perfect timing

            Finally, a case of perfect timing. We drove up to Wisconsin
(near Stoughton) after work on Thursday night (5 hour drive), stayed
overnight and went to our favorite perennials nursery and had perfect
sunny cool weather for darting in and out of greenhouses selecting
wonderful perennials of all kinds, drove back that night, planted our
hearts out all day Saturday and Sunday and got everything in, and now it
had been raining every since ....
            I have to say that Flower Factory is a fantastic nursery.
They don't do mail order, but if you live within driving distance, it's
well worth the trip. They have about a dozen enormous greenhouses with
flats of perennials in each one, organized alphabetically by plant name.
There are also beautiful display gardens, including a pond and waterfall
with a bridge, a woodland shade garden loaded with spring flowers in
bloom, a huge rock garden, troughs, perennial borders, daylilies and
hostas galore, and a miniature train that goes through a stone tunnel
with rock garden plants around it.  We spent the whole day and got three
flats filled to bursting with 4-inch pots, all kinds of wonderful stuff
I had picked out in their catalogue. Since we went early, most of the
things we wanted were still available, unlike last year when we didn't
go until the end of May and the special items were already sold out. I
got two tree peonies, many tiny alpine plants for the raised beds, a
couple of vines, a few sun lovers to replace spots along the east fence,
and a bunch of partial shade perennials for the north and northwest
breezeway areas. I did get the new red coreopsis, limerock ruby, and the
pink and white sweet dreams coreopsis!
            Here in east central Illinois, it is an incredible year for
the tree peonies, which are just starting to bloom. One of them has 30
buds, a couple of others have at least 20, the blooms are as big as
dinner plates-it is just awesome. I will have to take pictures. The
forget me nots are gorgeous now too, and there are species tulips,
lilacs, aubrieta, arabis, alyssum, erysimum, a tiny yellow erigeron in
the trough, columbine, phlox, trillium, shooting stars, English
bluebells, daphnes (very fragrant), pulmonarias, tiarellas, azaleas
(very bright this year), anemone sylvestris, white scilla hispanica,
yellow lamiastrum, sweet woodruff, and yellow wood poppies and purple
woods delphinium. All over town, the dogwoods are better than I've ever
seen them. Of course, zillions of dandelions as well ...
 
Susan and David in Urbana, Illinois
zone 5b
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