GARDEN BLOGGERS BLOOM DAY IN SWEET HOME AND GARDEN CHICAGO

SOME OF THE PLANTS IN BLOOM JUNE 15 , 2007 :



Purple Petunias

Fasting-Fading Spiderwort

White Astilibe



Butterfly Weed

Hosta

Light Pink Astilibe

Lady Slippers

Violas

Lilies

Variegated Loosestrife

Bears Britches

MYSTERY PLANT

I love plants with bold foliage . I know the name of every plant in my garden so much to my surprise, this one arrived this Spring and I don't remember planting it.

It's thriving in the shade . Although it appears to be rhubarb, it's not. It seems that a flower is forming at the center so I'll wait to see if that will give me a clue. The plant is not very tall and its leaves as you can see are very long and broad.

It drives me nuts to have a plant in my garden and not know it's name. Could this be a beautiful weed ? Help !? Anyone ??

MORE COLONIZING PLANTS

Bocconia Macleaya Cordata or Plume Poppy

I know, I know. But I was attracted by it's very bold foilage and thought it would look nice next to the pond, which it does. But it's a colonizer, or a nice name for an aggressive spreader.

My pet goldfish love the Plume Poppy

I'll keep it but must work a little harder to control its spread. That goes for the artemesia as well as the spiderwort and a whole long list of other invasive plants : Spiderwort, Rudbeckia, Korean bellflower, Cranesbill Geranium, Feverfew. Did I leave anything out ?

EVERY SOUND IN NATURE IS MUSIC

"Appearing LIVE and in REAL TIME
at a computer near you "

For those city dwellers feeling deprived of the lack of action from the 17-year-old cicadas you can now access the mating " Concerto of the Cicadas " by clicking on : nujust.net/~locusonus/site/streams/mapcreacast.php. You will see a world map with the lowest box by Chicago, colored orange , if the audio stream is on. ( The male cicadas only vibrate between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m..) When the new box appears, click start.

The sound has decibel levels that rival the Chicago Symphony orchestra's brass section at full blast.

This concerto is the brain child of Peter Gena, a composer and pianist and teacher of electronic and computer music at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Gena lives near the forest preserve which has large wooded areas full of cicadas and he has only to go to his backyard with a microphone to capture the sonic symphony.

Professor Gena is a believer in the words of John Cage, Twentieth century's avant-garde music guru that " everything we do -and , by extension, every sound in nature-is music. All we have to do is listen to our environment and listen to someone working with the sounds around us. "

So, from dawn to dusk until the end of June the sonic symphony that marks the demise of one generation of the cicadas and the eventual rebirth of another will continue.

DOG DAYS OF SUMMER

Jojo sits out the hottest day of the year

Cleo grins and bears it

I've heard that dogs with black fur feel the heat more intensely because their coat absorbs the sun. Both my dogs have black fur and yesterday was the hottest day of the year thus far, well over 90 degrees and closer to a hundred in my western-exposed back yard.

Jojo headed for the shady arbor and Cleo went down to the basement and lay on the cool stone floor.

The dog days of summer are early this year. They don't usually arrive until July but June has been very hot and dry.

I cringe when I see joggers running in extreme heat. A dog's got better sense on a hot day and always seek the coolest spot. I keep a chilled bowl of water for both my dogs.