Succulent planters

I have tons of pictures and ideas  to share with you.... I've been on 4 garden tours and visited several private gardens in the last week!

Yesterday we visited one of my favorite gardens, Bill and Luann's, which is primarily a shade garden.  But, Luann does very creative designs with succulents for the spots of bright light that do occur in their yard and garden beds!  I think she brings a bit of Arizona back with her in the spring!

She told me she plants them and sets them out...never waters them!

This gives you a view of her design from the top!

This one hangs over a planting of hostas!

Fair Flower Show Arrangements

Here are some of the floral arrangements from last night's arranging workshop!

County Fair Time!

Tis the season....for fairs!  Our local county fair is going on right now!   I spent a few hours last night having lots of fun there helping our local garden club with their annual Free Flower Arranging Workshop!

Each year we gather up a big supply of  flowers and plant material from our gardens and supplement that collection by purchasing some additional  flowers!  Then we gather up a supply of floral containers, floral tape, floral oasis and laminated instructions on various arrangement designs and have loads of fun helping all ages who show up to "make a floral arrangement" to enter in a Flower Show!  The line forms quickly and long at the designated start time of 6 PM.    I was so amazed at the 5 yr olds and 6 yr olds  who created stunning designs!  They stood right next to the adults and calmly put together beautiful arrangements to enter!  What a fun experience watching the activity and joy of the designers at work!

The next morning judges come in to evaluate and award ribbons to the winners in the various skill levels and categories!

I need to get back to the fair to get some pictures of the winning arrangements before Sunday when they come back to the fair  to claim their arrangements, ribbons and prize money!

Japanese Beetles! UGH!

Tis the season for Japanese Beetles to make their appearance and here they are!  What to do?

I was touring on another local Garden Tour a few days ago and part of the fun is to keep running into other gardening friends to visit with along the route!

As I was visiting with Mary Ann, who has tons of shade gardens (hostas) as well as sun beds (roses included) we were discussing the topic of the season...Japanese Beetles!   She shared with us what has been working for her the last few years!

If you have done any research in what to do about these ugly critters you have discovered they have  life cycle that just keeps them in our lives and gardens!  You see them now on plants but they lay their eggs and as a result their larva burrows under the soil to grow and winter over to come to the  surface next year to gobble up our plant material again  So, treating them is a two prong attack.  Above the soil and under the soil!   Mary Ann found this product at the local "Fleet Farm" and said it has had significant impact on her herd of beetles!

So, it may be worth a try as it attacks above soil as well as below soil!  It will probably require an on going annual attack but if it works, is well worth the effort.

 I only see a few in my beds...but am off today to search for this product hoping I can protect my plants for the next year!

Wow! What a fantastic experience!

I am resting today, our garden beds were on the Rochester Garden Club Annual Garden Tour this weekend!  It has been fun getting ready for it since spring but am thankful I have a normal city size lot which limits my garden beds in size so not tons of work getting ready for it!

We had storm weather hit on Saturday morning making  it unsafe to have the tour when it was scheduled!  The chairs of this event performed a miracle quickly deciding to contact all the host gardeners, volunteers which included musicians and artists scheduled to be at the gardens and the volunteer club members scheduled to be at each garden to assist....and various vendors who were scheduled to set up in the college garden where the maps/wrist bands were for sale...   Yes was the answer to are you willing to change this to tomorrow, Sunday!  And the tour went on with success the next day!   That's what I call teamwork and creative decision making!

It was a wonderful experience greeting guests to our yard and garden beds!  Gardeners are such fun and appreciative people to be with!  Then later in the afternoon the garden hosts and volunteers jumped on a trolley and had a chance to visit all the gardens on  the tour also!  Long day but full of great  experiences!  I will be sharing  pictures taken in future posts!

continued from yesterday.....

This beautiful veggie garden was planted in the Pergola below!

An unusual private home and garden we visited on the bus tour in June....

Not only were the gardens extensive with a wide variety of plants the home was spectacular and we were invited inside to enjoy it also!  We spent about 90 minutes there and enjoyed every minute!

This was all native and prairie planted area!