Twining, Twining, Sweet Autumn Mine

Oh, fair one fragrant with white flowers!  Oh, lovely beauty with swathes of ripening tufted seeds!  Sweet autumn clematis (Clematis terniflora) is aptly named.  This durable twining vine is drenched in small fragrant white flowers in September that then ripen and dry to become delicate starry seed heads.  During the growing season, it's mid green delicate leaves cover trellises, fences, lattices, and any framework where its tendrils can twine.

This clematis is fast.  It hangs with a tough crowd and goes to all the wrong parties.  It can easily cover 10 feet in a season and grows anywhere from full sun to partial shade.  It was beloved by the Victorians for its vigor and fragrance. You can even cut it down every year to keep it from eating your garage.

Looking to screen the neighbors' trampoline, swingset, or hideous patio furniture?  Need to block something in a tight spot?  Climbing vines can be your answer.  Some 4 x 4's, lattice, and a little sweat equity can create a living wall that not only provides privacy, but delights the eye and pleases the nose.

Sweet autumn clematis in bloom on a picket fence.

Tufted seed heads

For the Love of Grasses

As our warm November continues, and the leaves have mostly fallen, I am thankful for grasses.  Yes, ornamental grasses have been hugely popular for the last decade.  However, I think deservedly so. At this time of year, few things are still standing and offering color, screening, and sound nifty in the breeze.  There are hundreds of ornamental grasses out there, so you should be able to find one to suit you. 

Grasses occur naturally in every situation from sun to shade and moist to dry.  Our native woodland sedges offer a quiet beauty or in the case of the bur sedge, dramatic seed heads.  Sedge (Carex) likes to be in some shade and a bit of moisture.  For full sun, Japanese silver grass (Miscanthus) offers plenty of punch, but be prepared for it to spread sometimes.

Illinois is the Prairie State, and while our pockets of remaining prairie are slight, I think we still long for that view of endless grass.  I'm a fifth generation flatlander, so I love the open sky overhead and being able to see the next county from the slight rise of glacial moraine.  Our native prairie grasses can be more than six feet tall like big bluestem or more dainty like little bluestem.

If you have a corner that needs softening, ornamental grasses just might be the low maintenance solution.

Miscanthus in fall glory.

Pot 'Em Up - Containers

Container gardening is one of those super hot trends, and why not?  It gives you a nice punch of color on the porch or patio and I grow strawberries and herbs in ours for easy snacking.  The possibilities for containers are endless.  As we are emptying them out now and storing our pots and urns, it's a nice time to think about next year.  What plants worked best this year?  Did some get overgrown?  Did some wimp out?

I found this year that using a moisture retaining potting soil had its pros and cons.  I didn't have to water nearly as much, but the herbs on the porch railing didn't grow as much I as would expect.  The flavors were more intense, at least with the parsley. So, I'll be sticking with regular potting soil next year or the kind with slow release fertilizer. 

You can do gardens in a myriad of containers from old boots to washtubs to ceramic urns - anything that will hold soil and plants.  One thing I will try next year is stumps.  We have a couple of old stumps that will get hollowed out and plopped in the garden for a very natural look.  I don't count on the plants making it over the winter, but I might try hosta just to see how it does.

Perfect for the shade garden!

A Victorian planter in Riverside

What to do with Aunt Maud's old Chinese planters.

Embracing Snags

Some trees are perfect - perfect shape, perfect size, perfect color.  They do their jobs very well and as people we enjoy them.  Some trees, however, have a style all their own and make us pause and really consider them.  And then there are snags.  Snag trees are dead, dying, broken down trees that somehow are still standing.  This is the tree that you know is haunted.  You don't want to meet it in a dark alley.  Ichabod Crane ran pell mell away from this baby.

Snags, however, provide imporant habitat for wildlife.  My in-laws have let an old weeping willow gradually decay and (literally) fall apart.  It provides shelter for a huge variety of bird life, so they have made the choice to leave it standing, and enjoy all the birds it houses.  We are taking bets on how long it lasts, but it may yet surprise us.

This is another snag I ran across on a recent trip to Wisconsin.  It's a magnificent sugar maple, Acer saccharum, that I'm sure has housed generations of squirrels, opossum, raccoons, and too many birds to name.  It's still holding its own against Midwestern winter winds and summer storms.  Isn't it magnificent?

Bunnies, Bunnies Everywhere!

You may think they are cute, furry, innocent creatures of the garden and park romping in the clover.  You are wrong.  Rabbits are pure evil.  These baby-making machines have been after my plants since day one.  They are sneaky, treacherous, and always always hungry.

It's time to start caging my shrubs from the little bastards.  I have learned painful lessons that if my precious witchhazel, viburnum, and serviceberry aren't protected, it's a massacre.  During the growing season, I've found that granular repellents work best, especially those formulated with predator urine.  The nice added benefit is that the granulated fox urine has attracted the occasional fox to clean out the voles and the bunnies. We are excited that a new small flock of crows has taken residence after losing so many to West Nile.  Crows prey on baby bunnnies.  I'm a big fan of crows.

Rabbit damage is characterized by sharp clean cuts in twigs smaller than a pencil.  They will also nibble tender thin bark.  This year, the new tree form cutleaf lilac will get brown paper tree wrap for just that reason.

My baby bottlebrush buckeye is going to live in a cage probably for at least a couple of years.

No, you can't have the tomatoes.  Now, shoo!

Reaping a Decorative Harvest

As we head further into fall, it's becoming time to gather a different kind of harvest.  I collect a number of different plants for dried arrangements, but I like to see how Mother Nature dries and preserves them.  I don't really have enough room in the basement to hang and dry everything, and sometimes weathering produces much more intriguing results.

If you are planning on collecting plants that are not on your own property, MAKE SURE TO GET PERMISSION.  Oftentimes forest preserves, gardens, and arboreta have strict rules about what you may and may not collect.  If a researcher has a project using seed pods, seeds, or other fruit materials, you might be taking their precious thesis material.  Sometimes ambitious collecting severly disrupts the plant community and ecosystem. Any institution or gardener appreciates being asked and may make special accommodations for your project.

I haven't found a good solution to what to do with thousands of honeylocust pods (Gleditsia triacanthos var. inermis) besides to photograph the interesting ones.  I'm thinking once they are truly dry, they would be an interesting garland.

One of my favorite unusual seed pods is magnolia, specifically umbrella magnolia (Magnolia tripetala).  They are huge and get richer in texture in color the longer they are left in the open.

Something you might run across if you live in an older community, especially if it's former farmland is Osage orange (Maclura pomifera) fruit.  These are softball sized and have a pleasant citrusy scent.  They make wonderful arrangements, but keep in mind that they are not dried material and will break down over time.  I've seen them spiked with cloves much like a regular orange. Some folks swear that kept in the basement, they keep away spiders.  I haven't tried it yet.

Taking Chances with Shrubbery

This looks like an innocent bundle of twigs - a harmless shrub! Right?

It's a Bailey Compact viburnum (Viburnum trilobum 'Bailey Compact') and it's a nice small scale viburnum with scarlet fall color and bright red berries that gets about 3 to 5 feet high and wide.  So what's the problem?

It has viburnum crown borer. 

I work at a local garden center and this was one of the pitch outs because of this insect pest.  It's a common insect on viburnum especially Viburnum opulus and Viburnum trilobum.  So why take a chance on it?  Especially since borer will spread to other viburnums once it has pupated into the adult fly.  I know I can slay this beastie because I have dealt with this borer before on these:

This is Viburnum sargentii 'Onondaga' and I managed to eliminate borer on these about two years ago. I'm armed and dangerous with permethrin already mixed and ready to go for next June's application. 

You can find out more about this pushy little pest on The Morton Arboretum's site or the University of Illinois Extension service.

I decided to risk it.  It's a lovely little viburnum, the price was right (free!) and I've conquered this issue before.  With a little perseverance I'll have a nice plant for the back border and another viburnum to add to the burgeoning collection.