Garden Guests, both welcome and not.

I know I wrote last week that I would showcase fruit bearing plants this week, but a certain garden visitor convinced me to change my topic...and this week's topic is:  Garden Guests.

Among the many joys and pains of gardening are garden visitors--some welcome and some unwanted.  Every gardener has had to deal with pests of various sizes and species, just as every flower gardener has, if not marveled at, appreciated the wide variety of critters gardens attract--good or bad.

Among our most unwelcome guests, are these little pests:

                                                                                A lone Japanese Beetle eating a grape leaf.

This bug is one of thousands that infest our grapes and other vines, such as morning glories, and even with chemicals it is impossible to eradicate them all together.

The japanese beetle was introducd to the US sometime slightly before 1912--possibly in a shipment of iris bulbs from Japan.  Originally an invasive species in the Northeast, these bugs have spread as far as Minnesota and the Dakota, mostly in the northern part of the United States.

Many sites offer suggestions to at least minimize the impact of these pests on your garden plants--in our case the grapes we have growing on our fence.  The most immediate remedy involves chemical sprays or powders--something, until recently, I was very resistant to using, as we try to manage our gardens as organically as possible.

However, there are biological ways to combat these buggers--the most effective is by introducing a bacteria to your soil called Milky Spore.   I purchased milky spore last year, but have not yet applied it as it requires some serious precautionary measures (such as a respirator) during application, and the dog would not be able to use the backyard until it was washed into the soil.

Lillies in a Minnesota Garden:

Let me start by saying lilies (in my experience) are not difficult to grow.  Plant them and watch them come back year over year.  However, in our case, we need to be on the guard for deer when the plants are young.  The last couple of years our lilies have been decimated by deer.

Until this year we waited excitedly for our lilies to grow large enough to flower and just as they produced flower heads, the flower heads were gone.

So, this year, when they are were at the stage where the deer tend to get at them (May), we sprayed them with a nasty smelling organic solution we picked up at Linder's, our favorite local gardening center.

See the result of putting up with the stink for about a week below:

First, let's start with the oldest lilies in our yard--the Tiger Lilies.

These lilies were first planted to reduce the industrial look of the chain-link fence we had installed for our dog.  We live on a beautiful parkway and we wanted the street facing part of our yard to add to the beauty of the parkway, not diminish it.  These Tiger Lilies were given to us by my wife's father about three years ago, and there are numerous seedlings spread throughout the mulched garden along the outside of the fence.

We have probably a good twenty to forty individual stalks in this garden, mostly bunched in groups the one shown above.  This garden get absolutely no shade and our slopes slightly away from the house--so I am not sure how well this garden holds moisture.  We do water it during the hot dry days of late summer--but rarely before mid- to late-July.

These are just beautiful flowers...and they just recently popped adding a lot of texture and vibrancy to our fence garden.



Unfortunately, the lilies in front gardens have mostly stopped blooming, however some of our day lilies are still producing flowers--I particularly like the yellow lilies as yellow is under-represented in our garage-side garden.

There are two yellow day lily plants, which bookend the lily shown below:

Again, these lilies are in full sun--however these day lilies are in a good flat garden which holds moisture well.



Tiger and Day Lilies are quite common in our area and seem to be staples in most Minnesota perennial gardens.  This next lily however is slightly unique and surprised us last year when it seemed it would not stop growing taller and taller.  Situated between two rose plants, these lilies are a good six-plus feet tall.

Mostly done blooming, we were excited to see this one blossom this year as the deer got to itlast year.


Our favorite and the most unique lily in our gardens is our Oriental Lily, which just bloomed last week.  These blossoms are absolutely enormous at 6 - 10 inches across if not larger.   The bottom of stalk is at least an inch and half thick--this is one heavy duty lily.

Above is the full plant--with a good dozen flowers on it.  The stalk stands about 4 feet tall--below is a single blossom, closeup.

These are so fragrant there is no way we would even consider bringing them inside as cut flowers--they would overpower us.

Again, we have other lilies that I did not include, as they are long past flowering, including Lilies of the Valley, and other varieties of common garden lilies.

Lilies are such a nice addition or any garden--and with so many varieties, you can find a lily to provide a certain color, texture, or (as our tall lily) height to any garden space.  Additionally, lilies are no maintenance--apart from cleaning away the dead stalks in late fall or the following spring, and with Lilies of the Valley or Tiger Lilies, they will spread throughout a garden space.  Lilies of the Valley, being short plants, can provide nice late-spring early summer delicate flowers in your garden--however they can spread voraciously.



If you have any questions about these lilies, or using lilies in your garden spaces, feel free to comment and I will answer all questions or comments.

Next Time:
--Fruiting Plants

Introducing "Images of a Minnesota Garden"

As I once again find myself with time on my hands, I figured I'd start completely different type of Blog than I previously worked on. 

This time I want to focus on gardens (specifically our garden) and other gardening and yard projects. 

I will periodically post images from our gardens, yard, etc, while also writing about controlling pests, and promoting growth and lush home gardens.

This first post is includes a series of images from our gardens and yard--to give you all a base-line to understand our passion for our gardens and landscaping.

Enjoy!