Oh my. What is a passionate rose lover like you doing in that glacial hell hole? Reading about your endeavors has exhausted me and I haven't even lifted a shovel. I admire your grit and determination, but would love to see you rewarded with thousands of blooms on your rose bushes for all your hard work. I bet they could use engineers in zones 7 to 10!

Tj - Great eyes! I was trying to find were did you see that blue hose in the newest images! Not the same one but identical blue one! Lol Dave - Not even close to your garden! And I'm not kidding. I've placed the camera so that it hides all the weeds and grass, the dead plants, the small unintresting ones and the unfinished parts (which is the majority of the islands). Thank you for your words, always meaning a lot coming from you. Thank you Ron and Alex! Beng- As Gared said, this is Sequiadendron but not 'Glaucum'. It's the species, an aproximately 15 year old tree that spent 10 years in a pot and I've got it for 5 years in the ground, finally getting fully established and without irrigation (for 2 years now) it gave me more than 2 feet of growth this season. Looking at 3.5 m tall (11 feet). Fun fact, next to it I have a 5 year old I've grown from seed and it has quite glaucus foliage very similar to my 'Glaucum', at 7 feet tall. And behind this Sequiadendron (and a bit to the right) you can see my 5 year old Sequoia I've grown from seed peeking now at 4.5 m tall (14 -15 feet). Best regards, Fotis

Hey! Not sure how old this message is, but I have grown Bananas in Milwaukee Wisconsin for the past 5 years! I do not plant them in the ground at all. A friend of mine in the Houston area was getting rid of his and chopping them down, he gave me half of a root ball (Rhizome) and I brought it with me on the plane ride home. By the time I landed it had already started growing! I put it in a large pot and put it outside. It grew quickly. FOr the winter I went to Menards and bought a plug in large shop light fixture and full spectrum flourescents and mounted them in my basement. The plant continued to grown. The next year I put it outside again and grew even taller. By the end of that summer I actually had the Flag Leaf and a bananana flower. I brought it in the house again and by January I actually had the sweet smell of banana flower in my house and a few hands of small bananas. Putting them in the ground will not fly in Illinois. But if you buy them and put them in pots, you will do just fine. The only other recommendation I have is this. I am not familiar with Species names, but it seems to me the bananas with Green Leaves are much more tolerant of adverse conditions than the ones with purplish leaves. However, I found a "straggler" in the back of the greenhouse where I buy my plants that looked 3/4 dead. It didnt even have a price on it. So I picked it up and put it in the cart and its had a heck of a summer here. Friend me on Facebook to see pictures of my plants. (Most of them are bananas and tropical plants) https://www.facebook.com/mick.zupan

Well, here we go. Thanks again, everyone. Looking east from the house. You can see the "bumps" of weeds growing around the old stumps of the mature Norway Spruces that were removed in spring of 2014. I need to get those stumps removed or ground down. I'll call and get some estimates this week. Looking south. Ignore that dead Japanese Maple on the left. It was another casualty of the water issue. It's coming down when my neighbor comes back from his kayaking trips. As you can see, there's plenty of room for trees. Shade and height are sorely needed since the other trees were removed. Plus, I'm tired of mowing. By the time I'm done, I have no energy left to tend to all the weeding and other things that need to be done. Now, for the small front yard on the south side of the house, looking east again. Where the pokeweed is growing in the foreground, there used to be a huge sugar maple. It was taken down about 5 years ago and the stump was ground down. Lots of electric wires in the way and close to the road. I'd like to shade that area in the summer, but don't know what to put there. I wouldn't mind height, but the width would have to be restrained. Peonies around the foundation will be coming out and planted elsewhere. Nothing here, except for the Japanese maple that was planted in the early 1990s, needs to stay. Yeah, I'll get around to removing those weeds in the foreground too. :-) Another angle, looking west. As you can see, there's no shortage of trees around here, except for my yard, which is pretty much naked now. :-) A few more random pics of that part of the yard for some more scale.