Urban Gardening

There are some beautiful garden shots showing up around the ring. Take a look at some of the pics from Kathy's blog and Melissa's blog for some spring color and some inspiration. I enjoy a little gardening, but living in an urban environment makes it difficult to get too elaborate. It also creates a need to find plants that are small in stature but large in color.

Here's a shot of our deck (taken from our upstairs balcony). I planted my flower boxes ~2 weeks ago, and things are just beginning to take off. I'm very into reds and purples this year, and John decided we needed oodles of deep purple and red pansies.

We feel extremely lucky this year -- a wonderful little garden store/nursery opened up just a couple of blocks away from us. Sprout Home is located at 745 N. Damen in Chicago. Tara Heibel has lived in the neighborhood for quite a while and decided to open the shop. We met her around Chrismas when she was selling Christmas trees, and it got me very psyched for spring gardening. She's a lovely and friendly person, as are all the people who work at the store. And it feels good to have a local business to patronize. We moved back into Chicago so that we could be part of a neighborhood. What makes neighborhoods special is the unique businesses and people that live there.

On our second trip of the year for annuals for our flower boxes, John fell in love with pansies, and I just had to take home some fuscias. I've never seen pansies before in colors that evoke the richest of purple and burgandy velvet. Marigolds and some draping white and purple flowers, yellow violas, red and purple petunias jumped into our boxes, too. We walked out of there (and home, literally) each with an armload of lovely flowers. But not before we were given one more magick piece of information -- they had some very special Japanese maples on order.

John and I don't have much backyard. I think there's probably 8 feet between the garage and the front edge of the deck and about 12 feet between the walk from the garage to our nearest neighbor's wall. Most of our back yard is taken up with the deck. Which is not the best situation for someone who loves birds and trees and was hoping to provide a better staging area for some of the little feathered creatures that live in our neighborhood.

So the words "Japanese Maple" really stuck with me -- I could have a brightly colored little tree that would be happy in a mostly shaded, small area. It could provide both beauty for me and shelter for the birds. It would also be a nice centerpiece for the back yard and a start towards replacing the grass with garden.

Yesterday we took a walk by Sprout and, lo and behold, the Japanese Maples had arrived! We got there at the right time, because they had come in only the day before and there were only two left.

John and I decided that we would get the little tree in honor of the start of our third year in our home and our upcoming 5th wedding anniversary (in August). The maple is an Acer palmatum 'Kasagiyama' also known as a Pink Laceleaf Japanese Maple. For more pictures and info, you can take a look here and here.

My fabulous and handsome husband is featured in the beauty shot of our new tree-friend because he did almost all the digging to ensure that she got her roots sinking into her new home as soon as possible. (It also gives you a sense of how small she is -- her maximum height is 6 to 10 feet, as is her maximum width). He actually likes this shot of him with his expertly dug hole better, but I thought everyone might enjoy seeing the tree rather than the hole. For anyone out there who might be thinking of getting one of these trees, or already has one, Tara had some important advice -- don't use those fertilizer spikes with these trees. Apparently they do not like the salt in them at all and can be severely damaged by them. Tara told us that mixing the dirt with a little compost and mulching the base should be all the tree needs in addition to water for the first year or so.

The tree is beautiful from a distance, but her leaves are really what make her a knock out.

It's these exquisite pink centers surrounded by darker red/green color that give the tree its name. Apparently, the trees don't start producing leaves like this until they reach maturity (while they are "growing up" the trees have solid red leaves)-- so our diminuitive 4-1/2 foot tree is pretty much an adult!

Here's one last picture of our back yard -- featuring both the tree and our out-of-control clematis (the one in the middle is called 'Polish Spirit' -- and our plant definitely lives up to its name). Click the link if you want to see what it will look like when it starts to flower.

Today has been more about gardening than about knitting for me, but I did make my first attempt at a short row heel. I'm not entirely pleased with the results, so I'll probably rip and start over before I post a picture. I knew I should have put a life-line in! I also started another pair of socks for John out of the grey (man-friendly) Opal that Emma sent me some time ago. I just can't seem to get away from my sock addiction these days!