Gardening GLee!

Feb. 8, 2008
Waxahachie, TEXAS.....

There was a happy reunion with my grandaughter Rena and her parents this past week. Grandpa and I kept her for nine days while her Mother went on a business trip to Arizona and California. I miss the patter of her little feet but I did have a day off from babysitting when her parents returned so Judie and I went on a little gardening outing. We ran by Midlothian to look at a landscape and then we were off to Ft. Worth to visit garden centers. We went to Weston's Garden In Bloom. This is a destination nursery, definitly off the beaten path. It has been several years since I have been there and I was anxious for Judie to see the water gardens and big ship that was in their display gardens. But the display gardens were closed, they are now only opened on weekends. I had heard they had afternoon tea tastings, but that was weekends only, also. We were inticed by many flavors of teas and the beautiful teapots. They had added a pet accessery shop with many, many too cute things for sale. There grounds were very neat and they had such a nice variety of plants and garden supplies. This Saturday and Sunday they will be having their Rose Day and Chocolate Sampling. (This is a real bum thing working retail, I very, very seldom get off on Saturday and there are so many great events on Saturday RATS!)

Judie and I have a mutual friend that has been under the weather so we picked a very special tea to take to her. The tea is dropped into the hot water and when the tea is inserted into the water the tea blossoms into a flower. There was so many to choose from, but we chose one that would turn to the color red and the flower blossom would look like a red carnation. The company's name was Posey Teas and they are on web at www.poseyteas.com. They had many clear teapots available to use with these tea posies. A year ago December Judie andI and some of our dear friends had gone to a formal tea at College Street Tea Room in Waxahachie. We had a splendid time and Ronny the proprietor of the tea room delighted us with much information about teas and she had told us that these tea posies were available.

I also purchased a reference book on butterflies from a great selection of interesting books they had availble. I don't know why but I just had to buy a packet of giant pumpkin seed as if I did not have enough seed already.

Down the road we visited another nursery that I have heard so much about and that was Designs by Nature, also in Ft.Worth. My what a nice nursery I was not dissappointed. They had several water gardens, many, many trees, such a variety and they looked great. They had iron, televerra pottery, organic products, a line of garden photography and cement statues. They had cute little pathways and even a fish in midair above the water gardens, this made me chuckle. Even their bathroom was deccorated with garden inspirations. They had painted their bathroom in a sage green and stenciled butterflies in flight, there was a colorful ceramic lizard on the wall as if it were lurking up in the corner. Lots of nature stencils and the bathroom mirror framed in an iron garden gate. How Fun!!

After visiting garden centers and eating a delightful supper we went to first Wednesday. That is an organic garden meeting at Lucy Harrell's in Arlington. She is such a great teacher and it is always so fun to meet with fellow gardeners. Lucy has been an organic gardener and landscaper for over thirty years and she has endless amounts of knowledge to share.

Back at home I am installing a new heater in my greenhouse, slowly but surely. The tomatoes are popping up in the greenhouse and I have ordered more heating pads. I use heating pads made for use in the greenhouse to warm the temperature of the soil to about 75 degrees for germantion of my little seedlings. I have two pads already and I am adding two more they are about two feet wide and about 4 feet long. I am so glad a greenhouse grower told me about these.

Today was a beautiful sunny day. The gardeners are waking up from winter hibernation and coming back to The Greenery, today they were greeted with gorgeous brightly colored African daisies, yellow and orange and bright pink and bold red cylamen. The color is so refreshing and reassuring that SPRING IS COMING. I love busy days and it is delightflul to see our customers again and engage in gardening chit- chat after the looong winter months.

Well I had better head to the greenhouse and get a little work done.

Gardener Glee