Starting Over

I’ve hardly written a blog post in over a year. My life started its descent into a sad country song early last year, but I won’t get into the details of that right now. I suppose I can be happy that, at the very least, there was no pickup truck involved.

Oh…wait…yes there was…

In November, my dog Scout and I moved out of the house that is home to the gardens that I poured my heart into for 8 years. I just now looked at those last few pictures I took on my last day at that house. They are all crummy. I guess they are reflective of my mood that day. The last good pictures from the garden were posted in May 2012 on Garden Bloggers Bloom Day, you’ll have to check out that page if you are interested in getting a glimpse at the old gardens.

That statement about pouring my heart into the gardens is true. I know there is a lesson to be learned there. I also pour my heart into my work, my work at an office for a multi-national corporation. Hmm, yes, there is a lesson to be learned. Sometimes when you pour your heart into things instead of the people around you, your life can turn into a sad country song. 

I know many of you gardeners out there are obsessive gardeners. I am one too. However, someone didn’t write the saying, take time to smell the roses for no good reason. And, they also didn’t mean to literally smell the roses! I know what you obsessive types are thinking…but when I am in the garden all weekend, I do smell the roses. LOL

Well, moving on…

My New House
At the beginning of February I moved into a new house in a historic area of Houston. The house was built in 1885 (not exactly new). There is not much here in terms of gardens. However, there is a pretty awesome stand of palm trees. I am getting close to being unpacked and my thoughts are moving toward the garden.

Bear
Last May, Scout’s brother Rusty passed away. He was 10 years old and Scout never knew life as an only dog. Now that we have our new yard and new house, it was time to get a new baby brother. Last week, we adopted Bear. He’s 7 years old and is getting along quite nicely in our little family.

Bear is in the foreground and Scout is in the background.

I can’t wait to get started gardening in this new yard. It’s like a blank slate! Stay tuned for all the before pictures. The transformation is beginning!

Fruit Tree Sale Season

It's that time of year again, the time to buy fruit trees. I have noticed a spike in hits on my blog the past few weeks, despite not blogging for the last 6 months or so, no doubt because of my 2011 series on growing fruit trees in Houston. I wrote three articles on growing fruit trees and one that will give you an idea of what the Urban Harvest Fruit Tree sale is like. You can also check out some fruit tree descriptions on the Urban Harvest website.

If you missed last weekend's Urban Harvest sale, you still have time to catch some of the local master gardeners' sales.

This weekend, January 26th, both Harris County Master Gardeners at Bear Creek
and Montgomery County Master Gardeners are having their sales.

The Galveston County Master Gardeners sale is on February 2nd and the Harris County Master Gardeners in Pasadena sale is on February 16th (where they also have a great variety of peppers and tomatoes).

And if you are not a get up early to stand in line to buy a fruit tree kind of person, many of our local nurseries are carrying some of the same trees you can get at the fruit tree sales. Some of the nurseries to check out are Arbor Gate (Tomball), Buchanan's (Heights), Wabash (inside I-610), Maas (Seabrook), & Papershell (Richmond) to name a few. If you don't know a lot about fruit trees, in general, I would advise you to buy from a local nursery rather than a big box store. Many of the big box stores sell fruit trees, however they are not typically the right kind of trees for our area.

So, my friends, go forth and buy fruit trees. Have fun. You'll be enjoying fruit from your very own backyard in a couple of years.

Garden Bloggers Fling and a Book Giveaway

It’s that time of year again, time to fling. Garden Bloggers Fling that is. This year we are heading to Asheville, North Carolina. The home of the Biltmore House, surrounded by National Forests, and filled with a bunch of cool funky stuff.

My first Fling was in Buffalo, NY. I had only been blogging for a couple of months and really had no idea what I was getting into. Who knew bloggers were such a fun and friendly group of people to hang out with? We were treated like royalty by the local press and all of a sudden a ton of people were reading my brand new baby blog. Here are my posts from that Fling, it was called Buffa10.

Last year we flung up to Seattle. Where us southern bloggers had a respite from the heat. I saw some familiar faces from Buffalo along with a lot of new garden bloggers joining us. Our time in Seattle was jam-pack with garden goodness. Check it out.

One of the Seattle Fling organizers, Lorene Edwards Forkner released a book last year called Handmade Garden Projects. You can see some great examples of her projects on many of last years blog posts: Houston Garden Girl, Commonweeder, Bonney Lassie, and Rock Rose.

Here’s a few more pictures from her backyard to wet your appetite.

 

 

Timber Press is having a promotion right now and has provided me with one copy of Lorene’s book to give away. Leave a comment by May 26th to enter the drawing to receive a free copy.

As you can see, many talented garden bloggers are involved every year in Flinging. Keep up with all of us and our travels around Asheville by visiting the Fling blog.

May Garden Bloggers Bloom Day

I have been out of town for the last week or so, back in Oman for another stage of the project I've been working on for my company. I was pleasantly surprised by the gardens when I arrived back home on Wednesday afternoon. The rain we received while I was gone really set everything into motion.



I bought this little one on clearance at Lowes. It's doing well so far this year with some shade from an oak tree.



Perennial Pentas, definitely better than the annuals

Practically everything is in bloom

 

The group of crinums in the foreground aren't blooming, but the two in the background are.

Belinda's Dream with Nature's Way compost as a topdressing that I spread before I left on my trip

 

I’m in Asheville now for the 2012 Garden Bloggers Fling. Stay tuned, more pictures to come.

And a big thanks for Carol at May Dreams Gardens for hosting garden bloggers bloom day.