Champaign-Urbana Herb Society

Garden Reporter ...
by Dianna Visek

At our recent potluck at Meadowbrook Park, Connie Fairchild explained the history behind the swath of bread seed poppies ( Papaver somniferum, aka opium poppies). Phyllis Brussel sprinkled seed some years ago and they came up short and in various frilly colors. Since then, the Meadowbrook gardeners have been saving seed each year to sow the following spring. Over time, the poppies have become much taller and a uniform fuchsia color. I’d never seen any like it until this week, when I was reading Artists in their Gardens by Valerie Easton and David Laskin. On page 156, there are our poppies! This is a great book, describing ten unusual gardens. One is the garden of George Little and David Lewis, whose wacky and colorful sculpture can be seen on the Web. Another is Heronswood Nursery, which offers a catalog of exotic plants.

My calla lilies ( Zantedeschia) survived the winter outside! They were late coming up, but they made it. And Connie Loe, a new member, has had some survive for two winters now. Not bad for a plant that Wyman’s Gardening Encyclopedia lists as zone 10. They’re under a woodchip mulch, which probably explains why they survived. Now we’ll have to see if we have a long enough season for them to bloom.

Every December, my Mom orders a wreath for us, made of a variety of evergreens and other shrubs in the Pacific Northwest. We hang it to the left of our door, under the roof of our front porch. It’s quite protected. If we leave it up long enough, it becomes home to a bird family. Usually we have mourning doves, who lay two eggs at a time. One year we had house finches. We put a security camera in our dining room window and a monitor on the dining table. The babies would hunker down in the nest until a parent arrived, then five heads would pop up! It was quite a show for our cats. Finch TV: “All finches, all the time, with no commercial interruption!” This year we have a mourning dove couple. We speak to Mom when we go in and out and she doesn’t seem to mind us. She started sitting on brood #2 on May 5 and the last baby left on June 1. That’s only 26 days, start to finish. After a short vacation, she started brood #3 on June 6. We’ve decided to see how many broods they can manage in a year.

There have been a number of private plant sales this year. Frank Cooper, an alpine specialist, had a couple. Aporn Wentz and Phyllis Brussel had theirs on the same Saturday as Mary Schroerer and Kate Hunter. John and Diane Marlin sold wildflowers out of their yard. And the UI Conservatory had their second annual sale of tropicals. I heard about them on cmi.rec.gardens, a local newsgroup devoted to gardening. Some of us use it to post notices about plants we’re giving away. That reminds me that I still have sweet woodruff that needs a home. [Look no farther than your friendly Sprigs editor, please.]

I’ve agreed to organize the programs for the coming year, but would love some help. If you have program ideas or would like to serve on the committee, please call me at 367-5027 or email divisek@yahoo.com.

Your faithful reporter, Dianna Visek

Herb Facts and Lore Index | Herb Society Homepage | Prairienet Homepage