Sunday, September 1, 2019

On the Roof, It's Peaceful As Can Be

Here are some photos of flowers and a short video of visitor activity on our rooftop garden. This year we planted in mid June rather than the end of May. Then due to intense rainfall throughout late June and most of July we had to wait to do our big chore of staining the deck. We needed to wait until August before the deck was completely dry for a four day period. Then had to move EVERYTHING off the main deck in order to scrub, wash, and then stain the entire deck. Joe and I did it all alone. No one has any interest in what goes on up on our rooftop deck. There are six other apartments in our building and for the past three years we rarely encounter anyone up there. As the years go by it continues to be a private retreat for us even though it's open to everyone who lives here.












We planted sunflowers and assorted wildflowers (many of which I still don't know the names) from seeds. Everything else was purchased as small single plants from a local nursery. This is the first year that everything has exploded in color and expanded to large numbers of blooms. All of it continues to thrive now that we've reached September.



All summer long various butterflies, bumble bees and honey bees, and on occasion a hungry bird have stopped by. I spotted a goldfinch chowing down on sunflower seeds from one of the tallest flowers one afternoon back in August, but I didn't have my phone/camera with me so missed an opportunity to get a video of that. But here's a bit of bee activity for you.

Our Mexican Torch plant (above) had its first bloom only two days ago when in past years it was the very first flower to bloom and would last well into late September.  I don't think we'll have many more blooms on that plant because it's already beginning to cool down with temps rarely reaching 80.

12 comments:

  1. What a great little rooftop paradise you two have created! Congratulations on nurturing all of the flora into bloom; although I don't see any orchids (likely not conducive to Chicago's climate), I think that Wolfe and Theodore would approve. Hope you have great weather and can enjoy a relaxing transition into autumn.

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    1. Sunflowers (8 varieties) and zinnias are the primary plants. Also unusual petunia hybrids (one is a very dark purple that makes it seem black), gazania, lantana, portulaca (moss rose), and the many unknown wildflowers. There are also two maple trees on the roof (one seen at the edge of one photo) each over ten years old now. We also have impatiens on our front private balcony and gerbera daisies on our back balcony/deck. We went overboard with flowers this year and they all did amazingly well.

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  2. Very nice -- you did an excellent job!

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  3. Thanks for the beautiful pictures and for creating such a great rooftop haven!

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  4. What a beautiful refuge for you. I imagine that with your high temperatures you have to do a lot of watering. I couldn't live without my garden but it's distinctly autumnal now in Scotland, and it never reached 80F over the whole summer - thankfully.

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    1. Yes, watering happens every evening. If I was at home during the day, probably it would be twice a day. But I have a day job and I'm not too keen about early morning rising so I'm never up there before I leave at 7:30 AM. We do most of our work on the weekends. There's a rain barrel that we have to attend to, but not seen in any of the photos. When we go without rain for several days we fill it using regular water using a long garden hose that we run up along the outside wall of the building -- four flights up -- from a faucet down in the back.

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  5. Beautiful John. Your deck looks so inviting. Our flowers did well this year. You and Joe did better.

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  6. The roof terrace in my building also serves as a private retreat fot me. There are 7 other apartments in my building but they hardly go to the roof. Of couse, the terrace has no flowers or plants and is empty. But there is a lot of greenery surrounding the building and I can see several varities of birds.
    Out of curiosity, who is Joe ? Your younger brother ?

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    1. Good for you. We’re living parallel lives. Frightening, isn’t it? Joe is most definitely not my brother— neither younger nor older. Not even a twin.

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  7. Very, VERY nice, and what a treat fro you both and for the bees, butterflies and other visitors! Terrific job, guys. Thank you for sharing this, John, I really enjoyed it.

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  8. That's lovely JOhn. When I saw the post title I thought 'what a fascinating book that must be', and although delighted to see your flowers, I also think that 'On the roof, it's peaceful as can be' would be a great book. I'd read it.

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    1. That’s a lyric line from “Up on the Roof”, an old James Taylor tune. It was written by Carole King. It was first recorded by The Drifters. Lots of covers of it by now. If you don’t know it find it online and listen. I like the JT version the best.

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