Good morning everyone!  Lorene Edwards Forkner, professional garden writer and owner of the Planted At Home blog tagged me for a book meme.  While I don't normally do memes anymore because I really hate tagging others, I like this meme very much.  It reveals a lot about those who play.   In fact, after reviewing my Google Reader, I realized Susan from The Bicycle Garden also tagged me for the same meme. Here are the rules: Grab the nearest book at hand (no fair looking for something intellectual, just what’s within arm’s reach of your keyboard).  Turn to page 56, go to the 5th sentence and post your results - include the 2-3 sentences that follow to provide some sort of context.  Then turn around and “tag” 5 or so more blogging friends to do the same. Now, how did she know I'd have a book near my computer? Closest at...

Snow flurries?  Yes, but none of them will stick.  There are too few, and the ground is still way too warm.  I love tough and tiny Violas which refuse to yield to cold fronts barreling in from Kansas.  These are in the front garden where I planted the purple and orange tulips. C'est manifique, oui? This Oxalis has been a part of my shade garden for a long time.  I don't remember the cultivar.  Again, I'm diggin' the purple merging into dark green. This teacup feeder was moved by the irrigation crew into the middle of the rose 'Footloose.'   It looks good there surrounded by freeze dried blooms, so perhaps I'll leave it. 'Rio Samba' isn't looking her best either, but with lows in the 30s, who can blame her? Behind 'Annabelle' the fence is still down from the irrigation crew.  Funny what you notice when it's framed by the...

When I go to work each day in my office, or my kitchen, or my easy chair (or wherever my laptop takes me), I feel blessed. After college, I worked first as a legal secretary and then as a legal assistant in offices and firms for over 15 years.  I loved that too, but being a writer fulfills my greatest artistic longings.  An honorable profession, I wish it paid more.  However, like the commercial says, the other benefits are priceless. Through my work, I am constantly learning.  Although I gardened from the age of 21 or so, once I began to write about plants, a twinkling universe opened itself to me. Besides, learning keeps us young, and I fully intend to stay young in here (I say as I tap my chest) where it counts, until I draw my final breath. This past week I wrote two articles about birds. ...

The dreaded disease, Bulbmania, struck Rosehaven and me.  I blame it on Elizabeth, from Gardening While Intoxicated and one of my Plurkettes. All of her plurks and posts about bulbs made me sick with bulbenvy, a precursor to full blown mania. We do the family Easter celebration at our house every spring, so I always plant some bulbs in the front garden, but this year . . . . Pity me. The bulk of the bulbs started arriving this week in sweet little boxes which belie how many plants are inside.  I've dug so many holes (well, between kid stuff anyway) that I'm starting to feel like my Labrador, Prancer.  I ordered from Old House Gardens, the Southern Bulb Company and Brent and Becky's Bulbs too. Later, as I strolled through Target, I simply had to walk down the Smith & Hawken aisle.  Who knew they would also have bulbs? ...