The Great Garden Tour Bust of '09

Well, the garden tour is now history - and what a waste of my time that was! I damn near killed myself last week, weeding and planting and mulching all day, every day. The grand total of visitors? Fifteen. As in 15. Even more irritating was that I convinced a friend of mine to come over and spend the four hours with me, because I figured I'd need one of us in the front and one in the back to answer questions, etc. We ended up spending the time sitting at the foot of the driveway, chit-chatting. (I made it up to her by giving her a glass of wine on the patio afterward.) One thing that really puzzled me regarding the lack of attendance was the prominent absence of my fellow garden clubbers. They're usually all over garden tours, and I know that this one got announced to the district clubs, but only 3 showed up. I was on a garden tour at this time of year in '04, and I was mobbed. People were still coming even after the official closing time. Despite intermittent showers that day it was still an unqualified success, mainly due to a compliment from an important source. The woman in question is from England, and for many years had a well-respected landscape design service in the area. She's a recognized authority on all things horticultural. At one point, she came over to me and said, "For sheer variety of plant material alone, this is far and away the best garden on the tour." Now that really meant something! Quite a contrast to yesterday's lack of interest; one couple arrived and departed in less than 5 minutes. (I guess they were supporting the institution that put the tour on - they apparently didn't give a rip about the plants.) Oh well, at least I have my memories...........

Green Thoughts (My Version)

I was looking outside after a brief shower this evening, and I was struck as I am every May with how intensely green this month is. And how can there be so many variations on one color? Grass, emerging leaves, open leaves, seedlings - each and every one is different from everything else around it. Sometimes looking at it all, I have the feeling that I've never seen green before until this moment. Do other people, other gardeners think similar thoughts at this time of year, I wonder? Or do I just have an extremely ill-regulated mind?

I'm Hurtin'!

I am to be part of a garden tour this coming Saturday. This would normally be a good thing, because at this time of year my garden is at peak. However, a number of things have thrown a monkey wrench into the works. To begin with, I returned from my trip to the Netherlands with a bronchial infection that caused me to miss the first 10 days of this month; no gardening of any kind was done during that time. Then, just as I was pretty much back to full strength, our best friends arrived for their annual vacation. Sally is my dearest friend of nearly 30 years, so you bet your assets that I wasn't about to do anything but have an inordinate amount of fun for a week. Although I did at least acquire some plants. The four of us went on a winery tour of one of the Finger Lakes - eight wineries participated, and offered tastings, specialty foods, and two plants to each participant (one flower, one herb). Sally and Carl are wine experts, so they had all the wine they wanted and I scored a boatload of plants - a win-win for all concerned! Still, there were several big flower beds that haven't been touched since the beginning of April, and more than one resembles a jungle at this point. So in order to impress the tourists, I have no choice but to kill myself edging and weeding - forget planting any of this stuff. And forget having everything look perfect; I'll have to settle for good enough. Perfect is right off the table. Even at that, the hard physical labor and crawling around on hands and knees is taking a serious toll on my poor fibromyalgia/arthritis afflicted body. I've been at it hard for two straight days, eight hours a day - and when I come in I can hardly move. Normally, I'd work like that for one day, then off the next. Unfortunately, I don't have the luxury of time at this point. This is pushing me hard, and all I'm doing is cosmetics. Of course, I have to keep reminding myself that the general public will only see the incredible plant diversity and think it's awesome. And anyone (like a fellow Master Gardener) who has more horticultural knowledge than the general public will have the good taste to ignore what didn't get done. Still, I can't wait for Sunday - I intend to sit around and do no physical labor whatsoever. And take copious quantities of Tylenol Arthritis.........

The Plant's In The Mail

It was like Christmas morning today - my plant orders have begun to arrive! Two boxes showed up this afternoon, chock full of treasures, with more to follow. I tried to cut my wish list back this year (with moderate success), but greed will out. Everyone that I buy from always has such neat stuff! I just have to indulge myself a bit.....OK, more than a bit. In my defense, I am slated to be on a garden tour at the end of this month, and I'm billed as a plant collector's garden, so we need to look the part, don't we? Now, if we could only get off the "frost advisory" kick, I could start doing some planting........

Lilac Time!

I've got a really filthy bronchial infection that we brought home from our trip, and reason would dictate that I stay indoors until I start improving.  Well, reason can take a hike.  It was sunny and warm today, and when I looked out and saw my lilacs blooming, I had to go out.  I have 8 different varieties and I buried my nose in every single one.  Going around the property:  'Sensation' out front (purple with white picotee edge), 'George Eastman' on the southwest corner (a smaller-flowered wine color).  'Dappled Dawn' on the northwest corner (blue-violet with gold-variegated leaves), then in the back yard I have single and double-flowered whites; 'Primrose' that opens a butter yellow and matures to cream; the lovely, pale pink 'Beauty of Moscow' and finally, the wine purple of 'Charles Joly'.  Along with all the violets carpeting my flowerbeds, the dominant color at the moment seems to be purple.

TGI - Botanical Latin?!?

I just returned from a long-dreamed of trip to the Netherlands (my first trip abroad), and one of the places my husband and I sought out in Amsterdam was the city's botanical garden.  This was a lovely place in the heart of the old city, small but fascinating.  I enjoyed walking around the parterred beds, checking out what was blooming that day, poking around in the greenhouses, etc. However, not for the first time, I was deeply grateful that I am conversant with botanical Latin.  I have been unfairly tagged as elitist by some; when asked to identify a plant I tend to give the Latin name first.  The only reason for this is that when I was going to school for my hort degree, the Plant Materials class required tons of rote memorization of Latin names.  And thank goodness it did, because naturally the signage at the gardens was all in Dutch, with the Latin following.  If I didn't know the botanical Latin, the Dutch in many cases would have been indecipherable, and I wouldn't have known what the hell a lot of the plants were!