Garden Peonies

One of my favorite flowers has bloomed at the perfect time. One. Being that I'm actually home to witness it. And two. The stormy weather has passed and they are intact.

So what do I do to them, cut them down of course. They smell too heavenly to pass up. Even with the ants and spiders that come as a package deal.

I love my perennials, I take the plunge one year and than every year after I have a bounty of flowers. I missed my lilly of the valley blooming this year but the leaves are still there and I can always put those in a vase for some life. Can't go wrong with free flowers.

Naples Florida

One of the days we decided to take a day trip to Naples Florida, its kinda like Naples Italy. In the architecture, that is. Naples is so different from Sanibel, it's fancier first of all. On Sanibel no one dresses up hardly anyone wears makeup, they are a shorts and flip-flops culture. Very laid back. Not saying that Naples isn't laid back. Naples is a little more upper crust, with the boutiques lining 5th ave and the mercedes filling the bulk of the restaurant valets. You get what I mean.

Don't get me wrong, its beautiful and picturesque, with a mix of residential and commercial blending in flawlessly among the flowering trees and palms dotting the avenue. Its more of a destination where people go to be seen instead of throwing on a pair of cutoffs and flip-flops and riding to the beach on your bike.

We walked around to a couple of galleries and boutiques but most everything that I liked was way more than I would ever spend on it.

The restaurants though had great deals on a early bird dinner/lunch, anytime before 6 you can get TWO meals AND a bottle of wine for $20.00 That's Cheap!

We didn't partake of that menu but we did have the best sushi lunch I have probably had EVER!

Sushi Thai Too is on the corner of 5th Ave and if your ever in the area and like sushi, don't pass this place up. We ordered a sushi/sashimi boat with a couple of add-ons and the pieces of sashimi were super thick and duper fresh. I swear they had to be at least a .5" thick. It was the best lunch, everyone came away so satisfied and full that I we skipped dinner that night. 

Yeah go on, I'll wait while you wipe your drool. 

We left Naples pretty late to try and hit up Marco Island, but we weren't able to walk around like we did in Naples. Everything is private property so if your not staying on Marco Island, there really isn't any point in going. Granted the sand on Marco Island is probably the finest sand I have ever felt, it really felt like I was standing in a bag of flour. We were tired and glad to be going back to Sanibel. 

EXCEPT... we had to make a detour and find a Checkers. My sister made us drive around and try and find a Checkers burger joint, but to no avail, we did't find the one that google maps said was there. I get why she was craving it, they used to be all over Chicago but were slowly closed off, probably that they only had drive through or outside seating, and in Chicago we kinda need the indoor concept. You know we're not called the windy city for nothin'. We were all compensated with a Five Guys Burger. Not Checkers but they'll do.

Blooming Trees and bumblebees

I promised I would post something about the Botanic gardens and not just the antique show that happened  week ago, these are a few from the gardens. If you live in the area, it truly is a nice place to visit.

The japanese gardens are probably my favorite, they have little pagodas and mugo pines and a japanese style bridge along the paths.

These trees I named the crew cut trees but they are amazing, there is a path that is lined on both sides with theses trees and looking down the path it looks really cool. The photos you are able to take here are amazing the light is filtered and its full of color. Just fantastic.

There are also the inside gardens as I call them, but they are actually green houses with a different type of environment in each house. This one was gardenias and palms and venus flytraps, among others.

The palm trees in the green house.

This is the little bumblebee that came with us, matching his yellow shoes.

I hope you find my pics interesting enough to get you to go, if your ever in the Chicago area. It really is a great way to spend the day.

Imagine this!!!!!

Well that's one way of me trying to sell this idea to my husband. I know he would never go for it but its fun to think what we can get done. Since I don't see ourselves living in this house much longer, not that I don't love it but we need more space, but I don't want to do too much to the landscaping.

Yeah I'm sure the pergola is not gonna fly, its way too much to spend on a decorative object but I thought hey why the hell not, if I'm photoshopping some landscaping why not go all the way.

So you see we are going to get our siding done, we dont have much since the house is all brick its just that triangle up in front and the back, which you cant see from this angle, of the house which is the negative space of the triangle. Oh and the garage, which isnt much we are also planning on doing the soffits and fascia and gutter and I want to go a dark grey but Im not sure if we can do the same thing for the gutters and everything or if that needs to be special ordered. 

But on to the landscaping. We are replacing the cherry tree with a nishiro japanese willow and behind it will be pink and yellow scotch brooms that grow pretty fast. And then I want to add some sort of grass that is a perennial, like maybe pampas or some other ornamental grass to give it some height. Also there will be some mounding white flowers and to give the rock facade some more color, there will be overflowing ground cover that spills over the rocks. In the back, on the right side of the fence where it currently is dead now will be my autumn clematis, that grows green all summer long just to bloom in august when the rest of the flowers are done. Smells so pretty especially at night when the windows are open, I love that time of the year. 

I went yesterday and bought some of the items listed like the scotch brooms, in yellow and pink, although they are pretty small they grow really fast, and to pay $20 for a full grown one was ridiculous since the ones that are for $6 will grow in about a month to the other size and be fully grown by the middle of summer anyhow. 

Also for $5 a pot there was montana sandwort, never seen it before but it grows in clumps and its perennial. So I picked up 3 pots. 

It's not much but it does add up quickly, the most expensive thing will be the willow tree and the extra soil we will need to raise the bed up, which I'm figuring to need about a ton? So you see when I go to my husband and say "Imagine this" he's gonna ask me how much and do we really need a pergola?

Well no we don't need it, but it sure looks pretty. 

Oh and just to leave you with a pretty pic, this is our flowering crabapple that I picked up for $30!! It was being nursed back to health and no one wanted it, but I saw the potential and after 2 years its holding up pretty well. 

Wish me luck, and if any of you gardeners out there have any suggestions on anything that I have talked about please feel free to comment and give me any advice. I sometimes get lucky and pick the right type of planting but this is fairly new to me for front yard landscaping.

It's so hard to say goodbye to cherry tree

I know its corny, but I have to admit, it was hard to say goodbye to our purple sand cherry tree. When we bought our house 5 years ago the thing that drew me to the house was the full size cherry tree that was cascading over the property in front of the windows.

This was taken two years ago, but you can see the tree in the background, how big the trunk was.

From this angle you can see the branch that cascades over the front lawn.

Unfortunately I don't have a pic of the front of the house with the tree in bloom, never thought I wouldn't have the chance to take a pic.

Last year we noticed that the tree wasn't getting  leaves through some of the top branches, and I noticed some white stuff growing on the bark. I took a pic of the stuff and took it to our local nursery. They took a look and said it was lichen and that it was ok, its not going to harm the tree. Well in the spring we usually get beautiful pink flowers all over the tree not so much this year. I called an arborist out to the house and he said that there was nothing we can do to save the tree, it had gotten peach tree borers. It was 60% dead. 

Thats sad, I was hoping we can spray something on it but unfortunately this type of tree, which is a purple sand cherry doesn't live past 15 years, and its probably right at that marker. Plus our neighbor has the exact same tree and he got the peach borers also. So not only is my full grown tree going but so is theirs.

This is what it looked like before we cut it down, it wasn't really blooming, except for the lowest branch everything else was dead. Look how pitiful it looks, by this time it would have had a mound of pink flowers on it. 

But today after cutting it down, even the skies are sad, well not really I just took the photo later in the day.

It really is EMPTY now. We are planning on planting something in that spot and I thought of adding some other type of tall plants but thats going to take me a bit before I get the plan together. I really wasn't planning on replacing the tree at all and in the last two weeks I have had to come to the decision that curb appeal means a lot if you want to sell a house. I know that is what drew me to this house so we will have to do our best to liven up the curb appeal before we think about selling. 

Steel Drum style in the Windy City

My awesome friends, Ann & Vince, have a house in with a back deck. When they bought the house they intended on tearing down the deck and making a huge multi-level wraparound porch. It seemed that the deck always went on the back burner as they got busy with other projects. But last spring, Ann decided that enough was enough and with a caribbean inspiration, a little of Bob Marley and Jimmy Buffet she decided to bring the caribbean to Brookfield. I know she talked about this project for awhile and people kinda thought this was going to look horrible, but she's a designer as well and I think her vision was really thought out before she went along with this. Plus I think she had to get her husband on board so this had to look phenomenal.

This is the before, pretty sad looking when the sun isn't out don't you agree. Especially with all the dead plants and bare trees.

The procedure was pretty simple, the first step was to clean the wood. They applied this deck cleaner and left it on for a couple of hours, washing it off to reveal nice, clean wood that was ready to get stained, once the rain went away.

You can't tell, but it made the deck fresher not so gray, as it tends to get with rain and snow covered for several months out of the year.

Next it was time to stain. They went with a product from Sherwin Williams Deckscapes. They have a ton of colors to choose from and three different finishes.

After staining the deck with the help of a couple of extra hands and drying time it was finished. It doesn't hurt that the sun was out when this photo was taken since it gives it that extra feeling like you might be somewhere tropical.

Can you hear the steel drum playing? Well if that doesn't inspire you to turn a dingy, gray heap of wood into this wonderful and marvelous concoction I don't know what will. I know some neighbors were thinking this was going to look like a Vikings Deck when they were told that it was going to be stained in purple and yellow, but after it was complete, they were all pleasantly surprised that it came as well as it did. 

Now take a look at the finished product, the all weather wicker deck furniture with the turquoise cushions and the light-up palm tree totally ties this thing together. 

How wonderful and gorgeous is this deck? I love the vibrant colors of it set against the white. I think if the white stain was not there it might be a little loud. But I think it has the opposite effect, very calming. They did an awesome job and I think everyone can take a page out of this and not be afraid of trying new and crazy things. After all its only paint (stain in this case). Now get me a daiquiri.