Magical mosaics in the garden of Wouterina De Raad, Part 2: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
August 05, 2016 Yesterday I shared Part 1 of my visit to Wisconsin artist Wouterina De Raad’s mosaic sculpture garden, which was the final garden — and my favorite — on the recent Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling. Today I’ll end my Fling series with Part 2 about Wouterina‘s delightful, exploratory ...
Garden artistry at Wouterina De Raad’s Mosaic Sculpture Park, Part 1: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
August 04, 2016 Each year at Garden Bloggers Fling, there’s at least one garden that moves me deeply, that creates a lasting mood and feels like an extension of the gardener him- or herself. At this year’s Fling in Minneapolis, that garden was the creation of Wouterina De Raad. (As ...
Scenes from Minneapolis gardens, sightseeing, and bloggers: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
August 03, 2016 This is my 10th post about the recent Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling, and I have two more coming up that cover one very special garden. Even so, I won’t have shown you every garden we visited. There were just too many! But here are a few images ...
Elegant garden of St. Paul writer Marge Hols: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
July 29, 2016 A lovely Tudor-style home on St. Paul’s historic Summit Avenue, just down the block from the Minnesota Governor’s Mansion, was a stop on day three of the Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling. It’s the home of gardening columnist Marge Hols, who welcomed us and immediately set us loose ...
Dynasty Drive flowers and bonus hosta garden: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
July 27, 2016 A garden tour within a garden tour was offered on day two of the Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling, held in mid-July. Bused to a half-dozen lovely private gardens on a local Master Gardeners tour (see my upcoming post about the Walden Road garden), at one point I ...
Minnesota Landscape Arboretum: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
July 25, 2016 Our Minneapolis Fling banquet dinner — an opportunity to dine with blogging friends, win amazing giveaway prizes from sponsors, and listen to entertaining anecdotes and announcements from organizers — was held at the end of the second day, at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum. Time was short before ...
Springwood Gardens daylily farm: Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling
July 25, 2016 I enjoy daylilies and grow a few in my own garden. But I couldn’t quite imagine a whole farm of daylilies until we visited Springwood Gardens, the daylily breeding operation of Karol Emmerich, one of our stops on the Minneapolis Garden Bloggers Fling. Karol’s goal is to ...
Visiting Layanee’s ledge and garden in Rhode Island
July 21, 2016 Wherever I travel these days, I seem to know a garden blogger who lives there. That’s partly because I’ve been blogging and reading blogs for a decade and partly because I’ve gotten to know lots of bloggers in person through years of attending the annual Garden Bloggers ...
May flowers from A (agave) to V (vitex)
May 27, 2016 As the days fly toward summer, the daylilies are showing off their lovely throats… …and blushing, ruffled petals. Here’s ‘Best of Friends’. The first ‘Apple Tart’ smolders among the white-striped flax lilies. Stretching on long stems like giraffe necks, ‘Wilson’s Yellow’ daylily stands tall amid grasses and ...
Daylilies arrive with the summer heat
May 14, 2016 Hot and muggy sauna days have arrived, and with them, the daylilies. Is it a worthy trade-off? I am not sure, but since we can’t turn back the clock to balmy spring, I resolve to enjoy their sugar-glittery petals and day-in-the-sun beauty. Here’s sunny ‘Wilson’s Yellow’. And ...
What to grow in a flood
May 26, 2015 ‘Colorado’ water lily Well, it’s flooding down in Texas, as you might have noticed if you live here, or seen on the news if you don’t. After an epic, 5-year drought — which isn’t completely broken but is significantly eased — central Texas has been inundated with ...
A fanciful journey through art-filled Bedrock Gardens, part 1
September 19, 2014 Acres of poison ivy and scrub brush had overrun the old dairy farm in Lee, New Hampshire, when Jill Nooney and her husband, Bob Munger, purchased it in 1980. Undaunted, the couple began a decades-long process of clearing weeds and making planting beds, eventually creating a 20-acre ...
Garden magic and whimsy at Floramagoria: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
August 13, 2014 As we entered the intriguingly named Floramagoria garden on the recent Portland Garden Bloggers Fling, thunder rumbled and raindrops pelted our group of 40 or so bloggers. The reasonable — and hungry — among us ran for the two covered pavilions with box lunches in hand. The ...
Westwind Farm Studio: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
July 23, 2014 Both buses filled with 80 hot, tired bloggers bumped into a lavender field at the end of the first touring day of the Garden Bloggers Fling in Portland, Oregon, in mid-July. I tiredly thought, “How nice, a lovely field of lavender.” But what I didn’t realize was ...
Old Germantown Gardens: Portland Garden Bloggers Fling
July 20, 2014 The first private garden on the Portland Garden Bloggers Fling tour last weekend was, at 2 acres, large enough to accommodate our entire group of approximately 80 bloggers. Old Germantown Gardens, created over 23 years by Bruce Wakefield and Jerry Grossnickle, is a masterpiece of a garden ...
Coneflower cornucopia and other garden delights
June 12, 2014 The garden photobomber strikes again, this time peeking out of a bower of purple coneflower and ‘Color Guard’ yucca. A wider view shows that I was being watched as I photographed the pond garden. Early summer is a pretty time here, as the coneflowers color-coordinate with the ...
