This past Friday night I went to the special preview night for the Chicago Flower and Garden Show. Work sent me, it was the charity night so you pay a lot more for your ticket and don't have to deal with the crowds. Which is nice cause usually the place is totally crowded.Anyway, Diane and I were walking the show where there were elaborate displays, tons of color, and some truly creative work. Oddly enough we agreed on what we thought was the most striking bed of the show. As usual for me it was also one of the simplest. 
I just thought that this bed was a great example of contrasting textures working together to add interest. There are only three plants here and they are all very common, Algerian Ivy, Huchera (some lime green variety), and Asparagus Fern. So simple, but still so stunning!Or maybe I just loved it cause it is all GREEN!!
This summer has been quite a productive one for my home landscape . . . I somewhat started from scratch and for someone who works as much as I do and lives alone I feel like I have accomplished a lot.
On Friday at work Michelle mentioned that Midwest Groundcovers (one of our wholesale vendors that I have bought most of my plant material from) was having a cart sale in their retail section this morning. Which meant that you put everythi
ng you can on a cart and the total price is $75.00. Which comes out to be cheaper than my wholesale pricing even with my discount. So we decided that we would check it out.Well I came out of there today with about 30 1 gal. perennials, two large shrub roses, and some groundcover. Sounds like a lot to plant right? Well the planting part is easy really . . . the labor intensive part for me at this point is prepping the beds to be planted. I have an area for about half of it almost ready to go, but now I have to hurry and get the other bed all done so that I can plant it in the next two weeks before it gets too late in the season. So that is where my next week and weekend and possibly further will be spent.
The somewhat depressing part is that so much of what I planted this year was done so late in season that I really didn't get to appreciate it . . . so next spring should be awesome.
What I forgot to mention that just when I finish planting all of this I will have the bulbs that I ordered delivered and then there will be planting all of those. Whew . . . this is gonna get tiring.
As I have been thinking about what I want to do with my own landscape it got me thinking about some of my favorite plants. So I thought that I would share with you my two favorite trees of all time. My favorite evergreen and my favorite deciduous tree.
The first is 
the Blue Atlas Cedar, the picture here is of a weeping cultivar. It is an evergreen, but an unusual one. The needles are whorled and short and stay tight to the branches giving the tree an interesting texture. The color is fabulous, it is kind of a steel blue that light reflects off of and gives it a lot of depth.
Unfortunately for me this tree does not do very well in the climate that I live in. I see them from time to time, but most people ask me what they are when I pull up photos of them or see them at trade shows.
My favorite deciduous tree is the Tri-Color Beech. The most beau
tiful specimen of this that I have ever seen is on BYU campus on the East side of the MARB as you head towards the Clyde. If you are there, you should check it out. It really is beautiful.
This is another kind of hard to find and very expensive plant, but if you can find it and get it to grow it is stunning. It is keeps it's pink and red color all summer and adds fantastic contrast to all of the green surrounding it.
As I write this I realized that neither of my favorite trees are actually green which I have been informed is my favorite color, just an interesting side note.
