Took a quick trip out to Bartram Forest in Milledgeville this weekend.
The doggies enjoyed it a lot.
I loved the forest.
The dogs loved running around.
And the beautiful blue skies were really that blue.
Last year I wrote about the labyrinth out at the forest. Oodles more pictures of this trip over here.
Had a great time at the show!
Thanks to everyone who came by to say hi and take home their very own Fluffy Flowers creature.
I enjoyed meeting you all :)
If you weren't able to attend then head on over to my online shop where I'm having a huge Buy one Get One Free Sale.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the United States.
We're getting ready with oodles of food and fun. Happy Thanksgiving!
Come see the Fluffy Flowers creatures in person tomorrow at:
This was my booth from last year. Check out some of last year's vendor's here. And here is a complete list of who will be there this year. Y'all stop by and say hey and meet me and the creatures!
I can't believe it's nearly Thanksgiving.
The year has gone so quickly.
And we're still wearing short sleeves here.
But I imagine all that will change soon.
It feels like a change is coming.
I meant to tell y'all a while ago that I put some really cute Twirly Girls in my shop.
Each one is unique and has a colorful, pretty skirt.
I just love how cute they are!
It was a beautiful fall weekend. I spent nearly the entire time building my kitty cat army. I'm exhausted from it! I'll try to snap a photo of them today before they get packed up and ready for the Indie Craft Experience show. How was your weekend?
Y'all know I'm new to this gardening stuff, right? I barely know how to get a plant into the ground. Well, last year about this time we were visiting my mother in law in Dublin, Georgia and I saw the most beautiful blooming plant ever.
It had white and pink blooms on the same beautiful bush! Amazing.
"What is it?" I asked my mother in law.
"Confederate Rose" she responded.
"Wow" said I.
Wow, indeed. "I have to have some of that plant!" I screamed.
My mother in law is a kind and generous woman. She took me at my word and, on a visit a couple of months later, I found three long sticks in a five gallon bucket of water to take home. Three sticks. In a bucket of water. I thanked her profusely and dutifully carried the sticks home where I promptly stuck them on the back porch for about, oh, six weeks or so. I did add water to the bucket periodically.
You see, I had no earthly idea what to do with those darn sticks. How exactly does one deal with three long sticks in a bucket of water? She told me to plant them in the ground but somehow my brain just couldn't process that information. I mean, come on, how do I plant them in the ground? They're sticks! How deep? Where? Then what? You've probably figured out by the myriad of questions that ran through my mind that I was paralyzed with fear. I had no idea what to do!
Y'all can probably guess what happened next. Eventually my mother in law came for a visit to my house and there those sticks were, still in the bucket. I wasn't home at the time, but I heard from my sweetheart that she was none too pleased. Those sticks had to go into the ground. Soon!
Somehow I managed to gather my strength and resolve, along with a spade and that bucket of sticks, and get them planted in the ground. As I stood back to observe my handy work all I could think was, "this can't possibly work". But I spent the rest of the summer dutifully putting water on those jokers every single day. I was determined to make them live but if they did die I certainly didn't want to be faulted for lack of watering.
And then an amazing thing happened. Those sticks started to sprout! Eventually those sprouts turned into beautiful green leaves! It was a miracle I tell ya. Through out all of this sprouting period I dared not hope that the sticks would produce blooms. In fact, I chastised myself every time that stray hope wandered through my brain. Until one day while shopping the semiannual Master Gardener's Plant sale a couple of months ago I got to chatting with a lady about my sticks. She disagreed with me when I mentioned that I figured they wouldn't bloom this year. She told me to go home and look for buds.
Well folks, I'm here to tell ya I started to get a little hopeful and a wee tad excited. The next day I got out there with that lady's words ringing through my head and checked out each nook and cranny of those sticks and their sprouts. And lo and behold, I found flower buds. Wow! I was out there every day after that, marveling as bud after bud appeared on all three sticks. The dark cloud of doubt still hung over me as I watched those buds mature and realized that I would be out of town for a few days very soon. Would I miss the first bloom?!
Turns out that I didn't miss it at all. The first bloom popped out the day before I headed out of town. And what followed upon my return was a flush of plump, beautiful fluffy flowers that were beyond all of my hopes and dreams. It was nothing short of a miracle, I tell ya. And I am so utterly amazed by this entire wondrous process called gardening.
I was busy as sin on Halloween. But between my busyness I had a moment of serenity that I did not appreciate as well as I should have at the time. I appreciate it now.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/croatoan_found/512177446/
Last Friday night I got to hang out with Erica Glasener, host of HGTV's A Gardener's Diary. Yep, it was me, her, and about fifty other folks! Erica came down from Atlanta to give a lecture at the Garden Club here in Macon.
She is just as sweet in person as she is on the show and I really enjoyed hearing her speak and watching her slide show. I recognized several photos from gardens she's visited on the show including Lucinda Hutson's garden which I absolutely love.
Erica spoke about creating a four season garden here in Georgia. Now this is a topic after my own heart! This is what I've wanted forever but what I couldn't articulate. I simply didn't have the words to express this desire until I read Mrs. Greenthumbs. She was the one who explained it in terms I could understand. Mrs. Greenthumbs explained my want, which is similar to hers, to have multiple climaxes in the garden. Y'all know what I mean! I want color to bloom and be beautiful in my garden all year round, not just in spring when you can throw a few annuals in the ground to march in rows like little soldiers. No, I want a proper cottage garden with oodles of perennials that bloom year round and flop around on top of each other. Erica was kind enough to share with us some of her favorites and she even provided a handout with plants broken down by blooming season.
Erica has a bit of a sense of humor too. She doesn't mind adding non-native plants to her garden. I agreed with her when she said "nothing is native to asphalt." :) Like me, she's also anti Crepe Murder. That's where folks cut those beautiful trees down to sticks in the winter. Who on earth came up with that idea anyway? Erica encouraged us to personalize our gardens and to mimic nature whenever possible. If you're in or traveling through the Atlanta area then Erica recommends shopping at the Garden Hood plant nursery.
Overall, it was a fun and informative evening. But I saved the best for last because that sweet Erica brought prizes! She gave her lecture standing next to a huge beautiful bouquet of flowers and fluff picked from her garden. And she also had three small potted hydrangeas to give away. The first two were snapped up mighty quick by a couple of brainy folks who answered her plant species questions from her bouquet. I just sat there racking my brains thinking to myself "uh, asparagus fern, maybe?" It was not asparagus fern.
Anyway, to make a long story endless, for the last plant prize Erica asked for an audience member whose birthday was today. Nada. Ok, how about someone whose birthday was this week, she asked. Nothin'. Alrighty then, who has my birthday, October 16th, she asked. Not a peep. Erica was stumped! The audience started calling out other plant giveaway question ideas. None of them floated her boat. Finally, Erica was thinking quick on her feet and she said, ok, who here is new to gardening?
Well folks, I'm pretty sure there was less than a nanosecond for my brain to process this thought and run down to my arm because I shot my hand up in the air so fast I'd swear I'd been through some sort of space, time continuum. Yes, I thought, yes, I AM new to gardening! And because I had strategically placed myself directly in Erica's line of site, in the middle aisle seat at the back, her eyes landed right on me. That's when she said some sort of pretty words about giving it to that "enthusiastic young lady there". Yes, Erica, that was me and I really, really love my prize. You must have known, surely, that hydrangeas are my absolute favorite plants. I'm sure you must have known that for months I've been planning to install several in my front yard. And, surely Erica, you must have known that as a relatively new gardener I could use all the help I could get in the form of a fabulous plant aptly named Hydrangea Invincebelle Spirit. Yes, Erica, I'm sure you must have known all of this when you kept asking your questions, waiting for me to come up with the answer. Because now, you see, I have every desire in the world to keep that plant alive, to plant it in the ground and see it grow, to photograph the beautiful blooms in the cottage garden of my dreams. Thanks Erica, for the inspiration!
Hard to believe this is the 5th anniversary of Macon's off leash dog park.
It seems like just yesterday that I was attending committee meetings to get the park established.
Now there is a steady flow of both two legged and four legged users.
And this weekend there was a doggy costume contest to celebrate.
Along with oodles of spooky decorations.
All these doggies were cute as cake!
And even the ones who didn't care about the contest had fun.
