Who Says?

Who says weeds are ugly?

This is a common "weed" in our Texas Lawns. Isn't it beautiful?

Mark your calendars!

I have the dates for two plant swaps coming up in the Spring!

The first one is in Fort Worth at Trinity park just off of I-30. The date is April 12 and the time is 10 a.m. until 2 p.m., roughly!

Here is the link to GardenWeb thread discussing the swap. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/txgard/exch0120155231642.html?7

The second swap will be held in the Denton area. I have not yet picked out a location. However, the date is set for Saturday April 26th starting at roughly 10:00 am. I'm going to be looking into a couple parks just off of I-35E.

I will update this post as soon as I get a location settled! Here is the link for the GardenWeb thread discussing the Denton Swap. http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/txgard/exch1011492515337.html?16

Happy Gardening from Rebecca

P.S. I'm going to need helpers. I'd like for someone to help me make sure everybody has nametags and help with "door prize" drawings. Also, if someone would volunteer to be a "photographer" that would be wonderful!

Cool or Cruel?

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas! We had a great holiday season but boy was it busy. We have definetly had our fill of fun parties with friends, lights, cookies, shopping and decorating.

I wanted to show everybody one of the gifts I received. It's a book about herb gardening that my mother picked out for me. I had a feeling it was a book and I was hoping it would be a gardening book! Ma really couldn't have picked out a better one. I have one garden bed where I plan to interplant ornamental plants with edible plants (mostly herbs) so this was perfect. Isn't it pretty? If you think so then you should see the pictures on the inside of the book. The book details 25 different kinds of herbs and how to plant them indoors or out. It also includes recipes. But the pictures are really the best. One picture in particular is my inspiration for how I want my flower and herb bed to look.

So this is a really cool present, right? Or is it cruel? It really is a little bit like torture when you give a gardener a gardening gift for Christmas! I mean, I won't be able to start planting these herbs until at least late march. Even then I have to be prepared to protect them if necessary. So I ask again, is it cool or is it cruel to give a gardener something like this to drool over right at the beginning of winter?

I myself am going to cast my vote for cool! Because book or not, I'd still be itching to get outside and play in the dirt. Now that the holidays are over I plan to start work outside as soon as everything from Christmas is put away. There is compost to put down, beds to dig out, and winter sowing to be done. I just can't help it! I have had a couple months of rest and now I am ready to go back outside.

Thank goodness I live in Texas where the growing season is long and the ground doesn't freeze.

Fall is here!

Fall is upon us! We are still having nice enough weather to put plants in the ground. Not for long though so I better hurry up and put the last of my plants in. Yes, I still have planting to do! I had gone to a plant swap in Fort Worth two weekends ago and came home with quite the haul. Thirty Three different types of plants in all. Some houseplants, some roses, some flowers, some shrubs and trees. You get the point. A little of everything! I ended up getting more than I really had space, or time, to plant all in one go. So the order of the past two weeks has been working around three children and recruiting my husband to help me slowly get everything set up the way I want it. At least until spring. I'm almost done. The last stage of planting happens today, I hope:-)

When the last plants are in the ground and the mulch is on the beds then that will be the official end of my gardening outside for the year. It is time to start getting the inside of the house all pretty for the holidays. I will make sure to post pictures when the garden is a go. I also still have some blooms happening in the garden right now and I want to get them up for winter viewing. But today you will not be seeing pictures from my garden.

Instead I have to post pictures of the plant swap before it slips my mind. The plant swap was held in Fort Worth at the Trinity River Park and was organized by Sylvia from Garden Web. The garden web Texas Forum has been a wonderful resource for me, the amount of gardening knowledge these folks possess is amazing.
This lovely couple were the ones in charge of filling up all our bellies. They hooked us up for sure!

A lovely set up, eh?
This is Debbie and moi. The cute cute cute little boy is her grandson. Debbie was also the resident photographer for the day so I have to say thank you for the pictures.
Julie! And her dad, aka "The Muscle Man"!
This is Sylvia. The wicked awesome bueno cool gal that organized the event.
Kay and her cute little tots:-) Kay brought a ton of really cool pond plants.

Mr Weldon the rose man! I can't remember everyones name, I may have to recruit help.
Another general shot of the plant swap.
Oh, there are those cute grandkids of Debbie's again. My kids stayed home so I could have some Mommy time.
More kids. Hmmmm, maybe next year I can take the kids, if I have room in the car!
This was my table. And all those wonderful green lush things are all mine. It was like falling in love!

It was wonderful to trade for so many new plants but it was even better to talk to people about gardening without their eyes glazing over after five minutes! The plants were really just a bonus. The real prize was hanging out with other obsessed gardeners! I'll be doing this again in spring of next year, for sure.

Also, if you are still hanging on to this awfully long post...I have an announcement. I have had several people interested in a plant swap a little closer to my neck of the woods. I would like to put together something in the spring for the Denton area. So give me your contact information if you are interested in coming and I will let you know what I can pull together.

But all you Fort Worthers need have NO fear. I will be back.

Fairy Garden!

Just this past weekend I took my Mother and my daughters to the Garden Infofest in Lewisville. It was sponsored by the Denton County Master Gardeners.

Now they had a lot of great things there. I did a great job of restraining myself and not going crazy buying tons of plants that I don't yet have room for. I managed to leave the event having only acquired five new plants! Amazing. A part of the reason I was able to exercise such unheard of restraint is that I have a plant swap coming up soon. I have to pace myself, this I know! Instead of acquiring lots of new plants, I came home with a new obsession, um, I mean project. A fairy garden. They had a container fairy garden up for auction that my girls and I just fell in love with.

I had heard of fairy gardens a long time ago. And honestly, I thought of the idea as a little goofy. But then when I saw one...Well, they are just downright charming. So we just had to stop off at Hobby Lobby on our way home to pick up a couple things.



It's a simple enough start for a fairy garden. Rock paths leading to a bench, a wishing well and a swan container. We were able to find tiny little pumpkins and brooms to help celebrate the month of October. My oldest wanted to buy Christmas decorations for the fairy garden, I was not surprised.



Little frogs are keeping the bench warm for the fairies. The girls love picking blooms and "planting" them near the bench. Even my little boy has a great time hopping the frogs up and down the paths.

Birdhouses decorate the grounds:-) The plant you see reaching out for the birdhouse is called a Persian Chocolate plant. The one that you can't really see in the upper left corner is a nigella. That's what the tag said. I looked it up and I think it is a love in a mist. I bought it for the ferny delicate leaves. There are two irises on either side which I think will be nice in spring.

The little miniature garden is at the edge of a bed. That way it is convenient for the kids to reach in and change things and play till their hearts are content. I can imagine we will get carried away and snake that path right along the length this bed and find lots of cute little charming fairy plants to add along the way.

I can't wait until the next Master Gardener sponsored event. There were so many things that I didn't get a chance to soak up. I had the kids, ya know? But we did take away a fun idea for our garden, some new babies and just a little bit more knowledge than we had before we went.

Just somebody do me a favor. Keep me away from the artsy craftsy stuff next time around!

More Weston Gardens

I thought I would post another handful of pictures from Weston Gardens in Forth Worth.

Enjoy!

What in the world?

Are these little bugs?!?

They haven't appeared to do any damage to these flowers I have grown from seed but I sure am curious.

***Little Yellow Aphids! Thanks to Tucker at Gardenweb and an anoynomous commenter the mystery is solved. They are only on this one plant, all the other plants in my garden seem unaffected.***