Favorite Nurseries

The winter is when I look through all the nursery catalogs that come in the mail, read gardening books for inspiration, and make my lists of plants I want to purchase. Thus far I haven't ordered many plants by mail (bulbs being a notable exception). I like to visit nurseries in person in order to see the actual plants to make sure I actually like them, pick the healthiest ones, save on shipping costs, and have the opportunity to talk to nursery staff. Here are my favorite nurseries:

Perennials: The Flower Factory
This nursery has reasonable prices and an amazing selection of herbaceous perennials. In fact, that's all they sell. It's a quick drive down Hwy 14 from Madison. Their catalog is very organized (though it has no pictures), as are their plants.

Dwarf conifers and other interesting trees: Stonewall Nursery
This nursery is just past the turnoff to Flower Factory. It's a little hard to find anything or know what they have, but if you're just looking for something interesting, it's a wonderful place to browse and the owner is highly knowledgeable.

Annuals: Klein's
Located at the intersection of East Wash and Stoughton Rd, it's a bit of a hike from my house. But I go there at least once a year to buy many of my annuals. They have a wonderful selection of coleus, lantana, alyssum, snap dragons, and other annuals. They also have a decent selection of common shrubs, with a list posted on their website. I think their perennials are pricey and nothing special.

Bare root trees: Jung Garden Center
I get very excited when Jung's bare root room opens in about late March. I've been known to make an impulse fruit tree purchase here. I make my list from looking at their colorful catalog, though the garden center doesn't always get everything that the catalog lists. If you go and they're out of the tree you wanted, come back at a later date to check again because they do restock to some extent.

Seeds: Jung Garden Center
Go early to make sure they don't sell out of something you really wanted. I also buy a fair number of seeds from Seed Savers Exchange. You can either order from them by mail or buy from nurseries that sell them, such as Bruce Company. They also have a store at their farm in Iowa.

Bulbs: Brent & Becky's
I buy just about all my bulbs from this mail-order catalog. They do have a store and beautiful show gardens, but it's in Virginia so I probably won't ever make it there. You get a discount if you order early (by about July for fall-planted bulbs and by about March for spring-planted) and let them charge your credit card at the time of ordering. Daffodils are their first love and Brent wrote a lovely book about them.

Vegetable seedlings: The Dane County Farmers Market
I start most of our tomato, pepper, and eggplant plants under grow lights in our basement now, but before I did this we bought most of our vegetable seedlings from various farmers market vendors. You can find interesting heirloom varieties there that a nursery like Jung doesn't carry. And you're supporting local farmers.

The Last Flower Standing

Each year I look forward to the very last perennial that blooms in my yard: Chrysanthemum rubellum 'Venus'. It doesn't bloom until October and then stays in bloom until after frost. It starts out light pink and then gets darker as it ages. It responds well to cutting it back by a third in June (though that probably makes it bloom even a little later). It is a slowly-spreading clump that gets about 24" tall.

This year we've really only had one light frost and it's already mid-November. My zinnias are still alive and while the dahlias weren't quite dead, today I finally pulled them because the blooms didn't look great anymore. There's certainly more fall cleanup I can do, but for one thing I have a baby whose naps are of unpredictable length and for another, my compost bin is already overflowing. :)

Fall-Planted Bulbs

Each July or so I order my bulbs from Brent & Becky's to plant in October. Their pictures and descriptions are so enticing and it's so easy that I usually order quite a few. Click, click, click. And then the box arrives in October and I'm overwhelmed by the work of actually planting them. It's such a relief when I finish that task. It's worth it in the spring when green things poke out of the snow. Here's what I planted this year:
Narcissus 'Kiss Me' and 'Tripartite:'

Tulip humilis 'Lilliput' and 'Persian Pearl:' I'm not a huge fan of growing tulips in my yard because first of all, they're attractive to rabbits and there's nothing worse than watching your work and money go to waste when the rabbits mow your bulbs to the ground. And second, the foliage on most tulips is unattractive after the flowers are done and takes a long time to die so I can clean it up. But these tulips are super tiny and I thought they might be worth a shot. The Lilliput bulbs were about the size of a large pea.

Muscari aucheri 'Blue Magic:' I haven't grown grape hyacinth before because I thought the standard purple variety is too common. But this variety is an interesting blue color. Hopefully I don't regret planting these as I hear grape hyacinth can spread like crazy.

Crocus chrysanthus 'Goldilocks,' 'Cream Beauty,' and a bag of mixed varieties: I love growing crocuses because they're the first thing that starts growing in my garden in the spring. But most crocuses are rabbit candy. However, I've had pretty good luck with the chrysanthus species. And I figure that since they're cheap and fairly easy to plant, if I keep adding more each year I'll just overwhelm the rabbits with volume. I already have some of the 'Goldilocks' and I planted this new batch among my dwarf irises ('Pauline' and 'Pixie') because they bloom at the same time. I like how the purple and yellow look together.

Eremurus 'Orange Marmalade': I haven't grown any foxtail lilies before, but I thought they would be a good perennial addition to my tropical bed. The catalog says they get 4-5' tall. I'm not going to plant castor beans next year because the beans are highly poisonous and look like candy, so I put these at the back of the tropical bed to be the backdrop instead. We'll see if it works. I've found heights listed in catalogs to be unreliable.

One note from my spring-planted bulbs this year - all the 'Karma' series dahlias seem to grow 5-6' in my garden, not the 2-3' listed in the Brent & Becky's catalog. They're beautiful flowers and grow well, but are way taller than listed.

June flowers

Here are some of the lilies that are blooming in the garden.

These white lilies were part of a mixed pack I bought years ago. The pack didn't name varieties or species.

The white lily just behind the pink poppies in the front was supposed to be a yellow variety, but it was mislabeled. I had planted it in a bed that didn't have any white in it so I moved it here last fall (turns out it's not in a good spot - it's getting lost). The pink poppies are from heirloom seeds my mother gave me. I had many, many more last year, but I put down fresh mulch this year so most of them weren't able to germinate.

 This little guy was from a plant exchange two years ago. Lilium asiatic 'Cancun'.

 This is lilium asiatic 'Yellow Pixels' from Brent & Becky's, my favorite bulb source.

 I think this is lilium asiatic 'Lollipop.'

There are other lilies that haven't bloomed yet. Here are a few other flowers blooming now.
This is Leucanthemum superbum 'Crazy Daisy' that I grew from seed last year. It's about two feet tall and hasn't flopped yet (unlike other daisies I've had).

 This is a really cool flower called Indian Pink (Spigelia marilandica).

 And finally, this was my attempt to have yellow climbing roses blooming with a purple clematis. Unfortunately, the climbing rose dies back so far each year, that it never really climbs the trellis. You can see one sad little blossom in the lower left of the picture.

Home at last

After two lovely weeks in Prague, Salzburg, and Vienna, we made it home. While it was a good trip, I'm thoroughly glad to be home. Elliot does much better in his own bed and in his own time zone. While we were gone, there were storms and windy days. Unfortunately, one of the windy days took out our apricot tree. We knew it was damaged, first by rabbits and then by insects, but it had actually set fruit this year (i had counted about 36 apricots) and we were going to let it stay as long as it continued to bear fruit. Oh well. Now I have an excuse to get a nectarine tree (in addition to the peach we already planted this spring).

The yard wasn't as much of a jungle as I had feared. I credit the thick layer of hardwood bark mulch we laid down earlier this year. Without that, the weeds would have been much, much worse. Here's the front yard. There are two columnar apple trees (I think they're Sentinel Yellow and Sentinel Scarlet) in this picture; the one behind the false indigo in the upper right corner has set fruit for the first time. The one in the foreground didn't. The grass is prairie dropseed (I think it looks best right now, before it sets seed) and the red flowers are hardy shrub roses. I highly recommend these - they bloom pretty much all summer and have been hard for me for a number of years. They often die back to almost the crown, but always send up need shoots rapidly.

This is Adam's 'sci-fi' garden. I love this elderberry 'Black Lace' that's in full bloom. 

This is my cottage garden. It's still a work in progress, but most things are growing nicely. The pink flower on the right that's almost done blooming is a foxglove and on the trellis is clematis integrefolia. I think it looks great for only having been planted last year.

This is a lupine that's been there (stuck under a sedum) since we bought the house eight years ago. I always knew it was there, but it has never bloomed before. Lupines are supposedly short-lived, so the fact that this one bloomed after so many years is kind of funny.

My mock oranges are in full bloom. 

And finally, this is a wood lily. This is the second year it has bloomed. We bought it as a tiny seedling year ago so the fact that it survived to bloom makes me feel like a somewhat competent gardener. 

And for fun, here's a picture of Elliot at the park on a gorgeous June day. I have to put a burp cloth over the swing since he always tries to eat it.

Eating, palaces, eating, gardens, and eating in Vienna

For some reason the text we entered with this post didn't save. I'll add quick captions now.

There was awesome pastry, cake, and ice cream everywhere. Hard to resist!

While we were in Salzburg, there was a stone carving competition.

This is some more delicious cake and a linzer torte. Since we changed trains in Linz, we had to have some. And of course, cappuccino.

This was the Mirabell Palace garden.

The same garden. Scenes from Sound of Music (the Do Re Mi song) were filmed here.

More Sound of Music scenes.

Elliot eating his first pretzel (the inside fluffy part only). Needless to say, he loved it!

He also made friends with the waitress. She was his girlfriend by the end of dinner.

The Spanish Riding School horses in Vienna.

Schloss (palace) Schonbrunn.

It had enormous gardens.

We ate a lots of seemingly authentic Austrian food restaurants. This one was decorated like a hunting chalet.

I can't remember which church or palace this is at the moment. :)

A statue of Johann Strauss in the city park.

Emily eating the world-famous sacher torte at the Hotel Sacher. This was a definite must-do and part of the reason we chose to go to Vienna in the first place.

The blue Danube.

Dinner at the well-known Cafe Central. There was a live pianist playing show tunes on a Bosendorfer (that's for you, mom!).

The hills are alive! With the sound of Mozart

After leaving Prague, we got on a train to Salzburg. Salzburg is a cute little town in the foothills of the Austrian Alps. It's known for being the birth place of Mozart and the setting for The Sound of Music. The name comes from the city's history as a salt mining town. The city is old and quaint, and the scenery is great. 

We spent our first day exploring the town. We visited the fortress, riding the fastest funicular we've ever ridden.

From there, we hiked down the mountain and stopped at a delightful cliffside restaurant, where Elliot took a grandma nap.

After dinner, we left Elliot in the apartment with grandma and went to a Mozart concert in the marble hall of Mirabell Palace. The string quintet was very talented and the had a piano soloist who was great as well. It was really fun to see a concert in a room that was from the same period that the music was written.

On our second day, we did a walk around the old town, seeing the various buildings and their history. In the afternoon, Emily and Jeanne went on a Sound of Music bike tour.

Meanwhile, Adam found a friend and went to the Augustiner brewery biergarten for some delicious beer, pretzel, sausage and radish.

We still have a couple more days in Salzburg before heading off to Vienna.