If you can dream every square inch of a garden, every day of its year, and every flavor of its season, then you can make it happen.
— Monty Don, host of the BBC's Gardeners World
This webpage reviews plants, materials, and techniques used in a midwest garden located in Bloomington, Indiana. The gardener is a "transplant" from decades of gardening in Southern California, so this is a challenge dealing with new environments and microclimates. View the garden on a walk-though, May 2023.
By the way, what's up with the quote above? Who is Monty Don? He's a presenter at the BBC's weekly "Gardeners' World" TV show, and if you give him a chance he could become your gardening guru. Check him out at his website.
Strawberries normally have white flowers before they fruit, but 'Berried Treasure Red' has crimson blossoms. The fruit is good too but the flowers are the showpiece in these plants, which over-winter in the greenhouse. There's a pink-flowered variety too, also very ornamental.
'Munstead Wood' is one of the famous David Austin roses, bred to look and smell like old garden roses but with modern hardiness and disease resistance. I grow them in cedar pots on the front porch and they bloom nicely. It's one of the best red Austin roses in my humble opinion.
This variety of Lewisia was bred in Holland and can be grown from seed. 'Elise Mix' has a nice variety of pink, orange, lemon, and white. They can be ordered as seeds but your local nursery may also carry plants, which is very handly. They can tolerate temperatures down to freezing.
First time growing crocuses, both in the ground and in pots, and I like what I see. This variety isn't really aqua-colored but is a decidedly intense purple with a striking orange stamen. I'm growing them with blue violas and they seem to co-exist nicely. Not sure whether I'll replant these in the ground for next year or keep them in a pot, nice either way.
A backward glance
We have a few horticulturally inclined ancestors. While Louis (left) was not one of them (he was saloon keeper in Omaha) his brother Alfred (seated) was actually a landscaper, a rare profession in those days. Nebraska, where their family settled in the 1870s, was primarily farmland where cattle and crops were more predominant. Farmers and laborers were much more common occupations. But Alfred chose to settle in Omaha and perhaps its urban environment contributed towards his employment.
Alfred was born Peter Edlef Petersen in Schleswig-Holstein to Peter Hansen Petersen and Elise Momsen. His family, which included three brothers and one sister, came to Nebraska in 1878, with an older brother later joining the family.
Alfred established his landscaping business in Omaha, eventually marrying Meriea (Mary) Thomsen. They had four children.
Alfred was left a widower in 1893 and relied on a housekeeper, Hannah Anderson, to help bring up his young children. But he worked and lived in Omaha until 1933 when he died at the age of 76. The Omaha Evening Bee-News described him as having been a landscape gardener for fifty years.
If you want to know more about Louis and Alfred, please visit the Petersen webpage.
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