All posts by Lillian Davis

Hi, my name is Lillian but everyone just calls me Lil. I’m an artist, organic gardener & plant junkie. I live in north central Illinois in a little house on the edge of the woods with my husband and two of my four grown children. In my spare time you can find me outside playing in the garden or taking lots of pictures of my flowers or the local wildlife for my blogs~ and for eight wonderful years I had my dream job of running the garden center at Blain’s Farm and Fleet...

Gentle Shepherd

Everything’s Coming Up Flowers

Annabell Hydrangea ~ Hydrangea arborescens ‘Annabelle’

 Summer’s in full swing now and so is the garden…
So here’s a few more blooms for you to enjoy.
Happy Summer!

Marigolds (Tagetes sp.)

False Sunflower, Heliopsis

Spider Web Hens and Chicks (Sempervivum arachnoideu) go here for post with this plant

Munstead Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia)

Blanket Flower, Gaillardia ‘Arizona Sun’

Joe Pye Weed, Eupatorium purpureum ~ pre-bloom

Obedient Buds for Thursday’s Things in a Row

Obedient Plant
Physostegia virginiana
Mint family (Lamiaceae)

See more rows here at Pats!

Ah, Sweet Daisies

Daisies
by: Rose Terry Cooke (1827-1892)

Fair and peaceful daisies,
Smiling in the grass,
Who hath sung your praises?
Poets by you pass,
And I alone am left to celebrate your mass.

In the summer morning,
Through the fields ye shine,
Joyfully adorning
Earth with grace divine,
And pour, from sunny hearts, fresh gladness into mine.

Lying in the meadows,
Like the milky way,
From nocturnal shadows
Glad to fall away,
And live a happy life in the wide light of day.

Bees about you humming
Pile their yellow store,
Winds in whispers coming
Teach you love’s sweet lore,
For your reluctant lips still worshipping the more.

Birds with music laden
Shower their songs on you;
And the rustic maiden,
Standing in the dew,
By your alternate leaves tells if her love be true.

Little stars of glory!
From your amber eyes
No inconstant story
Of her love should rise!
And yet “He loves me not!” is oft the sad surprise.

Crowds of milk-white blossoms!
Noon’s concentred beams
Glowing in your bosoms;
So, by living streams
In heaven, I think the light of flowers immortal gleams.

When your date is over,
Peacefully ye fade,
With the fragrant clover
And sweet grasses laid,
In odors for a pall beneath the orchard shade.

Happy, happy daisies!
Would I were like you,
Pure from human praises,
Fresh with morning dew,
And ever in my heart to heaven’s clear sunshine true!

Daisy Lou

“Hay! Was that about me?”

Container Gardening for 2012

A favorite hobby of mine is seeing what I can grow in a pot, anywhere from little flowers to perennials, veggies and herbs, all the way up to shrubs roses and trees. Some things work, some things don’t, but that’s the fun of it.

Here’s some of this seasons projects…

Herbs in pots and tubs~ your standard basils, chives, rosemary, catnip, green onions peppermint, chocolate mint, camomile, sage, stevia, parsley-flat and curly, thyme got lost somewhere in there… no  pun intended (or maybe it was… ). Strawberries on the side are in their second year and I have them caged to keep the Devourer of Gardens‘ out of them. The hens and chicks and the blue spruce sedum are there because I thought they looked good in that spot.

close up of hens & chicks and blue spruce sedum (pink flowers belong to the spiderweb hens & chicks). This container is on it’s second year too.

Hosta in a pot. ‘Red October’ second year and doing beautifully.

Tiny Tim cherry tomato in a galvanized bucket (I grow these every year). It only gets 15″ tall and has 1″ size tomatoes on them. I’ll update this one later with the tomatoes. It’s one of my most popular tomato plants and I always run out fast.

Banana Peppers in a galvanized bucket. Just one of the many pepper plants I grow in a pot.
(The tree behind it is an Amur Maple I grew from seed-beautiful little tree that only gets 12′ high).

My favorite this year.
I planted Purple fountain grass, two purple potato vines and a white ‘Million Bells’ Calibrachoa in a garage sale plastic urn.
the window box is planted with a variety of romaine lettuces.

An assortment of flowers and herbs~ a Dwarf Korean Lilac, the Tiny Tim tomato in the middle, mandevilla vine, Pineapple sage, moss rose, variegated sedum, and blue spruce sedum starts.

“Wait Mom! There’s a leaf out of place on this sedum! I’ll fix it for you!”

Anticipation

Why do Humming Birds Hum?

Because they forgot the words!
(Ha! Ha! Get it? Yeah, yeah, I know! Corny Joke… I got a million of ’em!)

It’s all for the humming birds this year…

Humming Bird Spinner

Humming Bird’s favorite flowers in hanging baskets on the deck

ivy Geranium

Double Calibrachoa  and a few others…
and feeders in every corner of the yard, filled with homemade sugar water…

 

Sugar water recipe ~ 1 cup sugar dissolved into 4 cups boiling water… cool to room temperature then fill clean feeders. Fills 4~ 8oz. feeders.

Chicka – dee – dee – dee!

I’ve been trying for years to get a decent picture of a Chickadee. I finally got one to pause long enough to get a couple of shots…..

He’s cracking open sunflowers seeds

Wind Power

Here in Illinois, one thing we seem to never be short of is wind…
so what better place for a couple of wind farms?

Well over 700 actually.
In six Central Illinois counties (LaSalle County, Livingston County, Logan County, McLean County, Tazewell County, Woodford County) there are 705 as of October 2010, and a projected 2,772 by 2015