This is the Illinois State Flower?

The first spring I moved into my house, the violets were thing that bloomed most prolifically in my yard. I thought they were cute. In fact, I liked them so much I transplanted them to the garden bed around the foundation of my house.

I paid for that mistake for several years afterwards. Once I found out that most people in the neighborhood consider them to be a weed, I spent several seasons trying to get rid of them.

The violets stayed firmly in the weed category until last Memorial Day weekend, when I went to the Madison, WI farmer’s market and found people selling them—at $5 for 3 plants—on Saturday morning. A sign nearby told browsers that they were the Wisconsin state flower. I wondered if I should reconsider my stance on the violets.

It turns out that they are not just the Wisconsin state flower, but the Illinois state flower as well. A group of school children anointed the violet with this honor over 100 years ago, in 1907. Who knew that was possible for a common lawn weed?

My new book, Swink and Wilhelm’s Plants of the Chicago Region, lists about 2 dozen different species of violet known to grow in the Chicago area. Differentiating them is difficult, and they are apparently known to interbreed. According to Illinois Wildflowers, the common blue violet (Viola sororia) is a native perennial plant. Leaves emerge from rhizomes, that bumpy little cluster I see where the leaves meet the roots when I pull violets out of the ground. The plants like to grow in moist soil and partial shade, and they do very well in my lawn. The flowers and young leaves are apparently edible, though bland, and can be added to salads in small amounts (I’m not sure I want to try this!).

Swink and Wilhelm describe the plant as “weedy” and common in abandoned fields, lawns, and degraded prairies. Judging by how much time I spend hoeing violet seedlings out of my vegetable patch, I’m thinking that description of these little plants is an understatement.

The U of I Cooperative Extension Office has posted an amusing poem about the violet, and it sheds some light on how children may have voted it the state flower. They are, after all, kind of cute, and kids do like to pick them. I haven’t gotten a little bouquet of violets as a gift from the kids yet, but I’d be willing to bet it’s coming.

I'll be pulling the violets this year, because if I let them, they wouldn't make room for anything else.

Butterfly and Rain Garden

There's this spot near my driveway that floods every year, and it seemed like a great place to think about eliminating the lawn.

So today, between rainstorms, I installed cream wild indigo, two echinacea cultivars, baptisia ‘Twilite Prarieblues', little bluestem 'Sioux Blue', Sullivant's milkweed (also called Prairie milkweed), purple milkweed, Illinois rose, bottle gentian, cup plant, and prairie shooting star. The plants are tiny, and the garden really doesn't look like much yet, but I'm hoping by July it'll be better. The sources for these plants were the Morton Arboretum's members-only plant sale, a nursery in Saint Charles called The Natural Garden, and a mail-order nursery in Wisconsin that specializes in native plants called Prairie Nursery.

The Sullivant's milkweed (asclepias sullivanti), which likes to be wet, went in the low spot that floods every time there's a rainstorm. I'm hoping that I guessed right on my plant requirements and that it'll do well there--but not so well it becomes a nuisance. An internet search tells me that in Wisconsin, Sullivant’s milkweed is a threatened species but that seems not to be the case in Illinois.

Baptisia ‘Twilite Prairieblues’ is a cultivar from the Chicago Botanic Garden—I bought it at the Morton Arboretum plant sale yesterday. It’s supposed to give me blue-purple flowers edged in yellow, though I don’t know if it’ll bloom this year.

I'm hoping these plants will also tolerate errant baskeballs. Yes, that pole in the photo is a driveway b-ball hoop. If not, I guess I'll be putting something else there next spring. The log mysteriously appeared in the garden during the winter. I'm not really sure where it came from, but it has some interesting lichens growing on it.

It's a good thing I was able to plant at all. My order for the space from Prairie Nursery came Friday, and rained for nearly 24 hours straight this weekend. The garden was really soggy, and there's a lot of water on my and my neighbors' lawns. Finally this afternoon, the rain stopped and I gave it a go so the plants wouldn't sit for a week in my cold frame.

I've been reading Design Your Natural Midwest Garden by Pat Hill, and one statistic in it caught my eye. According to the author, there is no water runoff from areas planted with natives, such as a prairie, and water is generally absorbed into the ground. Turf grass (AKA Kentucky bluegrass) is roughly equivalent to asphalt, with about 75% of water lost as runoff. I thought this was particularly interesting, because flooding is a recurrent problem (and was a campaign issue in the recent election) in Elmhurst.

Buying Shrubs is Easier than Planting Them

I headed out to The Natural Garden, a little early because not many plants were out yet. But early spring is a great time to plant shrubs. I picked up some Illinois wild rose (Rosa setigera), a tall climbing rose with pink flowers, and leadplant (Amorpha canescens), a woody legume that grows 1-3 feet tall.

Normally, I wouldn't drive an hour out of my way for plants, but good-sized native shrubs aren't easy to find. Since I was there, I picked up some Virginia bluebells (Mertensia), in the upper right corner of the photo, and Mayapple (Podophyllum peltatum), the plant on the left, for the shade garden near my kids' Barbie playhouse. The Natural Garden stocks many local ecotypes, but I'm not enough of a purist to forego the convenience of mail order very often.

I got home on Saturday, just before it started raining for 3 days. Today was 60 and sunny, but I still haven't managed to get the shrubs in the ground. I planted the shade perennials on Sunday morning when the rain slowed to a drizzle, but digging large holes for shrubs in the rain didn't sound fun.

The Morton Arboretum's plant sale is this weekend--and that's always very tempting. But I can't buy more plants if I haven't got the ones I already bought in the ground yet. Oh well, guess that means I'm on a deadline now.

Weeds or Chemicals—Not an Easy Choice

I’ve been reading two books about the history and business of the lawn the United States—Ted Steinberg’s American Green: The Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Lawn and F Herbert Bormann et. al.’s Redesigning the American Lawn. Both books talk about the industrialization of lawn care, starting in the mid 1950’s, as part of the quest for a “perfect” weed-free lawn. The perfect lawn is a common target of native plant enthusiasts, such as Neil Diboll, who gives talks on the “State of the Lawn.”

Reading text about the toxic effects of lawn chemicals left me with a fit of guilt over TrueGreen ChemLawn’s visits to my yard. To their credit, they are very good at controlling the ground ivy and garlic mustard that would otherwise invade my perennial beds, but there’s something about those little “keep off the grass” signs that makes me uneasy.

Lawns have, for a long time, been an important fixture in the American landscape. With the expansion of the suburbs in the 1950’s, a weed-free lawn that blended with the neighbors’ became a mark of good citizenship. According to Ted Steinberg, Abe Levitt told Levittown residents in a weekly newsletter that “A fine carpet of green grass stamps the inhabitants as good neighbors, as desirable citizens.” Today, this is still the case in my neighborhood, and I want to be a good neighbor.

Having a nice lawn was not always a measure of good citizenship; in fact, the lawn as we know it was uncommon until relatively recently. Before the push mower was invented in the mid-1800’s, a lawn was strictly a luxury item and status symbol for private estates, kept short by grazing animals or teams of men wielding scythes. The push mower made the lawn accessible to ordinary homeowners, and a beautification campaign in the first few decades of the 1900’s encouraged people to plant lawns around their homes. In this spirit, the suburb of Riverside, IL, was planned as a community of houses surrounded by lawn.

When Levittown was developed in the 1950’s, lawn was planted as an inexpensive form of landscaping that would make the houses more saleable, and homeowners were required to mow their lawns once a week between April and November. The invention and popularization of the mass-produced, gas-powered mower made this possible.

For lawn care companies, such as Scotts and TrueGreen ChemLawn, the modern ideal of the perfect lawn is good for business. To keep the lawn as a deep green, weed-free carpet of grass, lawn care firms now apply or sell to homeowners pre-emergent herbicides, grub prevention treatments, post-emergent herbicides, and generous quantities of fertilizer (Scotts has recently reduced the amount of phosphorus in its fertilizers). Although the EPA just announced it would require testing of pesticides, it for many decades did not require detailed studies to evaluate the health risks of lawn chemicals. In his book, Steinberg describes the lawn as “like a nationwide chemical experiment with the homeowners as guinea pigs.” Lawn care companies typically say their products are safe when used as directed, or instruct people to read and follow the directions.

The lawn’s origins as a status symbol, its importance in suburban landscaping, and its usefulness as an outdoor play space make complicate the issue of whether or how to maintain one. A conventionally maintained lawn is a major user of water and petroleum, and keeping one weed-free requires more chemicals per acre than are used in agriculture. But doing away with a lawn entirely, or growing a weed-infested lawn, marks one as a “bad citizen” in suburbia.

As an aside, some plants now considered to be weeds, particularly clover, co-evolved with grass (fixing nitrogen for it) and were viewed as desirable in lawns as late as the 1950’s. Scotts at one time sold clover seed to homeowners who wanted it in their lawns.

In the end, I decided to try organic lawn care. On the recommendation of a friend, I called Fertilizer King, a Chicago-area company. They promised applications of slow-release organic fertilizer and weed control for a little less than what we've been paying TrueGreen Chemlawn. I was sold on this, and I’m hoping it’ll be good enough to keep the most troublesome weeds at bay. But I may also have to give up having a lawn that looks like a golf course—which is, but the way, one of the most intensively managed types of lawns, heavily watered and treated with chemicals to keep it looking perfect.

Canceling TrueGreen ChemLawn for the summer was surprisingly easy. The very polite and friendly customer service rep on the other end of the phone said she was sorry to be losing our business, made a note of it in the system, and said we should feel free to call them back if we changed our minds.

I’ll probably miss the golf-course look, but it’ll be nice to do without the keep-off-the-grass signs.

I Can’t Resist Free Plants

One of the first gardening books I read was Catriona Tudor Erler’s The Frugal Gardener. My favorite chapter has always been the one called $ave Money on Plants.

I am a plant collector, and I can’t resist a good deal. And one of the best deals around is the free plant, which isn’t found at any garden center.

Last week, when I got an e-mail through my Wild Ones chapter about someone giving away free plants, I excitedly e-mailed her my cell number. I’m still waiting to hear back, but I’m hoping!

When we first moved into our house, my co-worker heard that I was planning a garden for my back yard.

“My husband has a big garden,” she said. She offered us some plants from it. So one evening we drove to River Forest and I acquired Century Plant (Agave Americana), Canadian Wild Ginger (Asarum canadense), Bee Balm (Monarda), and Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea). We spent an hour oohing and aahing over his enormous garden, and he gave me detailed instructions on how to grow every plant he was digging up for me.

During the housing boom, I transferred many plants from “teardowns” in town. One spring, I was out walking my infant daughter when I saw a demolition sale at a house with a well-established garden. While the grandmotherly woman in charge cooed over my baby, I asked if I could pay her to take away some of the plants.

“Oh, take all you want,” she said. “They’re just going to bulldoze it anyways. No charge.”

I walked straight home and loaded my daughter, my favorite spade, and some garbage bags to carry the plants into the car. I drove straight back.

While the baby napped in her car seat next to me, I dug and loaded several hundred dollars’ worth of shrubs and mature perennials into my car. That expedition netted me the Rose of Sharon (Hibiscus syriacus) in the photo, peonies, daylilies, hostas, and other garden standbys I didn’t have at the time. Most of these aren’t natives, and I’m now struggling with the issue of what to do with some of them (because I like them), but that’s another story.

It’s wrong to take plants without asking, but I’ve learned never to be afraid to ask. People say “no” only rarely. Especially in the spring when they are dividing plants, gardeners are happy to give some away. In fact, trading or giving away plants is part of the fun.

So now that it is spring, feel free to ask! If your neighbors are like me, they’ve probably got extras.

Thank Goodness You Don't Have to Be Martha to Enjoy Asparagus

I got my May issue of Martha Stewart Living, which makes for good escapist fantasy every month, and discovered that Martha had written a column on how wonderful fresh, home-grown asparagus can be.

“What I discovered, growing on my own,” she writes, “was that fresh-picked asparagus are so much better than anything I had ever had before.”

In the photo in the magazine, she stands smiling in mud-free rain boots, with an umbrella in one hand and an expensive-looking basket filled with asparagus in the other. There's no word on how she picks asparagus while holding the basket and the umbrella.

I second Martha's opinion on asparagus, without reservations. Unfortunately my kids and husband don’t agree. They claim not to like it, or refuse to try it. I don’t fight them too much on this one, because I don’t mind having the asparagus all to myself.

Martha’s description of how she orders and grows asparagus, however, is probably enough to frighten away anyone who doesn’t have a staff to do the heavy labor or isn’t a glutton for punishment. She says she ordered plants from Mister Spear in California, which does not advertise plants for sale on its Web site and where cut asparagus starts at $29.95 for a 3-pound box. At least the other vendor she lists, Nourse Farms, does sell plants, starting at a cost of about $20 for 25 plants, which is too many for my small one-person asparagus bed.

Other places I’ve seen asparagus plants for sale include the local hardware store, Menards, Home Depot, Stark Brothers, Park Seed, and many of the other mail-order seed companies. Look for all-male varieties, because these are more productive.

Like most “how-to’s” in Martha Stewart Living, the planting instructions can be greatly simplified. I recommend the advice of the Ohio State University Cooperative Extension Service or the University of Minnesota Extension Service. Both offer guidance that is more detailed and actually doable for people without a staff of gardeners. Instead of urging readers to dig trenches 18 inches deep and 12 inches wide, and then mound soil 5 inches, as Martha does, the academics suggest digging the furrow no deeper than 5 to 8 inches, which is obviously far easier. Both recommend chemical fertilizers or well-rotted organic matter. I add a bag of mushroom compost, from my local nursery, to the asparagus bed every year.

Unfortunately, both Martha and the Big 10 horticulturalists are correct in that asparagus is a long-term investment; you won’t get a big crop until the third year.

Martha urges her readers to blanch asparagus in a sauté pan, which is interesting advice I might try, or to steam it in an asparagus pot, which is bulky and costs $45.00 on Amazon. I often cook my asparagus in the microwave by laying it in a large flat casserole, adding a little water, and covering with plastic wrap. Oven roasting is a technique best left for inferior supermarket asparagus.

Just for fun, I calculated the cost of Martha’s asparagus, artichoke, and fava bean salad based on online sources and using her recommendations when possible. I “purchased” the smallest container required to make the recipe. Since Martha and I agree that good, fresh asparagus does not come from the grocery store, I splurged on that.

4 lemons ( $3.56, Peapod)
3 artichokes ($4.50, Peapod)
whole milk ($1.99, Peapod)
2 c. white wine ($11.99 for Nobilo Sauvignon Blanc, Peapod)
green asparagus ($29.95, Mr. Spear)
white asparagus ($39.95, Earthy Delights)
fava beans ($7.95, Cybercucina, I could only find dried online)
ricotta salata ($3.99, igourmet.com )
extra virgin olive oil ($4.99, Peapod)
buttermilk ($1.09, Peapod)
scallions ($0.89, Peapod)
salt and pepper (You have this at home, right?)

Total cost: $110.85 for 8 servings

If you don’t subscribe, you can pick up your own copy of Martha Stewart Living at the grocery store to try this recipe at home. If white asparagus from Earthy Delights is too much for your budget, you can try blanching your own at home. Martha provides instructions.

Planting grapes and raspberries

It's an early closing today at the office, because of Good Friday, and all I can think about is getting home to plant the bare-root grapevine and raspberry brambles soaking in a bucket of water in my laundry room. They came a couple of days ago in the mail, and I've been keeping them damp and cool in my attic since then. But it's really time to get them in the ground, so I started soaking them in a bucket to rehydrate them last night.

It seems that every time I go on the Elmhurst Garden Walk I see that at least one homeowner has a little patch of rasberries, one of the easiest fruits to grow at home. Because raspberries are so expensive at the store, and because my three bare-root plants cost me about $10.00 (plus shipping) and will bear for years, raspberries are a great value. They're a fantastic "starter fruit."

Pre-construction, I had my own little patch of raspberries in the backyard, and they were great. But the bulldozers left me with just a single plant, just enough to make me want more.

When we first moved into the house, I planted Concord grapes from some cuttings given to me by a friend. Over the last 10 years, I've gotten bushels of grapes. Unfortunately, Concord grapes have seeds, and they are purple, so my kids won't eat them. Thus, this year's grape (Marquis) is a cold-hardy green seedless variety that the kids will eat.

The Concord grapes make great jelly, and one year I made about 20 pints of grape jelly from the one plant in my backyard. But canning isn't a project I can, or want to, take on every year.

Of course the recession has spurred a new interest in frugality and growing your own food. There's even a vegetable garden on the White House Lawn this year. Homegrown fruit, which is often overlooked, is worthy of space in the garden. I'm already anticipating the first taste of those homegrown grapes or raspberries, still warm from the sun, though it may not come until next summer.

Tomatoes I Have Grown From Seeds

Starting tomatoes from seed is one of my favorite early spring projects. It’s inexpensive, easy, and a reminder during April snowstorms that summer really is coming. Part of the fun of starting tomatoes from seed is trying new varieties. It's also fun to give away "extra" plants to my coworkers or neighbors, so I always start too many.

Here’s a brief run-down of some I've tried. Most have an indeterminate growth habit, which means they need tomato cages or staking.

Italian plum tomatoes are a fixture in the garden because they are great for cooking, sauces, and freezing. I don’t have time to bother with canning, so I freeze my surplus tomatoes whole in zippered plastic bags. When I need some for soup or chili, I defrost them in the microwave, and hit the bag with a rolling pin a few times. Voila! I have crushed tomatoes.

When I first grew Roma 10 years ago, I didn’t know I could find them at the garden center. This is a fleshy, mild-flavored Italian-type plum tomato. They are not juicy. I still grow these, but I now buy the plants at my local nursery. Yields are almost always high, and I have had no disease problems. According to Wikipedia, this is the type of plum tomato usually found in supermarkets. However, home-grown tomatoes are much more flavorful than those from the store.

Two years ago, I tried Health Kick. This is one of the high-lycophene tomatoes, which supporters tout as having cancer-fighting properties. While I’m skeptical of health claims for food, Health Kick had a stronger, richer flavor than Roma. Fruits were typical plum tomatoes, about 3 to 5 inches long and more oval than round. Health Kick was available at some garden centers last year. My yields were good, though perhaps slightly lower than for Roma.

My kids love to eat small cherry or grape tomatoes straight off the vine, and I usually include these. If I have room, I choose a red and a yellow variety.

I first started growing Juliet many years ago and grew it from seed although it’s now possible to buy plants at some garden centers. Juliet was quite productive. Fruits look like small Italian plum tomatoes. They are larger than the grape tomatoes at the grocery store, ranging in size from one inch to three inches long.

Sweet Million, a variation on the popular Sweet 100, produces very small (1 inch or less) round fruits on each plant. Fruits are sweet, with a strong, rich, tomato flavor. It is worth the effort to grow from seed, and my one of my kids’ favorite tomatoes. Another kid-pleasing sweet cherry tomato is Sugary. Fruits are oval, with pointed ends.

Yellow tomatoes are often less sweet and more acidic than the sweet red cherry tomatoes. They also have a milder tomato flavor; some Internet reviewers describe them as "bland." Yellow Pear contrasts nicely with red cherry tomatoes in a salad. Fruits are broader at the blossom end than at the stem end. Ildi, another yellow tomato, produced lots of oval fruits in my garden.

Many people love Brandywine for its strong tomato flavor. However, I found that yields were lower in my garden than for other varieties. One year, I got only two or three tomatoes on a plant. But yes, they did taste fantastic.

This year, I started Sugary, Ildi, Yellow Pear, and a new variety, Peron Sprayless.