Pincushion flower: A butterfly magnet

Pincushion flower gets its common name from the center of the flower resembling pins stuck in a pincushion. This plant was awarded Perenniel plant of the year 2000.

It is a prolific bloomer having lacy lavender blue blooms from spring till frost. It is excellent front of the border plant. The delicate blue flowers add softness to the garden when combined with yellow/red flowers. It attracts butterflies.

After planting our plants we noticed small butterflies in our garden. It was so difficult going around them to get some pictures. But one fine day I found a beautiful large butterfly fluttering by our flowers. I managed to click some shots. I am waiting for that day, when I can get shots of many more butterflies in our garden.

Pleasant entrance garden

The entrance is a spotlight of any house. It is very important to have a pleasant inviting entrance. According to Feng Shui a neat and beautiful entrance encourages postive energy flow.

Our house entrance had two evergreen trees standing like pillars in front of the door. It seemed to block the door view and darkened the space. We wanted to open up this space and add a beautiful garden having attraction for all seasons.

The most challenging work was to remove those evergreen trees. Once that was done, the whole area was prepared for the planting. The plan for this area was to place a tree form lilac as a focal point, surrounded by evergreen yews and bordered by perennial flowers. Finishing touches were added to enhance the area and the entire project got completed in September 2006.

Our first garden bed

With arrival of spring in 2006, we decided to start working on our first garden bed in the bird feeder and bird bath area. The main goal was to provide some hiding spaces for the birds when they visit this area.

The plan for this area was to have a spring flowering shrub, Lilac to be surrounded with some evergreen boxwoods and some daylilies in the border. We managed to complete the work in one weekend. Our lilac had its first bloom in couple of days. The fragrance of the blooms lingered in the patio for days. The daylilies started having couple of blooms everyday

Birds seemed happy with the new hiding spaces around the bushes. And we were very much delgihted with the beauty of our new garden.

Here is a snapshot of the garden.

Inviting birds to our backyard

It feels good staying close to nature admiring lush greenery, walking in the woods, relaxing under trees and listening melodious songs of birds. So the first thing we setup in our yard was a birdbath and some bird feeders to invite birds . Bird watching is an interesting hobby. Its really amazing to see little colorful birds full of energy. They add life to any garden.

Slowly birds started visiting our yard in the feeder area. In couple of weeks we started observing many varieties of birds. And then, the feeder area was always busiest place in our yard.

Here are some birds visiting our bird feeders and bird bath.

Our journey into gardening

It all started when we moved to our new house in Chicago. Its really a challenge to have gardens in Midwest due to the severe winter and a short summer. Gardening here, asks for too much patience. We moved in Fall 2005 which is pretty much end of growing season. We were quite curious to do something in our yard. So we got couple of tulip bulbs and planted them while it was already cold somewhere in October. Now, we nearly had to wait for 6 months to see the result.

Winter somehow passed away with just couple of snowing days. On arrival of spring we were very excited to see our tulip bulbs. As the weather started warming up, we saw couple of bulbs popping out of the ground. . Soon the entire area was filled with the tulip plants. All of them had blooms by April. They were absolutely amazing. We were very happy that our first step into gardening was a great success. But we were slightly disappointed to know that the blooming period of tulip is very short, just about 2 weeks. That’s when we realized to have beautiful gardens all around the yard.

And thus our journey into gardening begins…