewing

As the sun was setting one day I went out into the garden looking to photograph bugs. And like is common for me I got down on the ground and close up to the foliage and waited to see what moved or landed. Moments later this rather boring looking bug landed on some foliage and I decided to snap a photograph of it.

Recently while clearing out my hard drive I came across the photo and was pleasantly surprised by the effect of the setting sun on it's wings. To me it looks like the sun streaming in through a stained glass window and aside from this "aint it cool" effect I didn't think much of this bug that I've seen a lot around Chicago.

That all changed today when I learned that this brown lacewing bug is actually very beneficial in the garden. I don't know if it helps with pollinating flowers but I've learned that in the larvae stage and even as adults they are voracious eaters of aphids and mites. Like ladybugs they are a biological control of pests that we should encourage instead of using insecticides.

One really cool (to me at least) factoid about this bug it is that it's also known as "trash bug" because Green Lacewing larvae cover themselves in debris and insect carcases as seen in this photo. I'm guessing this is a method of camouflage that helps the larvae avoid becoming a meal .

Hemerocallis 'Siloam Fairy Tale'

I purchased this Daylily 'Siloam Fairy Tale' at the Home Depot garden center last year. Actually, I bought two of them because they were on sale and had not yet bloomed and wanted to add to the collection a gardening friend had given me. I've blogged a lot about the pros of buying plants in your neighborhood big box garden centers but there are also cons.

Natural Methods Of Pest Control

This morning I woke up to find that a couple of the seed heads on my poppies were covered with black aphids. My first reaction was to run inside and pick up an insecticide but I remembered that I am trying not to use chemicals in my garden like I did last year. I almost searched on-line for one of those homemade concoctions to kill them but then I remembered that I had ladybugs somewhere in the garden.

 

Clover In The Garden

My neighbor considers clover to be a weed and any that shows up in his lawn is quickly eradicated with chemicals. I'm of the opinion that clover is a beneficial "weed "in the garden because it attracts good insects like bumble bees and adds nitrogen to the soil.

 

Black Hollyhocks

Alcea rosea is an old fashioned plant that I remember from my childhood but I don't see in many gardens now. When I was a kid there was an eccentric woman in my neighborhood that we called the "crazy bird lady" because her old Victorian knock-off was always covered in pigeons.

The Orange Daylily

Most gardeners would probably turn their noses up at this daylily and while I'm no garden snob I would too. The orange daylily can be seen planted just about everywhere around Chicago and this plant has escaped and become a nuisance in the wild. The cheerful flowers and grass like foliage along with the cheap price tag make this one popular perennial for the garden. The fact that they are tough and can handle an urban life doesn't hurt either. Honestly this isn't my daylily and it's not a garden escapee-it is more of a garden refugee.

Sedum 'Autumn Joy'

This past fall I couldn't resist buying a couple of 1 gallon Sedums for the garden after they had been discounted. I planted the two Sedum 'Autumn Joy' plants in the garden hoping they would still have enough time to establish themselves before winter hit.

Dear Mayor Daley:

Let me begin my admitting I didn't vote for you this last election. Not that I voted against you either, it's just that I didn't think you had any competition and figured you'd win even without my vote. I should also inform you that aside from this one brief encounter when I was in High School you and I have never met. I guess I should also let you know that I come from humble origins so you wouldn't recognize my last name even if I spray-painted it on the Picasso in Daley Plaza. Even though you're Da Mayor and I'm just a blogger you and I have a couple of things in common.

 

Bring Back The Snow!

With the warm weather we're experiencing in Chicago many people are thinking of those first wonderful days of pleasant weather ahead. As I write this the signs of spring are already popping up all over the city; kids are riding their bikes, heavy winter coats are not being used, the neighbors are working on their cars (treating me to their favorite music at full blast) and the snow is melting.

Urban Gardening

Gardening within the confines of a city can be daunting and heartbreaking and annoying and messy and did I mention annoying? We have to work with less ground than our counterparts in the suburbs and rural areas. Where they can measure in acres we have to resort to measuring in feet. And sometimes we don't even have square footage to garden in. If you're container gardening then we're talking about inches and everyone should shed a tear for urban gardeners who only have a windowsill to grow something on.