It certainly hasn't been a typical Chicago summer, but at least it's not been like the West coast or the East coast, where they've had fire and floods, respectively. You may have had to improviseI've only had to put on my sprinkler twice so far this year but parts of the city have been drier.
The big but semi-hidden news in Chicago and the country vis-a-vis gardens is the fuss over new-style "wild" gardens. My friend Edwin has an extremely floriferous corner lot yard and the city came after him, threatening him with a $5,000 fine. He has no lawn but he does have many wild and tame flowers. City inspectors do not seem to have an objective sense of what's right and wrong in a yard; they seem to be stuck in a 1950s "mowed lawn and a few flowers around the edge" mode.
Edwin is not alone. Among others, an Ohio woman, Sarah, was threatened with fines for not mowing her one-acre COUNTRY yard. Both people were trying to establish working natural ecosystems with homes for bats, toads, garter snakes and honeybees. Edwin satisfied the city by removing a dead tree and Sarah scythed her lawn down to eight inches. But their cities are still watching.
Plant people are starting to rethink the whole topic of weeds and invasive plants; if you check online, there are actually too many new books defending ( !!? ) invasive plants to list. Their arguments? Plants have always moved around the globe; no such thing as a primeval, pristine ecosystem has ever existed; all peoples have changed the plant landscape; and most so-called "invasive" plants are either useful or harmless.
Chicago gardener Ellen Bunch, who was featured in the Chicago Reader, mixes organic flowers, herbs and veggies in her Irving Park yard. Check out her blog, More Organics.
Want some impressive but non-trite shade plants? Here's a bouquet of them from Garden Gate magazine: large-flowered bellwort, "Golden Angel" Japanese shrub mint, Japanese yellow sage, ornamental rhubarb, "Blue Dragon" dragon's head, giant fleeceflower and "Goldsmith" comfrey.
I have a dark-leaved nine-bark shrub that sent out an all-green branch that I removed. Plant hybrids that are not standard green will often send out green shoots. Gold Japanese forest grass often does this. You need to remove these shoots before the plant reverts to all green; the all-green shoots use chlorophyll more efficiently and can take over from the more colorful leaves.
Here's your recipe for this month: Ginger-infused vinegar. Good on stir-fried noodles, omelets or salads. The best container is an old soy-sauce bottle. Fill the bottle one-third full with finely chopped peeled fresh ginger. ( Force it thru a funnel with a chopstick if you have to. ) Fill bottle with rice vine vinegar and leave alone for a week, shaking occasionally.
In other news, I saw a tiny front yard with a patchwork of purple-leaved ajuga ground cover and yellow-green creeping jenny.
My milkweed will be ripe by Septenber and will bring pods to give out. Edwin and I sprinkled an old package of milkweed seeds on a deserted railway embankment on the Northwest Sideit's just waiting to be another 606 Trail. By the way, I have heard a few negative remarks about the 606it's too Disney-fied. Where are the wild plants?
Good God Gertiea volunteer purple petunia popped up on my deck between boards!
A giant mushroom/fungus nearly a foot wide sprang up on a tree stump in my yardfriend Patrick says it's a dryad's saddle!
The feral-cat/rat-abatement program has worked fine in my yard. Orion, mighty hunter, has cleared the space of varmits.