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!

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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!

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.