After the Flood: Stormwater Management in Action

Last year, our village finished building a stormwater basin a block away. They tore down four houses and dug out a huge area, planting it with native plants. I got to see the plans and the plant list, and we are still excited about it. Already, we've noticed more birds. I haven't heard frogs yet, but I'm hoping.

Anyway, on April 18 we received somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 inches of rain in 48 hours. Our old cinder block basement walls were spurting water like an artesian spring and we got six inches of water. Our new basin flooded. No surprise there.

Now it's a lake...

Hey, it's 10 INCHES of rain. I couldn't get more than four blocks in any direction, really.  However, what I was thrilled to see was within a day, the waters had receded. Significantly. Our basement drained in hours, not days. Of course it still needs cleanup, but it could be much worse.

As weather extremes continue, I'm glad that our little basin is doing its job and providing habitat for wildlife. The drought is officially over!

Now it's a pond... You can see that bench in the center.

Waiting on Spring

At this point in March I often feel like this:

Weighted. Winter feels heavy and I feel like I'm sinking. I know spring is around the corner. I can hear it in the birdsong and see it in the swelling buds on the rose bushes. But temperatures haven't risen above 40 degrees in a long time and I'm beginning to forget what sunlight looks like. What to do?

Go to the beach.

One of the best things about living in the Chicago area is Lake Michigan. There's something so magical about the windswept dunes and the calls of gulls. I don't care what season it is, the lake is calling me. The mystical combination of wind, water and sand sweeps the cobwebs from my soul. Once again I can marvel at the power of nature and the stubborness of stone. Spring...please come soon!

Winter is for Planting Trees

I think long and hard about what trees I plant in my yard. I don't have nearly enough space for everything I want to grow. I regularly threaten that if the neighbors ever move, I'm buying the house next door, tearing it down and planting more trees.

Hey, cuties!

I come by the tree in obsession honestly. My father is this very moment raising two baby oaks of mysterious origin. He picked up the acorns in the forest preserve a few blocks from their house. Other than being something in the white oak family, we're not sure what they are. I'm waiting for another few sets of leaves before I send pictures to my pals at The Morton Arboretum for identification. Dad and I are bouncing around ideas of where we'll plant these dimpled darlings. They will eventually be large shade trees and neither of us have the space. In the meantime, they have been transplanted into pots in his sunniest window and are doing just fine. Other people start their lettuce right now. We, the crazy tree geeks, start wee little oaks.

Renegade Rosemary

I did it again. I snagged one of the rosemary plants from the pitch pile at work in sheer stubborness. I figured I was rescuing it from the compost, so why not give it a chance? Turns out I've finally found rosemary's happy place in my house - the kitchen windowsill.

There wasn't room in the Fertile Crescent (the file cabinets under the south window in the study where most of the rest of the houseplants reside) so I stuck it on the windowsill figuring it would only be there a couple of weeks. That was in November. The damn thing is doing fine and growing a little bit. We've been using it here and there (handy snips at the ready!) and I water it probably every other day. We did move it to the counter at night when the temps dipped below 10 degrees a couple of weeks ago.

We don't have huge wide windowsills, so I'm not planning on doing herb gardening above the sink forever. I just can't bring myself to move the rosemary when it's so happy where it is. And if it keeps growing, I'll have to pot it up and then it won't fit anymore. Dammit. Stupid plant.

One Resolution for a New Year

Yes, it's that time again...resolution time! Normally, I'm not one to make outlandish, impossible promises to myself. My usual New Year's resolution is to drink more champagne.

As I think about it this year, I am going to suggest to you a resolution that can be pretty easy to keep, once you make a habit of it. Stop and savor. Yep, that's it. But I challenge you to actually do it. In our busy lives, how often do we pause a moment and breathe it all in?

Take the time to notice the way winter light falls silvery on the peeling bark of a tree. Stop and study the elegant buds of a beech or the fat flower buds of a lilac. Breathe in the sharp air of a cold day. Pause and savor the last ruddy glow of sunset as it glimmers behind the ink etchings of naked tree branches. Mother Nature gives us many gifts, reward yourself by paying attention to her beauty.

Taking the Container Garden into Autumn

This year, I didn't plant very many containers due to the drought. It was just too tough keeping them watered. My one expection is the planter box that hangs on the back porch rail. This spring I went for a blowsy romantic look in soft pastels. My husband has a thing for snapdragons, so they are always part of this combination.

Because it's just outside my back door, it gets watered frequently. I used the potting mix from work which is a nice blend that includes a low grade fertilizer and a wetting agent. I also added a liberal dose of a slow release granular fertilizer. I think I achieved the goal!

We're in the midst of autumn, and since I was only planting one container, I splurged on changing it out for fall. I confess, I hate mums. They're so fragile that the stems break as soon as you pick them up, much less manuever them into a narrow planter. Although I love a romantic summer container, I prefer to be a little edgier in autumn.

Blocking the design in chunks

I went for a moody blue sort of theme. The first thing that called to me were the sky blue pansies. They just remind me of a clear autumn day. I paired it with the Black Pearl peppers and purple cabbage. Now I needed a vertical element in the juncus and a little pop of color with the calibrachoa.

The nice part about this planter is that I can lift it out of the rack and slip it indoors when the temperatures get below freezing. The peppers aren't particularly cold hardy, but were too cool to pass up. At some point, they'll succumb, but by then it'll be time to think about swapping in winter greens and berries.

The Long Slow Spiral into Autumn

Rozanne geranium continues to bloom into October.

Autumn seems to hesitate on the skirts of summer. The days are getting ever so gradually shorter and I can feel the long slow tumbling spiral into winter. Mornings are softer and heavy with dew. This evening I was thrilled to see a flock of common nighthawks spinning together overhead, feasting on insects. They'll be starting their fall migration to South America soon. Autumn to me always feels circular as things slow down, leaves fall, and the soil begins to slumber. Perhaps it was too much W. B. Yeats at an early age, but I have always been attracted to spiral, labyrinths and the sinuous shapes of nature. The winding tendrils of clematis and morning glory, the Fibonacci sequence of sunflowers and echinacea pull me in.

This year the acorns on my Regal Prince oak are twice the size, which someone just told me meant we're in for a hard winter. Good, I think. After the 100 plus degrees of summer, I'm ready for some negative temps and blankets of snow. In the meantime, I'll be studying the seedpods and marveling at how the dance of nature survives even the extremes.