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She Will Be Greatly Missed
Shelley F. RyanShelley Ford Ryan passed away Thursday January 16th, 2014 with her family at her side.Shelley was born August 6, 1956 in Carbondale, Illinois to Neil and Jane Ford. She moved to...
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Hakone Grass - A Shade Garden Must Have
I've given many presentations on Ornamental Grasses over the years and always include Japanese forest grass, also called Hakone grass. Hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra) is native to Japan and prefers...
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Double Coneflowers - Double The Fun
Over the past decade, I've sat on the sidelines and watched dozens and dozens of new coneflower (Echinacea sp.) colors and forms introduced annually. It's exciting to see the variability but daunting...
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Basils for Taste and Ornament
Of course basil (Ocimum sp.) has a long culinary history with both edible leaves and flowers. Fresh basil is a wonderful commodity for the home cook and the dried version of this herb pales in...
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A Mossy Domain
Today was the start of our second or third "polar vortices" with very sub-zero wind chill factors. I can't imagine this will be good for some of our plants and critters outside but I'm glad that we at...
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A Bona Fide Butterfly Magnet
I've been doing some recent research on pollination which is quite fascinating. With the second year of our "Pollinator's Paradise" theme occurring in the Nancy Yahr Memorial Children's Garden, I'm...
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Marvelous Meadow Rues
It was nice to see a "warm-up" today with temperatures finally getting in the low 20 degrees F on a nice, sunny day. We had some welcome and appreciated volunteer assistance today with Dr. Gredler...
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The Obelisk For Garden Verticality
Today was quite "warm" (relatively speaking of course!). It was in upper 20 degrees F range although the wind chill was significant too. I had a presentation up in Dane County on Shade Plants that...
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Consider A "Seasonal Dash" Of Lime In The Garden
It's tough to categorize lime as a color in the garden. As a variable (and subjective) color, lime can encompass a wide range of greens and head in to the "chartreusey" range. Regardless, the point of...
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Swiss Chard - The Original Ornamental Edible
My winter blogs have been understandably more reliant on color to get us (me) through these dismal months. It was sunny and frigid cold today but that can describe most of our weather over the past...
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Golden Shrubberies
Today had a cold start but warmed up to 20 degrees F or so. Looks like some possible snow later tonight and this weekend. I'm happy to see that travel conditions up to the WPT Garden Expo (Madison,...
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Thomas Jefferson Collection
We're continuing our research regarding plants that Thomas Jefferson (TJ) grew at Monticello. Janice, Cindy and Patrea are all doing great research for this two year collection that will feature over...
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Expo Ready + Exciting Eryngiums
Big John, Mary, Denise and I converged on the Exhibition Hall of the Alliant Energy Center (Madison, WI) this morning to accomplish early set-up for our booth (see a portion above) for the WPT Garden...
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It's Been A Great Run!
For readers of this blog, please consider this notice of an indefinite hiatus for the Horticulture Blog. With recent restructuring, I'll need to spend more time on volunteer recruitment, retention and...
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Cosmos Galore In 2014
Today was our warmest in over three months with sunny skies and 50 degrees F. Despite the sloppy mess and stubborn ice still hanging in there, it was a beautiful day for activity out in the gardens...
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Garden Contortion
I love contorted forms in the garden, particularly in winter. All plants have some sort of a form, whether it is rounded, mounding, arching, upright, weeping, contorted, etc. Form is a valuable...
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Late Winter Interest At Olbrich
Last night I did a presentation at Olbrich Botanical Gardens (Madison, WI). I presented on how to create a "Pollinator's Paradise" and used our very successful example from the Nancy Yahr Memorial...
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A Prevalence Of Pink
Well, our big Entrance Garden color theme for this year will be pink. Our orange theme seemed very well received and despite how vivid it was, I think we converted those indifferent to that color in...
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Yellow Waxy Bells
It was another beautiful day with warmth (relative!) and sunshine. I'm sure I'll start seeing some early bulbs emerging from the soil next week. We'll continue to work on bringing in elements of the...
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Shamrocks Seem Appropriate!
Happy St. Patrick's Day to all! Above are some "ornamental shamrocks" (Oxalis) that I'll talk about a bit later. Janice shared a St. Patrick's Day joke today which goes, "Two Irish guys walked out...
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