There’s a lot of repetition here and I apologize if it’s annoying. There are probably more photos of iris than you care to look at, but it was a spectacular iris year here and I had trouble whittling it down!

Young curly willow branches have turned sumptuous shades of gold, copper and merlot following several hard freezes and evening temps in the single digits. The mesh fence in the background is to protect them from deer, who would eat them to the ground if they could get in more easily. Deer tracks and droppings have been sighted at the perimeter of the fence. A hunting rifle may soon be added to my Christmas list.

Pictured below are some freshly harvested curly willow bouquets, which look great in a large planter surrounded by evergreen branches. They also make elegant centerpieces when placed in clear glass vases. You can even make a branch “tree” to hang small ornaments from. We will be selling our branch bouquets this Saturday, Dec. 10 at the Iowa City Holiday Farmers Market at Grant Wood Elementary School in Iowa City (Iowa) from 8 am to 1 pm.  Stop by to see some examples of how you can decorate using these lovely branches. If you can’t make it, you may also order branches via email for pickup in Cedar Rapids on Dec. 17. Email for pricing if interested.

Long panoramic views are the shots I always aim for and the end product always disappoints. I have no photography skills other than trying, at times unsuccessfully, to hold still when I snap. The wonderful photos on this site are all taken by Alan.
Our “Crazy” and “Front” beds are at their peak. When these blooms fade, there’s not much to look forward to. I like this unplanned grouping of Purple Cone Flower, Joe Pye Weed, Hopi Dye Amaranth, Monarda and Red Smoke Tree. You may notice the orange day lily on the right. Last year I decided to throw a few ditch lilies into this mix and I do not regret it. They are orange, a great color, and they bloom for a long time. I think they are underappreciated plants. And misused. I think they look best integrated into other plantings.

Notice the euphorbia creeping everywhere. This is a great but invasive plant. I like the contrasting effect of the blue foliage and the feathery texture, but I may have to intervene and rip some of it out to give other plants a chance.

Nothing in the Crazy Bed is planned. Plants are hastily thrown in wherever there is space. This often results in noticing later on that small trees or shrubs are planted 2 feet apart. This simply means than one will have to be removed at some point in the future. Nature often times takes care of these problems for me!
One important thing I’ve learned this year is to accept the presence of certain weeds and invasive grasses. The Crazy Bed is full of patches quack grass- the worst possible offender. At the beginning of the season I was hyperventilating over this, thinking that I may need to smother the entire bed and start over. Efforts were made to dig out the worst spots. It is still there and will always be there, but thankfully the interesting plants predominate. And that’s good enough.

When we moved here there was a lone shrub planted in the middle of our circular drive. As we busied ourselves with more pressing projects, by midsummer we had a circle of weeds up to our necks. One ambitious day, the weeds were cleared and a tree and a few perennials were planted. I decided to limit the colors in this bed to shades of pink, orange, and burgundy. I do not do that anywhere else, only limiting my use of golden yellow as a general rule. This bed is at its best in midsummer, when purple coneflowers and day lilies are blooming. Sadly it is not very interesting in other seasons.

Peach day lilies (I don’t know the name of many of our day lilies- can’t keep track of that kind of stuff), purple coneflower, drumstick allium, common milkweed that showed up on its own.

Same plants as above along with barely discernible Terra Cotta Yarrow and Blackberry Lily. The tree is a Profusion Crabapple.

The coneflower have increased nicely over the last few years. I suppose I should do a little thinning in Fall or Spring.

Violent wind/thunder storms came through Tama and surrounding counties early Monday morning while we were sleeping. Winds were so strong we could feel the house shake. We are still without power and water and are sad to report that we lost about 15 trees. Trees we planted ourselves in ’07 and ’08, many of which were showing such potential.  Those who have visited know that our house and gardens are located in a mostly treeless area, except for the large Ash tree next to the house. On a side note, we recently learned that this tree was given as a gift to Emil Seidel (former owner of our house) by one of his daughters. We are very happy this tree was not harmed as it provides wonderful shade.
The loss of so many young trees is a big one, both for the shade they were on their way to making and because I now love trees so much, perhaps even more than flowers. I have recently come to the conclusion that watching a tree grow over a 4 year span is more rewarding than watching what a perennial does in that time.
Pictured are but a few of our losses.

Jonathan Apple. Not going to overdramatize this loss. This tree was already weakened by borers and scab. All future apple trees will have good disease resistance.

We classify this one as our biggest loss. This young redbud was full and beautifully shaped. And used daily by birds.

Second biggest loss- the other beautiful redbud. For a slow growing tree, they have not proven to be very strong around here.

Ornamental pear. Not such a big loss now that I am becoming a tree snob. Didn’t really like its columnar shape. Had gorgeous fall color though, and as I stated above any tree around here will be missed.

Another huge loss is the Toka plum we posted photos of this Spring. This was one of the very first trees we planted when we arrived in ’07. The fruit, tasted for the first time last year, was out of this world and the Spring blossoms were intoxicating.

This poor honey locust wins the “fastest grower” prize. Curly willow is the absolute fastest, but won’t be included here since all ours emerged unscathed. Yep, I plan to plant many more curly willow as it has proven to be fast growing and tough.

And finally, the huge old red oak on our hillside sustained major limb damage. And a huge old hickory (not pictured) in this vicinity went down

In 2009 I visited The Oregon Garden in Silverton, OR. What I saw there made me want to rush home and do a large scale planting in that style. The Oregon Garden designers use mainly trees, shrubs and ground covers that look good all season, and very few ephemeral flowers- and they are obviously geniuses. If you ever find yourself in Oregon, Silverton is not a far drive from Portland and in my opinion, the gardens are much more interesting than anything else you’ll find in the area. Plus it is also a resort- a sort of Disneyland for people like me. Pictured below is my Oregon Garden-inspired planting. There are a few blooms here and there, but it is more about the contrast between high and low, leaf shape and color, and texture. It is proving to be much lower maintenance than our other perennial beds.

A new plant combination we have enjoyed this year: Wild Lupine, Mourning Widow Geranium and Perennial Bachelor Buttons.

Mourning Widow also looks good with Spiderwort.

Spiderwort looks fantastic this year. There was a cat fight in the clump pictured below, and it fared ok- better than one of the cats. We are learning that male cats are still territorial, even after being neutered. Peaches, our indoor/outdoor cat, and Doppel, our outdoor cat, spend hours each day staring each other down. We find it’s best to break it up before they get too close. Poor Dops usually loses.

Here’s a close-up of that pink oriental poppy pictured above. We grew this from seed in ’08 and are thrilled that it is still with us. Both pink and red oriental poppies are difficult to grow in Iowa clay- pink being more difficult. They must be started from seed if you want them to come back- in our growing conditions anyway.

This year the irises were sublime. Too bad we don’t have a wide angle lens to capture the mass effect. Here are a few worth commenting on.

My all time favorite iris. A random purchase at the Green Scenes Annual Plant Sale in Waterloo in ’08. Was not blooming when I bought it. Don’t know it’s name and don’t care. What a color!

Peach iris. I do not know the names of any of the iris I grow. Most are pass along plants.

The 2-toned iris in the foreground came out of a ditch up the road.

This is as much variety as I could capture with our regular lens.

This one starts out black and turns deep purple at the end of its bloom cycle.

I would rather be posting about what’s blooming around here right now instead of about …ahem…… snakes. But in light of today’s events, this topic definitely warrants a post. Regular readers of this blog may know that I am very afraid of snakes. Before moving to the country I was afraid of all snakes, even garter snakes (which were thick on our tiny city lot in Mt. Vernon). Over the 4 years out here in the Bohemian Alps, I have gradually become desensitized to the “smaller” garter snakes. I still don’t care for them, and some aren’t exactly small, but I now save my anxiety for the longer and thicker in diameter bull snakes. Bull snakes sightings have been rare in previous years. And I saw two last week! up until today, that is (and by the way, I have lost many hours of sleep over this and can no longer enjoy myself entirely in the garden). The first and scariest sighting occurred in our green shed (which I now would like to torch!) I went in the shed and heard a buzzing sound. I happened to look up and saw a bull snake in the rafters, above my head! To be fair, bull snakes are not poisonous and generally will not strike unless provoked. They simulate the rattlesnake’s rattling sound when they are afraid. Alan came to the rescue and relocated the snake. I had a feeling it would be back since mice are plentiful in this shed.
Today my helpers, Cat and Joe, removed not one, but FOUR! bull snakes from this shed while I took pictures from a safe distance away. The snakes were caught in some mesh deer fencing that I chucked into the shed recently. Their heads and bodies were stuck in the mesh to the point where they could not free themselves, or even open their mouths in at least one case. One was dead, two were quite weak and the fourth had probably just gotten trapped and was still rather feisty. Despite my intense fear for these creatures, I wish them no harm and felt twinges of guilt for having inadvertently trapped them.
I could not have employed 2 better people for dealing with this situation. Cat has 2 pet snakes and Joe has rural roots, and both were very comfortable handling them, as you can see in the photos below. The snakes had to be cut out of the mesh. One of the snakes Cat freed had to have the mesh carefully cut from his around its head in several places. The freed snakes were finally transferred to a pillow case (now on the burn pile), which was tied shut and placed into the back my old Chevy pickup. The snakes were then driven 10 miles away and released. Apparently they cannot smell their way back if relocated 10 miles away. I hope this information is correct! If it isn’t, it will probably take them a while to get back here.

Each snake managed to get itself super entangled in the mesh.

Who knew Cat was such a BAMF? She is my new hero.

There are more action shots featuring Cat, but Joe handled them just as much. Plus he decapitated the dead snake with a box cutter because there was mesh around its head. The mesh could be fatal to another animal if it ate the head. Notice, Jake is not helping and doesn’t even seem the slightest bit interested.

Thanks Cat and Joe!

It may be cold and dreary around here, but our Leonard Messel magnolia is blooming away as if temps were in the 50s. Despite numerous worries, the blossoms seem to be holding up alright in the rain, strong country winds and low temps. I like magnolias so much that I planted 8 different varieties last year, which means that there are now a total of 11. In 10 years we should have quite a spring show.

Though Magnolia x Loebneri ‘Leonard Messel’ looks a lot like the mature and often wonderfully gnarled magnolias you see blooming in Cedar Rapids, IA in April, it is a different cultivar altogether. These older trees, Magnolia x soulangeana, are rarely seen for sale in nurseries anymore. My guess is this is because they are more slow growing than the ones widely available nowadays like Leonard or Jane (Magnolia liliflora ‘Nigra’ x M. stellata ‘Rosea”) and it takes them 8 to 9 years to bloom! Jane is the first magnolia I bought and she bloomed a year after I planted her when only 2 feet tall. She has been reliably packed with blooms each spring ever since. The furry coats are just beginning to fall off her buds. She’ll probably start blooming by the weekend.