Spring Fever Cure II

For the second straight weekend, my friend Beckie and I headed to a local garden center, Prairie Gardens, for a series of seminars on gardening. It was a glorious day here in central Illinois: bright sunshine, and the temperature actually hit 60 degrees! While we might have felt just a twinge of guilt about not working outside today, the ground is still too muddy; besides, we were on our way to get lots of new ideas to improve our gardens this year. It's hard to pass all the trays of annuals and hundreds of new perennials without wanting to buy a cartload of new plants and get them out into the garden right now. But we knew better and took advantage of a little free time to check out all the plants available and make notes for a later shopping trip when planting season is really here. (The last frost date here is May 15--more than a month away!)

These hanging baskets of petunias (below) are already full and lush; I can only imagine what they will look like by May. I was pleased to discover that the center carried a few perennials that I have been wanting to plant this summer. Not only are they cheaper than those from the mail order catalogue I've been looking at, but I also prefer to see the real plant before I buy it.

Our first session was "Hot Perennial Picks for 2008." I took over two pages of notes on this session alone--too many choices! The 2008 perennial of the year is the geranium "Roxanne," but I think I'll pass on planting this one until I've actually seen it in someone's garden. Instead I was really taken with two plants for my shade garden: Brunnera "Jack Frost" and a trollius, or globe flower. I'm sure many of you have the brunnera, but I had only seen them in gardening catalogues which didn't do them justice. And the trollius was completely new to me--a bright yellow flower that should add some punch among the hostas and ferns.

Our second session was "Trendy Outdoor Containers." Our speaker started by naming eight simple rules for container gardening, the first of which was"It's your garden." I took that to mean "plant what you like," so I am, and I am not going to use any of her ideas for plant combinations. No, seriously, she gave us some good basic information about planting and maintaining containers. I just didn't care for the sample mixtures she showed us.

Combining tropicals like this banana plant (too tall for my camera) with perennials and a few annuals seems to be popular this year. Her other container mixed houseplants with a perennial and a few annuals.

I don't know; I just prefer colorful annuals in containers, and my containers must have at least one trailing plant, or "spiller." Besides some helpful ideas on watering and fertilizing, I did see something I liked and want to try--the "living wreath" below. The speaker gave only a brief overview of how to create them, but it looked fairly easy to make--I hope.

Our last session was entitled "For the Birds," and just between you and me, I stayed for it only because Beckie wanted to stay. But was I glad I did! I can tell the difference between a cardinal and a blue jay, but that's about the extent of my knowledge of bird species. I do have a hummingbird feeder close to my porch, and I've been enjoying watching them the last few summers, but was always secretly disappointed that my hummingbirds were rather drab in color. Now, after this seminar, I know why: those "drab" hummingbirds are the only species of hummers that migrate to our area. I still don't know how to identify many other birds, but now I'm ready to go out and buy a bird identification book and more bird feeders.

Before we left for the day, we checked out some other garden accessories and found these cute topiaries that can be covered with various plants. Some of you might actually like one of these rabbits in your garden...

...or maybe even two of them.

They are available in several different shapes--I thought Beckie might like a squirrel--but at $50--$80 apiece, they are a bit pricey.

I did pass on the topiaries, but couldn't resist buying a few of the primroses I mentioned last week (though last week they were listed as primulas; not sure why) as well as some pansies. And after a week of thinking about it, I just had to buy this planter.

I have no idea where I'll put it yet, but it just reminded me of Italian Renaissance art, which doesn't exactly fit my country setting.

But, hey, it's my garden, right?