The Calamitous Countdown Begins

 

Today, Ivy and Burt are beginning their third annual countdown to Halloween. Whether or not they can manage to show up for all thirty-one days is a good question but they plan to try their best. With the first "risk of frost date" just a week away, the skeleton crew have been keeping a close eye on the garden. That date is usually anywhere from two weeks to a month off so we not too worried.

What would Halloween be without jack-o'-lanterns? All of the four varieties of pumpkins we planted came up and produced a bumper crop of  . . .  flowers. 

A few of them even turned into pumpkins, who knew they started out so fuzzy?

          

I've moaned too much about the critters who dig up the beds and trash the veggies but somehow, two pumpkins have survived beyond golf-ball size. They're both small, not orange and I'm pretty sure they didn't come from any of the seeds we planted.

I did put in some Jack-Be-Little seeds, thinking the compact size of the plants and their miniature pumpkins would look cute in the raised beds. At first, when nothing came up  I wrote them off as just another failure. Then last week His Madness asked what the yellow tomatoes were called. They had sprouted after all, grew up and climbed into the tomato cages where they are masquerading as Brandywines. Very sneaky.

At least there's no problem finding the habaneros.

The dahlias were another autumnal surprise. Last spring I bought about two dozen tubers, when it was time to get them in the ground, half of them were rotten or dried up. It was icky. Of the dozen left, seven actually grew and are just starting to bloom. However, they did grow into spectacular plants and the flowers look more beautiful in real life than they do on the label. Let's hope for a late frost!   

Now, it's a wait and see situation. Meanwhile we will be very thankful for all the gardeners out there who are much better at growing pumpkins and dahlias! There's always next year.

Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow!

Returns

It's hard to believe tomorrow is the equinox and first the first day of autumn. Days with temps in the mid 80's don't feel much like sweater weather but that's okay, there are plenty of those days ahead! 

Spooky, on the other hand, is all year-round and it's easy to overlook the heat and humidity when the Halloween stuff hits the stores. Unfortunately, since some things have to be purchased online, mistakes happen. We all agreed, this door mat was not a keeper.

What was on the website did not match what I received.

Honestly, this was a nice design, just badly executed and the letters were barely there. Yes, it's a door mat but it shouldn't look dirty when it's brand new. Plus, I wasn't actually going to encourage His Madness wipe his feet on it! Fortunately, thanks to covid, we are now experienced at returns and have learned to incorporate this once annoying task into a fun afternoon exploring the local area. I wish I had realized how much easier it is to return bulky mistakes to a store rather than sending them back via UPS. Duh! So, since I bought it from Kohl's all we had to do was find the one that was close to a good restaurant and nearby something interesting we wanted to explore.  

When HM and I realized there was a Kohl's close to a botanical garden we hadn't visited in at least a decade, we decided to see what had become of it. As it turns out, the Scheig Center Gardens hadn't changed much although now it's surrounded by suburbs and urban sprawl with a Starbucks nearby.    

 Still, it seems miles away from the city. I wasn't expecting there to be much going on at this time of the year. Their website described the gardens as mostly native wildflowers and roses (and they mainly blossom in the spring) but it was covered in late summer plants in full bloom! The goldenrod and the cattails don't show up too well here but there was a lot of autumnal color out there.    

There's a large contemporary building in the center and the garden fans out from it. The plantings closest to it are fairly formal becoming more natural as they drift into the surrounding meadows. It all looked like it just happened that way but it definitely took some careful planning. 

Although it is part of the City Parks and Recreation Dept. most of the grunt work is done by local volunteers and gardening organizations. I have a love/hate relationship with garden clubs. That said, in this case, I think it would be way more fun to have your efforts contribute to a whole garden, as opposed to just tending a bed sporting a sign with your club's name.   

 

The trees were still green or just beginning to turn color but a lot of the shrubs were in their full autumnal glory. I now have a long list of things I want to plant in the spring.

It's was a beautiful place to take a walk and get ideas for next year.

 We shouldn't wait ten years before we visit again.

After walking around the gardens we drove four miles to the east to the village of Little Chute. They have an authentic windmill that can actually grind wheat into flour. It was built in the Netherlands and reassembled in the town park in 2015. In addition to producing some very expensive flour it also houses genealogical information and historical archives of the Dutch settlers in the area. It wasn't in working order on the day we visited but we did get a tour, took a look at their museum and had a great time picking out cookies (made in Holland) from the gift shop. 

Kibitz thinks all museums should sell cookies in their gift shop.  

Burt and Ivy agreed but wish he had left a few more of the chocolate ones. There's still plenty left and that should give them the energy they need to find another spooky door mat!       

Thanks for stopping by, see you soon!

The Sunset of Summer Road Trip

His Madness and I took a day trip to Madison last month to celebrate our anniversary and we spent some time at Olbrich Gardens. After the fiasco our backyard turned into, I was on a mission to check out any new plants they might be showcasing and pick up some ideas to try out next year.

Of course there are a lot of areas in their gardens I can only dream of recreating!

One of thy favorite places is the Thai pavilion or sala, with its exotic statuary and tropical garden. It's quite a contrast to all the corn fields and dairy cattle we drove past to get there, ha! 

In Thailand, these pavilions are used as roadside shelters from the sun or rain and on this day it was useful for both! Typically, they're not this fancy unless they're located near a palace or temple. It was a very generous gift from the government of Thailand and the Thai Chapter of the UW Alumni Association to the University of Wisconsin. 

Since its opening, almost twenty years ago now, we've been able to watch the trees and shrubs slowly mature. The landscape designers have done a great job of finding trees and plants that look native to Asia but can still survive the winters here.

Normally, they add quite a few tropical plants along with colorful annuals during the summer and this year they seemed particularly happy with all the rain and heat we've had.

The rain clouds moved in just as I was trying to get a photo of the sunlight sparkling off the hundreds of tiny mirrors inlaid into the supporting brackets. Instead they look blue because they picked up the sky being reflected in the water, ha! They still looks pretty anyway.

A close inspection of these lush plants at the back of the pavilion revealed nothing more exotic than coleus, caladium and ornamental banana. Guess it's all about what we think we see, ha!

I'd love to visit Thailand someday but until we can all safely travel again we are lucky to have this beautiful pavilion to enjoy. There are other posts from my previous visits here and here. 

It's so easy to take things for granted, especially simple things like walking in a pretty garden. It was great to get back to a place that we missed so much during the covid closures.

Now that Labor Day is here and the sun has metaphorically set on summer, it's exciting to look forward to autumn but also sad to look back at all the catastrophic events. To be fair, the summer wasn't all bad and thankfully, most of us were lucky enough to be far away from the worst tragedies. Still, between covid, wildfires, hurricanes and floods, not to mention the Taliban, there was a lot of misery out there. It used to be foreign countries that needed our help, not that they still don't, but now it's here too! So, to feel less helpless, I've been contributing to disaster aid funds, trying to be environmentally responsible, and supporting politicians who believe in science. That won't be enough but it's a start and it gives me hope that things can get better.

The Skeleton Crew had a great holiday weekend and they hope you did too!

Thanks for stopping by, stay safe and we will see you soon.