A hawk decided to visit our pond today – I wasn’t home, but a neighbor alerted The Spouse, who took some pictures.
Apparently, it wasn’t hunting, but rather looking for a bath in the pond.
Any birdwatchers out there able to ID this from these photos?
It’s been cold & snowy here, just like most of the US and Europe, thanks to the North Atlantic Oscillation. There’s not a lot of open water in our urban neighborhood even when it’s not covered in snow and ice, so the pond waterfall and deicer bring in critter visitors. The birdfeeder has also had lots of customers, but the squirrels continue to be frustrated by our use of hot bird seed.
Fortunately, the NAO is going back to more normal values, and we’re now above freezing for the first time in 20 days. Spring seems a long ways away, but I am halfway between my usual last Bloom Day post of the year (mid-November) and my first (mid-March). I can’t wait to see if the snowdrops I planted a couple of months ago come up even before that!
The annual voting for OneSeedChicago is now underway, and this year’s contenders are all native plants. Vote for your favorite at www.oneseedchicago.com and you’ll get a packet of the winner in April!
I voted for the nodding onion, one of my favorite rain garden plants. The other two contenders are purple coneflower and bee balm, both fantastic plants for the Chicago area. Vote now!
The calendula don’t realize how late in the year it is.
This will likely be my last Bloom Day post until March or April 2010. Winter is coming upon us, although November has been much warmer than October so far. I will definitely be reading all of the Bloom Days at May Dreams Gardens over the winter to get my fill of lovely growing things.
In bloom:
In fruit:
raspberry ‘Caroline’, profusely!
I am an Oak Park tree killer, and I’m not (too) ashamed of it. This week, Davis Tree Care came out and removed the gigantic magnolia tree that dominated our side yard. This makes the 4th tree that we’ve had Davis remove for us. I love trees, but what the heck can you do with: a 30-foot high magnolia in a 10-foot wide area between our house and the neighbor’s, an Ailanthus (tree of heaven – say no more), a Siberian elm right by the garage door (and the garage was brand new, too!), and a pie cherry tree right in the middle of the back yard. Who plants invasive trees like this? Who puts in a new garage by squeezing it between two existing Siberian elms? Ah well, I’m sure future owners of this house will puzzle over why we put in a fish pond!
Do not think that I will leave the side yard empty, although the poor plants that have struggled in the shade of the magnolia and houses might welcome it. I want to plant some shrubs or small trees, but nothing so large that we suffer the same problems that the oversized magnolia caused. Candidate shrubs so far are:
I might plant multiple species, but I also have to be mindful that it’s a small space. I’ve been lusting after spicebush for a while, but witch hazel’s fall blooming sounds really good about now. Whatever I pick has to be a shade plant that can handle clay soil, and I am going to be sure that they are not going to grow more than 15 feet tall, nor interfere with the neighbor’s sidewalk. Anyone out there have positive or negative experiences with any of these? I’m going to keep looking at Possibility Place’s online catalog too, and dream about replacing our remaining Siberian elm with an oak.
I believe we’ve just passed peak color here in NE Oak Park. It was glorious this year – check out the parkway basswood!
The leaves have come off quickly this week with all the wind and rain we’ve had. What comes after peak color? Raking and vacuuming/shredding, of course. Next up, the story of the one tree that is no longer there…
The cold and rainy weather got me feeling as if bulb planting was overdue (more experienced gardeners have told me that I’m overreacting), so I got some bulbs planted in the front yard today: snowdrops and crocus. Since the gas company had to rip up the parkway to put in new pipes on our block, I didn’t have to do quite as much hard digging as in the past. I’m not sure how attractive these bulbs are to the local squirrel and raccoon population: we’ll know come March!
The garden gets less and less lush by the day. We’re definitely having a good tree color year in Chicago, although we haven’t had quite enough dry days to appreciate them. And the Caroline raspberry is still yielding a few sweet berries – winter is still a few weeks away.
The serviceberry ‘Autumn Brilliance’ is living up to its name today.
The other cultivars (I assume) I see around are more yellow to light orange; ‘Autumn Brilliance’ has a lot of red and purple in it.
Nothing says fall (or autumn) like a red tree against a blue sky!
The grape woodbine doesn’t have a lot of berries left, but it does have a lot of color.
I apologize for neglecting this blog for several weeks. Not only is the garden not all that inspiring right now (except for the everbearing Caroline raspberries, which continue to be delicious), but I keep putting off taking more photos because I haven’t done anything with the vacation photos I took in mid-September. But no more: it’s picture time!
In bloom:
In fruit:
And pretty foliage:
To celebrate the holiday weekend and get some exercise, the Spouse and I went hiking at Morton Arboretum. We don’t get out there very often since it involves a trip on the dreaded tollway. Of course, I didn’t remember to bring an actual camera, but my iPhone is good enough to get the gist of things, like the mass of yellow wildflowers above.
We hiked loops 3 & 4 on the east side of the arboretum. Loop 4 is almost exclusively in woodland, so any interesting plants made us pay attention. We saw the berries above all over the place, and the folks at the visitors center informed us that they were either Jack-in-the-pulpit or green dragon. Since I’ve been dragging my feet on getting any J-i-t-p, this may be the motivation to plant some in the side yard. Another notable berry we saw was Solomon’s plume, but with red berries rather than the bronzy ones seen on my plants.
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