Gardening Archives - Page 44 of 82

Bzzzz April 25th, 2008

Well, pretty bad, as it turns out.

I returned home from a week in Geneva, Switzerland, on Wednesday night. As I came down the long and winding driveway, this is what I saw.

My husband and son had mowed the lawn.

Actually, it didn’t look so much as if someone had mowed the lawn as if some large lawn-eating monster had CHEWED the lawn and spit it back out.

The grass was cut to about three different heights–scalped, medium and skyscraper.

Tufts of tall grass sprang up here and there from the rest of the lawn like little green islands.

Impressive quantities of cut and drying grass were left long swaths.

Whole areas of the lawn were left uncut altogether.

Now, you may wonder if Harry and Ben were trying to:

a) Impress on me that I should continue to do all the lawn mowing chores and/or b) Punish me in a way that I would find exceptionally painful for going off to Switzerland and leaving them here to care for my two little dogs.

They say it was neither of these reasons. They swear that the mowing fiasco was a result of too much rain, a broken riding mower and heat. (Apparently it’s blazing hot here in Maryland in April.)

So, while my bags were left packed in the bedroom, I headed out yesterday and spent FOUR HOURS repairing the ravaged lawn. Yes, the riding mower was broken, but I managed nicely with the little push mower. And yes, I did insist that Ben help rake, although he continued to mutter that the lawn looked perfectly nice the way they had cut it.

There’s nothing like having to mow an acre of grass with a little push mower after a 10-hour flight to make you feel needed.

HOW BAD IS IT? VOTE AND LET ME KNOW.

Tell me what you think. Am I over reacting? At the top right hand side of this page in the Totally Unscientific Survey Center, you can vote for how bad my beautiful lawn looks after a week in the care of the two men in my life. Cast your vote now!

Posted In: Gardening

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Bzzzz April 8th, 2008

Those Austin folks sure know how to show hospitality!

Pam (Digging), MSS (Zanthan Gardens), Diana (Sharing Nature’s Garden) and Bonnie (Kiss of Sun) hosted nearly 40 garden bloggers from 12 states at the Garden Bloggers Spring Fling. They spent months organizing tours of public and private gardens, soliciting prizes and gifts for welcome packages and communicating all the details about the event. They even offered their guest rooms and drove us all around Austin from garden to nursery to restaurant. I can’t imagine how many hours went into planning this event for a bunch of virtual strangers.

Laura (Greenfish Artist and Gardener), Diana (Sharing Nature’s Garden) and Kathy (Cold Climate Gardening)

Pam told me that when they first thought of the idea the big question was, “Do you think anyone would come?” Well, it seems to me that the question for next year’s organizing team should be “How will we deal with all the people who will come?” Because I can guarantee that come hell or high water I’ll be there. And after all the photos that I and the other garen bloggers will be showing you over the next few days, you’ll want to start a garden blog (if you don’t have one) so you can join us.

You know, I almost didn’t go? But when Kathy at Cold Climate Gardening mentioned in an email (yes, bloggers communicate off-blog too) that she was going, I couldn’t pass up the chance to meet her and so many of the other people I feel like I have come to know, just a bit.

Susan (Garden Rant), Suzanne (Verte), Vicki (Playin’ Outside) and Gail (Clay and Limestone)

Still, heading into this event I felt like I was going on a blind date–with 40 people. Would I have to talk about plants in their Latin names the whole time? What if someone asked me a gardening question and I couldn’t answer?

Well, I needn’t have worried. And, really, I did already “virtually” know some of the folks.

Among those folks that I “virtually” knew, I “actually” met Laura, from Greenfish Artist and Gardener. I had purchased three fabulous watercolors from Laura’s Etsy store and learned we share a love of tea.

Diana and Dee (Red Dirt Ramblings)

I also met Dee from Red Dirt Ramblings. I remember when Dee started her blog and have always admired her country home.

There was also Elizabeth and Susan (another Maryland gardener!) from Garden Rant, one of my favorite blogs because of its provocative posts.

And, of course, I met Kathy, who reminded me to go, and also Carol from May Dreams Gardens. I was grateful that Carol didn’t seem to think I am a raving lunatic for leaving a huffy post about the responsibility of owning a dog in response to her comparing getting a tree to getting a puppy. Or maybe she did think I’m a raving lunatic, but she’s just too nice to let it show. (Now that I think about it, she did mention it.)

So what are garden bloggers like? Well, as it turns out, all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all our gardens (and children) are above average.

Thanks again to all my new friends from Spring Fling!

Posted In: Blogging, Gardening, Travel