2014 Fox Valley Master Gardeners Garden Walk: Part 2

If you like shady gardens, this was a truly nice one.  It had lots of large, well-grown hostas, and well-done visual interest.

The bottle tree was not in the open garden but in a neighbor's yard across the way...poor Japanese lilac!

A bottle tree with pegs or nails directly fastened into a living tree, in this case a Japanese lilac.  Japanese lilacs can take a lot of abuse.  I think this probably crosses the line, though.

The Master Gardener to the right in this picture was very knowledgeable, and I spoke to her at length.  She confessed she had lost every shrub and tree in her front yard this spring due to our winter; none of which were yews (I asked).  I think she walked with me to the back yard, worried I would take a header when she saw me walking with my cane.  She really needn't have worried.  (My mother complained that I must have a sign on my forehead," talk to me!")

This pergola covered with a bamboo shade was well made (and looked to be within my carpentry skill level) and provided shade for the unusual variegated ligularia below.

Not allium argentum, more like allium spray paintium...

Allium sprayed here to match the weathered frame of the glass-less windows.

2014 Fox Valley Master Gardeners Garden Walk: Part 1

Yesterday I went on a Garden Walk hosted by the Fox Valley Master Gardeners.  I did not visit their Community Garden, but the private garden I visited had a lot to see.  There were some great plant combinations, some well placed unusual accessories, and some unusual plants.  Almost every one of these gardens had some spruce on the adjacent property to theirs with spruce tip fungus.  It seems pretty widespread in the Valley.  One Master Gardener confessed to me she lost every shrub and tree in her front yard, including a Harry Lauder Walking Stick (which can't grow in my garden just 30 miles west, and is probably marginal in hers, although I did see one that must have been nearly twenty years old, damaged, but alive after our brutal winter.).

I'll let the pictures of this first garden tell their own story.

A great color combo, cheddar tollius, hosta aureo marginata, and theat orange pixie Asiatic lily.

The seemingly ubiquitous and required bottle tree.

It was almost over-accessorized, but then it had some great plants and few annuals.  I forgave her.

I am always jealous of the gardeners who seem to have this particular foxglove perennialize for them.

Smokebush 'Golden Spirit', the largest I have seen.  Mine will not be allowed to get this big.

I liked this millet with the new growth on the (I think) abies 'Concolor'.

I turned back to take another look at the back garden as a whole and saw this critter in the neighbor's yard..  Time to design a screening hedge, I think!

A bit of winter burn on a 'Blue Star' juniper growing as a low standard.

'Crimson Queen" Japanese maple, I would have taken the time to trim out the dead growth tips from the winter kill because of its prominent spot in the landscape and because it is still manageable at just 6' to 7' tall.  I would also prune in a bonsai style to keep it only this tall, wher it fits perfectly in her corner between the house and abutting garage.

I enjoyed this garden, and was able to tall to the gardener, herself who was very knowledgeable.  She had a beautiful yard and lots of unusual plants.  She had lost a couple larger trees and shrubs over the last couple years, but had redone these sections well to compensate for the losses.  I did not notice these things until she pointed them out; the really large hosta under the very small redbud, for example.

It was a beautiful yard.