Big Projects Complete

Hello all,
We've had an exciting couple of weeks at the nursery in St Charles. Many projects have been completed in the landscape offering all sorts of new plants to look at next year! Below you'll see pictures of some of the new plantings. I also wanted to apologize on behalf of our grounds crew for teasing the rain last week. I did not anticipate the amount of rain that we received from our friend Ike. I have learned my lesson, and will go back to washing my truck when I want it to rain. The sprinklers worked too well!

The first garden to show you is the new Heuchera garden. The old one was running out of space, and I got a little tired of bumping my head on the limbs of the crabapple they were under. The first installment included 14 varieties, with space to add more. These are items that will either be new in 2009 for us, or they are in the trial stage. It ranges from 'Saturn' and 'Neptune' to 'Southern Comfort'

This garden is definitely in its' infancy. This garden is our American Beauties Native Plants(TM) garden. Here, only plants in the ABNP program are installed. This garden is located directly in front of our wholesale office, and used to be inhabited by Polygonum reynoutria. Although, I'm nervous about how this garden is going to look, I am comforted by the thought that it couldn't look worse than Polygonum!

Before: For years the garden known as Trial North was an afterthought. Little work was done in this area, so tours rarely were taken to this area. The Karl Foerster was there for years, as well as a large glob of mixed Sedums. They are all gone now, as well as many roses, and were replaced with what you see below!

After: Sedum has been replaced by a hedge of Corylus americana, our native Hazelnut! I know it's a little different from groundcover sedum, but it should look great in a couple of years! On the other side, where the Calamagrostis was removed, we've planted a hedge of Hydrangea paniculata 'Limelight'. This is in full bloom right now, and should be quite a car stopper in years to come.

Heucheras were not the only varieties planted on perennial island the past two weeks! All in all, we installed 84 varieties of perennials and the shrubs are yet to come. This fall we will install our new shrub garden at the west end of the perennial island. Lots of new and exciting shrubs will be planted there. I hope you come see next spring!


Another area that was redone was on the patio around the building. This was an area untouched since Brenda McMahon left us years ago. Now it is fully planted with Midwest Solutions and a couple interesting shrubs. Among the combinations is a swathe of Solidago Little Lemon and Sporobolus Tara.



Well, hopefully after a weekend of rain, we can enjoy a couple days of nice sunlight before fall hits us hard. I can see plants changing everywhere and it seems a bit early, but with the weather that we've had, we should expect it. I appreciate your time reading, and until next time, I hope you have a great day!