Visiting a Stunning Garden

This week Rob and I drove out to Northwind Perennial Farm, outside of Burlington WI. It's about a 45 minute drive for us, but well worth it.

I'd heard of Northwind through Erin@The Impatient Gardner. I love her garden style and videos, and she gardens in a similar zone, up in Port Washington, WI, just north of Milwaukee. Erin has worked with the garden designer of Northwinds, Roy Diblik, to design a wonderful woodland garden at her home. 

The gardens at Northwind are a combination of woodland and prairie, which is very similar to our property.

 

Best of all, though --they had an entire garden designed under black walnut trees. I have struggled with what to grow under our beautiful black walnuts, so it was really nice to see plants that were thriving in that environment. There is a lot more information about juglone-tolerant plants now than when I started gardening here 25 years ago, which is great. But I still worry about investing in plants in that area, so this was so nice to walk around in, and make some notes. 

And of course I came home with some walnut-tolerant plants to try out :-) It will be fun to make a trip next spring, and see what the gardens look like in that season.

 

Misses

I lost quite a few plants this winter. Lots of people in the area did, apparently --two extended cold periods without any snow, and we went into winter in a drought. Even though it has rained this spring, we are still in a "moderate drought" according to the US Drought Monitor.

Plants lost:

Chamaecyparis "Soft Serve". This was just a quart size when I planted it in Spring 2024, but it grew and looked good through the summer. But I think I just have to give up on evergreens in the areas where I garden --we are very much on the prairie and cold weather comes with strong NW winds. Now I realize that there are sprays you can use, and I should have wrapped it in burlap. But as expensive as evergreen pieces are, I likely won't try again.

Stonecrop Sedum "Blue Spruce". I can't even believe I lost a sedum in a hot sunny location that I was watering, but it just disappeared by the end of the summer.

Hoary Vervain. I love this prairie plant, and planted six 3" pots. Not one of them survived. I will try again with this because I like it so much. 

Canadian Anemone. I planted two of these, bare root, and I've never had much luck with bare root plants. They never showed up this spring. 

Little Bluestem. I planted 3 3" pots in an area near a silver maple. I struggle to grow things here, and I'm hoping that the deep roots might help them compete with the shallow maple roots. One of them didn't return, the other two are tiny, but alive. 

I guess I'm lucky in that everything I lost was something I planted last summer. I didn't lose any established plants. Hopefully the ones that returned from last summer's planting will be established enough to deal with a harsh winter now.

Sunflower Experience, 2025

I ordered three types of sunflower seeds last winter. 

First is Valentine. This is pale yellow, 3-4" blossoms, up to 5 feet tall. 

Second is Holiday. This was supposed to be more traditional in color, although the flower size is still only 3-5", 5-6' tall.

The third is Autumn Beauty. This one has the darker flower, up to 8" across, and can get over 8' tall. 

I started seeds of all three indoors, earlier than I should have. I up-potted them in late April/early May, but it was so cool this spring that I didn't get them in the ground soon enough. 

I have also started all three from seed in a raised bed, in late May.

The shortest variety, Valentine, transplanted just fine. I don't particularly like them, though. You can't see the flowers all that well because of how thick the stems are. Definitely for cut flowers, which I don't really do. I don't think this one has pollen either, another reason I wouldn't plant it again. (Note to self: read descriptions more carefully!)

The middle one, Holiday, does not appear to have transplanted all that well. The flower at the top is very small. It is developing branches down the stalk, but those flowers will likely be even smaller. 

The tall one, Autumn Beauty, also does not appear to have transplanted well. The flower at the top is small. It is developing branches down the stalk, but those flowers will likely be even smaller. 

The flowers I planted in the raised bed are much more vigorous. So obviously transplanting sunflowers is not a great idea. Which is unfortunate, because last year none of my direct seeding worked --between chipmunks and earwigs, I didn't have a single sunflower plant. I did buy some wire cloches last year, for other plants, so maybe next summer I can try to protect the seedlings that way, at least from the chipmunks.

I'll likely come back and edit this post with more information about the flowers after the direct-seeded plants bloom.