Heuchera Health

I'm trying the next possible way to get Facebook to pull through a picture. This suggestion says to put a picture before any text. Let's see if this works.

Today's post is going to be a report on all my various Heuchera. It will be long, because I now have quite a nice collection! The picture above is one of the new ones this year called 'Smoke and Mirrors.' It looks really good.

On the other hand, I think, with no regrets, I'm going to give up on the very first one I bought about 30 years ago. It's the very common 'Purple Palace.' One year it got about twice this big, but it just never was able to thrive. Who knows why? I have a very pretty Heucheralla picked out to put in the space, but I need to not buy any more plants for a while. At least any that cost more than a couple of bucks.

This is another common one, 'Caramel.' Because it's common, I thought I didn't want one, but I decided it would look really good in this spot, and I was right.

In general, I've tried not to have any duplicates, but I did split the 'Caramel.' The piece was quite small, but I think it's going to live. I know it doesn't look great, but it is alive.

The other one I have several of is 'Firefly.' I love the bright green of the leaves and the flowers are actually showy enough to enjoy. You can see one of the late ones still in this picture taken today.

'Midnight Rose' has darkened. The pink spots don't show up as well as earlier in the season, but I suspect that this is normal. It also looks good except for a few leaves that got a bit too much sun. I kept them out of the picture.

This one is'Seasons King.'

Which contrasts nicely with 'Carnival Cinnamon Stick.'

Here's the first one I bought other than the ill-fated 'Purple Palace.' This is 'Cathedral Windows.' It almost died from the days when the animals browsed through the gardens at will. They killed quite a few nice plants. But this came back.

When I put in 'Caramel,' I moved 'Peach Flambe' to a new location. It's not really happy there and has gotten smaller. I'll need to watch it. The light is too dappled for a good picture, but I like the color a lot. It was the first one I bought in 2023 when I started trying to spiff up this garden bed.

Another that I bought, maybe later the same year was 'Electric Plum.' It is also brighter earlier in the season. But it, too, has gotten smaller, and it's one of my favorites, so I'll need to watch it. When the light shines through the leaves they really do seem electric.

Also purchased in 2023 was 'Dark Knight,' which is naturally smaller, but I really like the shape of the leaves.

I think there's just one other, which is 'Amber Lady.' It stays fairly red all season.

So how many different ones is this? Not counting 'Purple Palace,' it's eleven different ones. Of course, I have picked out a couple others I want. Eventually... not right away!

I said today was going to be a rest day, and I enforced that except for truly minimal putzing in the gardens. Mostly I read books. Tomorrow I need to get back in gear.

See Front Garden Report #1- 2024

Holland Centennial Park Gardens

 I thought I showed you some pix last year of the gardens at the park where the Art in the Park vendor event is held, but apparently not. They are very nice!

The gardens are dedicated to L. Frank Baum because his family cottage was nearby, and it is believed that he wrote a fair amount of The Wizard of Oz while at the cottage. The book is a frame covered with 6000 plants. It is taken inside every winter.

I'll only show you a few of the garden beds. There were many! This one has several kinds of hosta - big ones- a purple heuchera, and a border of begoinias.

I love this! It's a very light-colored Hakone grass with really dark heuchera.

One whole garden was edged with alternate coleus and begonias.

Mass plantings of zinneas were bright! This has a racemed hydrangea behind it.

This was also one of my favorites. This is two different kinds of coleus both in the Flamethrower series. The red is 'Adobo Pink' and the green is 'Salsa Verde.'

I did OK at the event. The weater was cool (good), but drippy with sprinkles (hard to manage books, and lower attendance). The worst was I had a stomach ache all afternoon. Only a minimal clue why. Pretty much gone now.

I am declaring tomorrow a mostly rest day.

I may have figured out how to force Facebook to post a picture. We'll see. Of course it's a pain in the butt.

See Hemlock Crossing and More

Hemlock Crossing and More

I have landed at Jean's for the night with the Hollard Art in the Park tomorrow. We already have the canopies set up, and we've talked author and editor stuff till we kind of ran down.

I stopped on the way down here today and hiked at a new-to-me park. I think it's going to be my favorite stop on the way to Holland. Called Hemlock Crossing, on the Pigeon River (the short one that's totally in Ottawa County).

Here's another view showing the footbridge to the trails.

There are miles of ski loops mostly in the woods. Moderate topography. The whole thing also connects to a regional multi-use trail

I just liked this log.

I hiked 5.3 miles, and there are probably at least that many more miles of trail without duplicating very much.

At Jean's, she's been working really hard at cleaning up her hillside garden. It's looking fantastic.

I'll probably show you more of it another day, but for now, here's a coreopsis called 'Golden Threads.'

Best of all, I got to meet her new dog, a cheaglehund (chihuahua, beagle, dascshund mix) named Loki. She's going to have to watch me carefully, or he might end up coming home with me. He is 7 pounds of spring loaded beagle. I'm definitely in love.

I have to go to sleep now. I'm beat.

Miles walked in 2026: 269.1
Onekama Challenge: 80.9 miles.

Hemlock Crossing park, Holland, Michigan, various loops- 5.3 miles.

See Jean's Garden

When Life Gives You Orange

When life gives you orange, well... you have orange!

Orange is not my favorite color, but it's sort of interesting because there aren't very many flowers, and very few wildflowers, that are orange. Most of the ones that are orange are lilies.

The common "Ditch Lily" is always orange. It is not native, and a lot of people are trying to get us all to get rid of it, but it's so naturalized, I don't see that happening. All the day lilies are imports from Asia.

However, there are a lot of orange butterflies. This is a Northern Crescent. Google tried to tell me it was a Pearl Crescent, but my good butterfly book says Northern. They don't look THAT much alike. It's enjoying some Joe-Pye Weed.

Did you know that some kinds of baby carrots grow on tall stems?

You know I'm kidding, right? But I've never had Tiger Lilies before, so watching them color up and take days to open was sort of mysterious. These are also ornamental plants, imported from Asia about 200 years ago for gardens. There are some native orange lilies.

Here's a view looking up into the flower.

For one of the native orange flowers, here is Spotted Jewelweed or Touch-me-not. It likes to have damp feet.

I tried to make today be more calm. I did a good amount of editing, finished my LDN column for the month, started the third weed-through of the season on the rock garden, dug a little dirt in the moon garden where it was shadier- but there were biting gnats. If I can get my butt in gear to go get gas, I think I'll mow a little yet this evening.

See PFS 2019- Orange

Vince Smith Connections

Today was SO amazing!

Over and over, you've seen pictures of the Vince Smith Memorial Bridge that carries the North Country Trail over the Big Sable River. You might remember that the Forest Service and our trail chapter took out the old wooden bridge and replaced it with a fiberglass reinforced polymer bridge. That was in 2016. (The Forest Service wanted a bridge that didn't have footers in the river.)

The question of the day is, "Who was Vince Smith?" The answer, as we knew it, is that he was a key volunteer with the North Country Trail Association in the early days, before we were a chapter. We knew he spent a lot of time working on trail in the Manistee National Forest, and that the bridge had been named in his memory after he died of cancer. There was an article about him in the North Country Trail Association Newsletter (it wasn't even called the North Star yet) after he died, with a very useless, grainy picture.

The chapter had one tenuous connection. One of our charter members, Gordie Wilkes, had worked with Vince on the trail before he passed away.

Today, I got to meet his daughter Maureen (Mo), and nephew Craig, and their spouses. Here are Mo and Toby, Robin and Craig, on the end of the new bridge with the refurbished sign showing as well.

We got Mo and Craig down on the level with the sign.

Mo has sent me some newspaper articles, and this picture of Vince taken from the Ann Arbor News in 1991 is the best we've ever seen.

After visiting the bridge, we all hiked farther. Craig and Robin had their dogs Ila and Tanner with them. Here's Ila cooling off in the river. I guess I didn't get a picture of Tanner.

And we visited the "Blue Hole," a spring on the edge of the river.

Mo, Craig, the dogs and I hiked 6 miles on the trail plus the 0.3 to access the cars. Then we all went for ice cream at the Sweetfern Cafe.

This fills out a very incomplete story for me and our chapter that we've always wanted to know more about. I'll be writing an article for our chapter newsletter. And we had a great time!

Here is the original bridge the summer after our chapter formed. This is in 1999.

And here it is on one of our chapter hikes in 2015, the last year of the wooden bridge.

Miles walked in 2026: 263.8
Hike 100 Challenge: 98.7 (really close!)
Onekama Challenge: 75.6 (met the weekly goal)

North Country Trail, Lake Co., Michigan. South from 5-Mile Road, 3 miles out and back plus walk to car.

See Trail Adopter Training Day

Can You Guess Where I Went?

I'm working hard to stay on track with the goal I set for the Onekama Challenge. Today I hiked 7 miles. Can you tell where? If you are local and know the trail, you probably recognize this scene.

This remains one of my favorite local hikes. There is a loop, but today I did both directions on the North Country Trail part so that all the miles would count for Hike 100. This is Bowman Lake.

The lily pads were healthy and dragonflies were skittering around.

I found a Blue Jay feather. Nothing of interest was in bloom, but there will be in a couple weeks. We'll see if I get back there.

Tomorrow, unless something goes awry, I am meeting someone interesting for a hike, and this will complete the week-three goal for the challenge as well. So, tomorrow's post will probably include something quite new.

In other news: I edited and had a Zoom meeting in the morning.

Miles walked in 2026: 257.5
Hike 100 Challenge: 92.7
Onekama Challenge: 69.3

North Country Trail, Lake Co, Michigan, 40th St to 56th St and back. 7 miles.

See Taking MOWA to the Trail

Not Red White and Blue

This is not the first time I've attempted a porch planter, but I can't find that I blogged about it before. One year I had a rather nice looking collection in this old ice cream maker, but I don't know when. The link below is one year that I put some house plants outside for the summer.

So, I thought I'd do red, white, and blue. Betsy gave me a geranium which I assumed would be red when it bloomed. I bought a white petunia, I bought one of those very cool dark blue petunias with white spots. I put them all in the planter with some dangling sedum.

The blue petunia died. I really don't know how that happened since they are all in the same planter and were all watered at the same times. And apparently, I didn't even take a picture of it. That makes me sad, but maybe I can get another one next year.

The geranium has turned out to be pink! So pink and white it is.

One of the years that Loretta was here, I put almost all the house plants on the deck and added some railing planters. That was green and leafy and nifty. It doesn't look like I blogged about that either. O well.

Today the humidity was nearly unbearable. I don't function well. I worked my little summer job this morning, shopped, cleaned up the kitchen, walked 2 miles on the road this evening.

Miles walked in 2026: 250.5
Miles walked Onekanma Challenge: 62.3

See Porch Plants