New Feature: "This Week In My Midwest Gardens"

My "birthday angel" in the garden.

I am a Gardener.

Like most things that I do, I'm passionate about it.  I'm the type of gardener who, each spring, removes  large sections of my lawn and plants more stuff until it has gotten to the point that there's barely any lawn left. This suits me just fine. I also have window boxes and planters full of stuff that most people can't pronounce.I grow them because they're pretty, or unusual.
I'm what some people call a "plant collector".   I've been studying ornamental horticulture, landscape design, and taking Master Gardening classes since I was in my early 20's and I began my garden design business shortly thereafter.

Here are a couple of photos to show you what I mean. 

My Last House:  Front yard "before"

and "after" (six years later)

Rear yard "before"

and "after"

 Eight years ago, I moved into my current home. The lot was a "tear down".  This meant that they took the existing home, pushed it into a huge hole, and scooped the debris out to make room for the new house.

It also meant that the ground was stripped bare and driven over by heavy equipment for the nearly two years that it took to complete the building.  The "soil" was hard- pan, yellow clay with broken glass, bathroom tile, bits of roofing material, leftover rocks and construction debris with about 2 inches of black topsoil spread over it.  When I tell you that I started with "ZERO", I mean it!

My current house, when we moved in on January 1. There wasn't even grass. We grew it from seed in the spring when the weather warmed up. Until then, we had mud and a plywood sidewalk.
Front yard "before"

Front yard, last spring: (eight years later)

I've done all of  the design, 90% of the hard-scape, 100% of the planting (with help from family and friends for the big trees, eight dump trucks full of compost and nine tons of stone that we've used in this yard...so far) and 100% of the maintenance.

The only "professional services that I've used are:  the low voltage company for the installation of low voltage in the front yard and a contractor for the building of the pergola in the back yard. I also had someone build part of the fire pit in the back yard. The rest is all  "DIY".

Trust me when I say "I've done it ALL". From laying two flagstone patios to pouring concrete footings for a stone terrace. Planting trees, shrubs and perennials. I've installed a 2,800 gallon pond, built stacked and mortared retaining walls, and not one but TWO fire pits with limestone seat walls. 

Pond and waterfall

Cutting and Herb Garden

I thought that it might be fun to share with you some of what I've learned over the last, oh, "twenty or so" years, doing garden design and installation not only for myself but for others. To that end, I've decided that, beginning this Friday, I'll be doing a "In My Garden This Week" post. It'll contain tips, tricks, what's in bloom, projects that I'm working on, and anything else that YOU would like to see.  How does that sound?

My current back yard, midway through the "remodel" in summer of 2010. I'll explain what we did and why in a future post.

Let me know your thoughts. First post this Friday.

xo,

S

Happy First Day of Spring! - My $6 Spring Mantel

At long last, Spring!  

We've had some unusually warm weather in Illinois these last few weeks. In fact, many of my friends are referring to 2011 as the "best winter that never was".  But today, Spring has "officially" arrived!

I decided to keep my spring mantel simple this year. Since mother nature is cooperating, I simply snipped some forsythia branches, a few pussy willows,  and some of the daffodils from my yard. I added some of the smaller pieces from my collection of ironstone, a couple of nests, some lace, and a statue of a garden fairy that  was a gift from one of my girlfriends last year. 

The only purchase was the "SPRING" letters which I found in the $1 bin at Michael's earlier this season.

Speaking of spring and growing things and GARDENING, I'll be announcing a new weekly feature for this
blog tomorrow....Don't Miss It!

Have an incredible day!

xo,

S

Linking to:
The Lettered Cottage
Romantic Home

Vintage Market Recap - WARNING: HEAVY PHOTO CONTENT

This weekend, I was blessed to be a part of a wonderful, Vintage Market at the home of my dear friends, Polly and Steve from Counting Your Blessings. These gracious hosts not only cleared the first floor of their historic farmhouse for this event, they also assembled a group of incredibly talented, smart, funny and crazy-talented vendors in which I was humbled to be included. 

Hello, Old friend.

I was cleaning off some shelves in the "scary" part of my basement last week. It's the part that is immediately in front of what is affectionately known to the male populous of my home as "mom's wall of crap" to which I take great offense since each and every bit of that stuff will someday have a use. (At least that's what I tell myself on those rare days that I'm attempted to just call the trash guys and have a dumpster delivered, but I digress). 

As I'm sure you know by now, I'm taking part in a Vintage Market in Rockford at the end of this week and I was rummaging through boxes of "crafting supplies" trying to find my stash of elastic for a project that I was working on.  Well, I never did find the elastic but I did find this:

Two days...above fifty degrees...in March... in Illinois!!!!

Last year, I decided to paint my patio furniture in bright colors. It was fun and caused the neighbors to wonder if I'd lost my mind. Immediately after I did it, I wondered the same thing! I lived with it last summer but I knew that this spring, things were going to change!

So, given the GLORIOUS weather that's forecast for today and tomorrow, I'm getting a head start on correcting the "error of my ways". I LOVE PRIMER and white paint!!!!!

xo,

S