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June 2, 2022

Kathleen Carr

What’s new in 2022

New, for many, represents exciting, different, a chance to try again. A new haircut just waiting to be admired, a new page in the calendar ready to be filled in or even simply a bright new day just waiting to be enjoyed. 

Each year brings a whole new set of plants that are introduced to gardeners across the United States. Hybridizers devote years and indeed sometimes their entire lives developing new plants.

Home harvest: saving some green by farming your own food

A recent trip to the grocery store left me feeling completely unfulfilled and concerned about the future. What should have been a 15-minute dash into the store to get a few essentials (i.e. milk, eggs, cereal, salad and honey) lead me to recalibrate my life choices. I noticed the eggs were more expensive than usual, but put them into the cart anyway. I drew the line, though, at purchasing a $7 jar of honey. I wasn’t trying to purchase Manuka honey or even honey comb. I simply wanted a small jar of clover honey to enjoy on toast the next morning for breakfast. While staring at the yellow price sticker on the shelf, I simultaneously realized while I could afford to spend that much on honey, I certainly wasn’t going to.

‘Scape plan: How to create a sustainable environment

Our time is finite. We have absolutely no control over the amount of time in each hour, day, week, month or year. What we can control is how we spend that time. As the author of this column and a landscape professional I can honestly tell you the less time I spend working in my yard the better. I would rather spend time enjoying my yard rather than working in it. Sustainable landscaping is a pathway towards less work and more joy.

Spring lawn-care tips

Joy is found in many places. Making a child smile, cleaning a home, and guessing the Wordle word on the third try all make my day a bit brighter. For many, the sense of satisfaction and joy that follows having a lush green lawn is one of nature’s great pleasures. Achieving a healthy lawn is certainly not easy and can require almost year-round care. Today’s column will address items that can and should be done now to minimize problems in your yard and maximize your chance of success at achieving a picture-perfect lawn this year.

Spring-cleanup gardening tips

Pre-covid, my husband and I regularly hosted parties celebrating holidays, birthdays, and graduations. Friends and family gathered for lively conversation, good food, and lots of laughter. After everyone would head home, my husband and I began the process of cleaning up. Although now I regularly go to sleep with a few dishes in the sink, the idea of waking up and spending several hours cleaning motivated me to just get it done. Sleeping in the next day was the reward.

Heading off to hibernation

Experiencing the seasons is what many homeowners enjoy about living in Northern Illinois. We have very distinctive time periods, and each is filled with equal parts beauty and corresponding chores. While we are winding down our gardening chores, we know that snow and ice will bring their own challenges. There is some comfort in knowing that nature is ever-evolving while it surrounds us with its beauty. As Arthur Rubinstein so perfectly stated, “The seasons are what a symphony ought to be: four perfect movements in harmony with each other.”

Home is where the plants are

The use term ‘Plant Parenting’ has become prevalent over the past five years. It was coined by millennials to describe the caring for houseplants. Although I have tried to adopt it, I really do not like the term. Until a Boston Fern needs me to wake it up repeatedly, make breakfast for it, find its favorite shirt, sign a field trip form, finish packing its backpack, yell at the top of my lungs that the school bus is coming, and cheerfully smile and wave goodbye all before 7:45 a.m., I am not its parent.

Fall-ing in love with an autumn garden routine

Each of the past five mornings, I have managed to convince myself that there is enough toothpaste in the tube that justifies keeping it for one more day. I vacillate; I should throw this out? No, I should keep it. I am literally trying to squeeze the last little useable bit out of this common household item. It seems that as we transition from one season to the next, there is also the desire to get the most out of each season. We often want fall to last as long as possible before the cold harsh reality of winter sets in.

The special treatment: what each plant needs in the upcoming season

Like all moms, I know most of my children’s likes and dislikes very well. Their food preferences though are something that I could never remember. Having three children in three years and three months, many nights I considered it an accomplishment if I simply put something that resembled dinner on the table, much less designed a menu that accommodated their requests. If my daughter felt the need to pick each and every diced tomato out of a casserole, as the saying goes, ‘that’s on her.’ Neither of us was offended and over time they all grew up into healthy adults.  

Fall-ing in love with this season’s favorites

My ‘Grown and Flown’ kids recently all descended on our home at the same time. It was 24 hours of pure bliss! Laughter could be heard echoing through the halls. Friendly bantering between the kids and joking amongst us all was good for our souls. Mary, my daughter, is convinced that her younger brother is our favorite child. While I will freely admit to buying way too many Pokémon cards for him, I don’t think that earns him the status of ‘Favorite Child.’ Although I honestly don’t have a favorite, defending that position is a losing battle. 

Backyard trends of 2021

Early in the pandemic my husband starting cutting our son, Christopher’s hair. It started out of necessity and grew into something that they both enjoyed. As Christopher was preparing to go back for his junior year in college, he decided that he wanted to try something different and go to a hair salon. He read multiple reviews and booked an appointment online with a master stylist. His new trendy look gave him the confidence needed to enjoy in person, on campus classes for the first time in 18 months.

The results are in, gardening is good for you

Saturday night, my husband and I enjoyed a rare and delightful night out at a neighbor’s home. Laughter filled the air while we caught up on each other’s lives. During the evening I noticed a folded newspaper on the coffee table in their living room. I was filled with nostalgia. Reading a newspaper is one of my true pleasures in life.

How to sow the seeds of change

My husband, Chris and I are contemplating downsizing. To him, a smaller house means less maintenance. For me, our home is like a favorite pair of jeans that is now two sizes too big. What was once occupied by our children and their friends, now consists of closed doors and empty hallways. Our children’s birthday parties were precisely timed fun filled parties that routinely included 30 elementary school children. Those were the days. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, they are past and it may be time to move on.

Pesticide precautions

In late May my husband, Chris, spent hours potting up 15 tomatoes in 18” wide containers. He set them around the edge of our patio and began to dutifully care for the plants. By early June, I noticed that the leaves on our tomatoes looked different. Upon further inspection, I noticed that the plants were growing in a curly cue fashion and the leaves were disfigured. Unfortunately, I had seen this before and suspected that the plants were suffering from herbicide drift.

When in drought

There is a park just a few miles north of Huntley that my children and I used to go to frequently when they were younger. Its proximity close to the south branch of the Kishwaukee River makes it prone to flooding. We affectionately refer to it simply as Flooded Park. In previous years, more often than not the entire park would be flooded.

Fragrant flowers have healing powers

Recently, Chris’ mom stayed with us for a few weeks. We each did our own thing during the day. She spent time resting while recovering from a medical procedure and Chris and I worked. Our evenings were filled with listening to wonderful stories about her childhood, intense scrabble games and fun rummy card matches. It was truly a joy to have her in our home.

Take a trip to the pleasure garden

Road trips offer the excitement of fun times both at the destination but also during the trip itself. Fancy a road trip out east? Consider heading to Chanticleer Garden, our nation’s premier Pleasure Garden.

Q&A with McHenry County Conservation District

The McHenry County Conservation District is celebrating its 50th year in existence. Wendy Kummerer, the director of marketing and education answers a few questions for this week’s column.

Go ahead, get a little daffy with your spring garden

Last night during dinner I excitedly told my husband about an event that I had recently learned about. I thought it would be something fun for us to do together. He looked at me quizzically “What did you say?” I replied “There is a Tulip festival in Spring Grove! We should go on Sunday, it sounds so fun!” Dejectedly he replied “Oh, I thought you said Tool Festival, something I might enjoy.”

Petscaping your garden

A member of our family is struggling. Our ever faithful, tail wagging, four-legged protector is struggling. At fourteen years of age, she regularly spills her food dish, getting up the stairs is a struggle, and playing catch is something she can only dream of these days.

Minimizing garden chores

Christopher, our college aged son, came home in mid December for his winter break. We greeted him with smiles, hugs and a list of projects that we needed his help with.

Second-half-of-life gardener

The one and only good thing about being empty nesters is that Chris and I have a bit more room in our home. Mary, our daughter, recently moved to the State of Washington. Either we could let her room remain empty so that the echo of our sighs and tears would be that much louder or we could gather the paint and drop cloths and get busy.

Picking through the branches of my family tree

As the drifts of snow in Northern Illinois reach several feet and the temperatures consistently have a minus in front of them, I have been spending my evenings on Glassilaun Beach in Ireland. The pure white sand, clear blue water, and mountains in the backdrop make for the perfect place to escape. Why did my great grandmother leave the place that every fiber in my being longs to go to?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

Roses often get a bad rap. Although it really isn’t in my nature to convince people to like certain plants, please hear me out.  It is early November and as I drive around your community during the day and walk around my own during the evening, I see hundreds of beautiful blooms of roses still standing proud.   Roses have been flowering since June and are continue to sprinkle our landscape with gorgeous fuchsia, yellow and peach flowers.

Green screen: How YouTube videos can help with your garden

Recently, I needed to record my voice using my computer. Since I had absolutely no idea how to accomplish this, I called my son, Christopher. I explained that this was for an important project and asked if he could please send me an email with step by step instructions. The email I received was exactly 4 words long. ‘Download this. Watch this.”

Breathe easy with indoor plants (and other health benefits)

Mary, my daughter, bravely got on a plane Sunday afternoon, in the middle of a pandemic, and flew 2000 miles to Seattle. As a recent college graduate, she will be starting her new life in the Pacific Northwest. While texts that include pictures of her smiling face in front of Meredith Grey’s house (We are HUGE Grey’s Anatomy fans!) have helped to ease my mind, as quite a few of you know, the burden of missing a child can be tough.

Falling in love with florals this season

The season of fall is synonymous with a gorgeous array of various shades of red on a myriad of shrubs and trees. The sight of stately trees in all of their glory at the end of a beautiful summer is what many of us look forward to all year. Often overlooked though are the dozens of perennial flowers that offer up their beautiful blooms as we approach months of cold, ice and snow. It seems as if for these flowers it is their final performance of the season. It’s a performance you don’t want to miss.

Brown grass?

My daughter, Mary, came over on Sunday. Due to social distancing we were hosting her and her boyfriend, Stephen, on our deck. As she was sitting down, she looked into our backyard and asked “What happened to the lawn?” It looked like we had purposefully tried to create ugly brown stripes and circles in our lawn by spraying herbicide.

It wasn’t us, but a climatological condition that is causing the lawn to go dormant. The lack of rain had resulted in dry brown grass in stripes over our septic lines and a big brown circle over our septic tank.

Going green can be oh so colorful

Colors often evoke emotion. I always smile when I see a yellow flower. They remind me of the big yellow happy faces that were seemed so prevalent during my childhood in the 70s. Flowers also have the ability to evoke a variety of emotions. One look at a Queen Anne’s lace flower immediately brings me back to my grandmother’s farm in Union. It was a very peaceful place. Colorful flowers can be a powerful combination.