MAY / JUNE 2004

The arrival next door of a landscape architect from southern California jolted me into realizing just what an ad hoc gardener I am. After I gave her an extra copy of Roy Klehm’s Song Sparrow Perennial Farm catalog this past fall, she remarked how helpful it would be in developing her plan.

A plan, I thought? Now there’s a concept.

We find basically two types of gardeners in this world—those who think things through and select only those plants that will fit into their overall design, and those like me who want to grow as many plants as possible because 1) we like a challenge (lavender from seed anyone?) and 2) we really want to see what these catalog beauties look like when they move off the page into the real world. Add in the fact that I never met a self-sown seedling I didn’t like (larkspurs, nicotianas, malvas pop up...er, annually) so it’s obvious how I end up with a mulligatawny soup of a garden every year. If all goes well and it ends up looking pretty, I chalk up the year as a success when September rolls around. This is by no means a sure thing.

Over the years I have learned the importance of those now-cliched "bones" and frequently ponder where I might begin excavating for some on my own piece of land. Serious hardscape transformations appear beyond my budget, but I have recently started adding a few conifers and boxwoods to lead the eye from this point to that, add accents and provide that proverbial winter interest. It’s amazing what a few solid evergreen forms—rounded, pointed, columnar, pyramidal—can do. Right now, I’m planning to dig up a magenta phlox by the front porch steps and replace it with a ‘DeGroot’s Spire’ arborvitae...and I may need another just down the border a bit, right behind that coral rose...and perhaps I should really put in a third…

Gardens look better when they have a framework, a truth I refused to believe when I was a novice coveting only flowers. But P. Allen Smith, who joins our roster of writers this issue, speaks convincingly about the importance of enclosures in his introductory story on page 56 and presents several lovely examples of what he means.

In this issue of Chicagoland Gardening, we also emphasize plants since May is our big month for getting things in the ground. Exciting things are afoot as Kathy Freeland sorts out those groundcovers that are being marketed as Stepables®. Elsewhere, Michelle Walsh touts the latest and greatest hydrangeas, including the just-introduced hardy blue hydrangea that blooms on new wood, Tom Krischan interviews our neighbor in Milwaukee who developed the hottest red rose in the country, and Susan Crawford peers under the ivy leaves and discovers a world far more complex than she had expected.

Two great gardens round out our lineup—one a suburban homage to Colonial Williamsburg, developed as a collaboration between the owner and landscape architect Scott McAdam. The other is a stunning contemporary roof/balcony garden overlooking Lincoln Park, designed by landscape architect Douglas Hoerr. One looks to the past, the other to the future, but both exemplify what glories can be ours when plants are selected to serve the design.

It’s a lesson some of us are still trying to learn.