Hello friends & fellow travelers.? What follows is a challenge from a friend & vendor of ours at True North? Mark Walker with Punch Bug Marketing, LLC. Irvington resident, musician, SEO/Website/Marketing genius. Mark challenged me this year to begin blogging a minimum of 1x/week. This will keep us ?relevant & in the loop? so to speak with the virtual Google spiders, but more than that a good discipline for me as a 44 year old man who can?t believe that a business my wife Christy & I started 15 years ago is still going & growing. I hope that 1 or 2 or 10 of you will find some humor, pleasure, or even new insights by reading what follows. The thought is to get through the letters of the alphabet 2x in a calendar year, but not necessarily in alphabetical order! I?ll write about a seasonal interest topic, a favorite shrub, tree, or perennial.? To play by the rules & start it all ?neat & tidy like?, we will begin with A?
A ? is for AMELANCHIER (Serviceberry is the common name ? FYI I?m a simple man & not big on botanical/latin names, but this one starts with A & I had to start somewhere). There are several cultivars, but the most common for us is the Autumn Brilliance Serviceberry, both in a single stem tree form or a clump/bush form. This plant is near & dear to my heart, where I grew up in Saskatchewan, Canada these grow wild & are called ?Saskatoons?. It?s a native word, & they?re famous for their delicious edible berries.? You can go to U-Pick farms throughout the prarie provinces & into the Dakotas & Montana. People PAY to pick these! ?he funny thing is, here in Indianapolis they?re planted in mass as ornamentals (hundreds if not thousands of Serviceberry?s adorn Victory Field, the Zoo, the Canal & White River trails just to name a few locations), but people don?t know how delicious the fruit is. It?s a very hardy plant, doesn?t get too big, & has beautiful fall color. The best part is the berries. Kind of like blue-berries but sweeter! I take my daughters out in May & we pick them by the ice-cream pail full.? You can freeze them, use them on your cereal, eat them straight up, make ?Saskatoon Berry Pie?, wine, syrup, jam, etc?Consider the AMELANCHIER or SERVICEBERRY as a lovely & edible ornamental in your landscape!??
A ? is for AQUASCAPE.? Aquascape is a wonderful company in the Chicago-land area. They manufacture the finest line of water feature & pond supplies available. We?re proud to have used & installed their product line for around a decade now. Check them out at www.aquascapeinc.com. Please consider True North Landscaping if you?d like to have a water garden, pondless waterfall, bubbler, or Rain-X-Change system installed. The joy of having a functional, beautiful sounding, natural looking water feature on your property can?t be compared to anything else in the landscape.?