Today's Purchase

Drove over to Lowe's at lunch today to check out the fall sale progress. Much of the plant material is already gone from the Illinois Road location, but I did spy a beautiful large sweetspire. No price was marked, but comparable sized shrubs were $44. Took a bit of time to get a manager out to the nursery area, but in the end, the shrub is coming home with me, and I only parted with $15. Very nice.

It's Fall Again

Friends from school stopped by yesterday to pick pumpkins with their kids. So much fun to watch them wander the patch, stepping over vines and looking for "their" pumpkin. I'm always curious to watch and see which orange gourd will finally grab their attention. Regardless of the size or shape, it never seems to fail to bring a smile for patch-wanderers of all ages. A walk in the prairie, a handful of raspberries and s'mores at a bonfire cap a very nice Friday evening.

Images: https://picasaweb.google.com/117708960980167542758/2011_09_23PumpkingPickingKowalskiParker?authkey=Gv1sRgCIPC4Y65hsHX5wE

Fall Purchases

One of my favorite activities in the fall is trying to time the closeout sales of plants at the big box stores. This fall my teaching for Indiana Wesleyan had me in Merrillville for 5 Saturdays. I watched prices slowly drop at Lowe's and Home Depot and was able to grab a few nice native shrubs and trees for both our yard and the kids area at church. Sand cherry, river birch, weigela & viburnum made up the majority of those hauls.

Yesterday I was in Indianapolis for a technology workshop. As I left downtown, I called 3 Lowe's locations that had been good sites in 2009. 2 of the 3 were done, but the store near 465 and 69 indicated they still had a few mums. $16 later, I had 124 mums in the back of the car! Of course, now I have to get them in the ground...

I'm guessing this will be the last purchase of the year. Then again, I thought that was the case 3 weeks ago, too!

Rocks

I'm not sure when it began. It could have something to do with all of the boulder and rock-strewn portages, lakeshores and campsites found in the north country of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and Quetico Provincial Park. I'm drawn again and again to car and house-size boulders sitting in the middle of a river, lichen encrusted campsite rocks perfectly situated for watching the setting sun, and mossy chunks of stone that sprout pine trees as if by magic. How on earth do trees grow out of stone?

Or maybe it came from slowly driving country roads looking for field stone so my mom could line her garden beds. Farm field edges, roadside ditches, and construction sites were all fair game. Sometimes we asked permission, other times there was no house in sight, but either way, she was always thrilled with the treasure we lugged back to her house.

When Andrea and I lived in Fort Wayne our small city lot didn't offer a lot of room for bringing in tons of field stone. I used it to create a couple of small elevation changes in two perennial beds and liked the look, but didn't pursue it as a design element.

Then we sold our home and bought 10 acres north of Columbia City, and the rock fun began in earnest! I remember coming to walk the property after buying it and leaving with a rock in my truck. Soon we were making piles of rocks along the fence row. When those rocks proved to be too small for serious dry-stacked wall construction, I began searching for more massive specimens, finding them in the fields and woods of friends from church, neighbors. Now it's a full-blown obsession. I can't drive anywhere without noticing piles of rocks and boulders sitting in farm fields. I've used them in rock walls, alone on slopes, as edges for paths, benches, steps and just because I thought it looked cool. Rocks can give a garden history, imparting a sense of timelessness and age even to new gardens.

Rocks remind of a God who is timeless and unchanging, and I like bringing that into my garden designs.