You Grow Girl™

Yo!~

::makes valiant attempt to rub majority of dirt off of hand and onto nearest article of clothing::
::tells bamboo to stop growing for just a minute and sticks out hand to shake "Hello" with fellow botanical addicts::

Heya, All~~

Karen here, in beautiful Chicago, the Bucktown area -- just a few hundred feet from I-90/94. My Husband Bob and I are renting a tiny, shabby house here because it comes with not only a backyard, but a side lot -- just the encampment two gardening freaks needed. Our 16 year old Son humors us as best he can... my older Kids moved out long ago, trying, I think, to avoid Karen's Gardening Conscription Program. My GrandSon, Thor, is just of an age to be chasing fireflies, which means he will be of conscriptional-age soon.

Bob is the brains of the outfit. "What's that plant called?" The answer is usually, "Ask Bob." He's a walking tutorial on things botanic, which is one of the reasons I married him... He'll know the botanic and common name, how to grow it, what to plant with it, what it's uses are and why (usually) we can't grow it here.

I'm the designer in our yard, the gruntwork specialist, weeder supreme and the one whose bright idea it was to register our yard in the first Bucktown Garden Walk this coming Sunday (I think he married me mostly because I can tell a weed from a real plant).

Here we sit, in the middle of the city, lucky enough to have a Landlady who said, "Do anything you want with the yard as long as the weeds aren't over 3 ft. tall". We are also lucky enough to have landed in the midst of the greatest neighbors we've ever had (did I mention that they garden? ...and that at least two of those gardens are stunning?).

Our yard is registered with the Backyard Wildlife Habitat program of the Nat'l Wildlife Federation. This means that we have the basic things needed for fauna, like the full-grown pheasant that showed up one year the week before Thanksgiving, and the red-tailed hawk that terrorizes the crows. It also means that pigeons, rats and the occasional opposum-with-an-attitude also call our yard 'home'. argh.

7 gardens? Yup!

The parkway....we live in a high foot traffic area, so the poor thing is hard-trodden, but I'm not above planting thistles in with the daylilies, or lovely snarling Creeping Charly along the foot or so along the curb.

The front fence perennials (I am way too lazy for annuals) ends with an incredible Auguste' Renoir rose and a small overflow pond.

Four Seasons garden, with a major plant for each season and a smaller alternating companion plant....each companion plant is a specific reminder of AIDS Friends who aren't here to garden with us anymore.

The Bamboo-that-ate-Chicago backing up my private pond (a half-sunken bathtub that was part of the yard detritus when we moved in) and it's water and edge plantings -- also the home of the Goddess Rocks (major & minor).

The Veggie garden, based on a plan from the Ephrata Cloister kitchen gardens, has a great path that lets Kids know that not all veggies are grown in rows.

The back corner pond garden, overtopped by what was billed as a dwarf Willow (may be, just not dwarf on this planet), under which is a lovely cottoneaster, under which is the pond and next project rock garden, backed by daylilies and the chocolate mint that insists on trying to grab us whenever we turn our backs.

The Back Fence garden, where any plant that Bob and I can't agree on lives. Umm, I believe it's early polyglot style with a touch of insane quilt.

Which brings me (finally) to this coming Sunday when we open the yard to the public. Wish us luck, we're trying to not imitate some of the other Chi-town Garden Walks that have become showcases for expensive decking and hired "garden architects". Garden clubs have been calling in from other states, ferghodsake, so it should be lively. Besides, we're being sponsored by one of our great neighborhood bars, so how far wrong can we go.

Ask Bob.