RE: Daffodil Garden Party
- Subject: RE: Daffodil Garden Party
- From: Z* A*
- Date: Thu, 2 May 2002 10:27:24 -0700
Oh my gosh, what a hoot! Sounds like you folks did a terrific job. After reading about all you had to do for the convention, I'm exhausted. What a neat bunch of energy, and it looks like teamwork was happening at it's best. I like it when that happens! :)
-
Chat with you later...
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Alan Chandler, Arizona Sunset Zone: 13
http://www.gizmoaz.com
Over 250 roses and over 160 Different varieties! Never a dull moment!!
***** Year of the Rose, 2002! *****
I've learned.... That the easiest way for me to grow as a person is to surround myself with people smarter than I am.
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-perennials@hort.net [o*@hort.net] On Behalf
Of Linda Wallpe
Sent: Thursday, May 02, 2002 8:28 AM
To: perennials@hort.net
Subject: Daffodil Garden Party
Good Morning List Members!
No, Bill and I are not in Aruba! The prospect is an enticing thought
though. What I'm actually doing is trying to get my dining room under
control. It's now only half full of convention paraphernalia. Bill Lee
did a great job of hitting the convention highlights. We ended up being
very proud of our local daffodil society members and the job they did.
It appears everyone had a grand time.
Janis Ruksans was charming and tells a great story. He is a throwback to
the Great Victorian Plant Hunters, tall and handsome to boot! His slides
were a travelogue of Russian mountains where he collects new plant
material. The terrain would be daunting for mountain goats. Seeing
pictures of plants growing in the wild and then seeing him grow the same
in perfect garden conditions was startling. People thanked us
profusively for bringing him to the US for the first time, they never
dreamed they'd ever get to meet him.
I could not have chaired this event without the help of my friends, all
with limited interest in daffodils! I asked them to do all sorts of
work. I did give them one fun thing to do: judging the Ooh & Ah Flower
Show. ( The O&A Show was for daffodil collectibles: pillows, china,
silver, you name it.) I asked them to dress as their idea of a flower
show judge and their get-ups were an absolute hoot. Many had flowered
hats and long white gloves. One gal even had silk daffodils on the toes
of her shoes. I laughed every time I looked at them. The only judging
criteria: 'daffodils have 6 petals'.
I've always thought of myself as a lucky person (I'm knocking on wood
here!) and it held once again: it rained before, after and during the
night but not during the garden tours. I spent hours drawing up route
plans for each of the 4 buses and sightseeing information. The bus
leaders were at various levels of area orientation. Day 1, I saw 1 bus
travel south, and bus 2, and then suddenly bus 3 went north. I nearly
had a stroke. Now, if I'd known that bus leader John B. was on that one,
I would not have been concerned but I didn't. Thank goodness for cell
phones!
Only one bus hit anything. Well, yes, it was a power pole but it didn't
fall over onto the bus.
One word of advice. If any of you ever chair a convention, try not to
have your garden be one of the gardens on tour. It nearly killed Bill
and me trying to do both. I moved into the convention hotel on a Weds.
and the garden I returned to on Saturday was not the same one I left.
The high temperatures and rain killed off a lot of the daffodils and sent
things like the dogwoods into bloom 3 weeks early. The grass had grown
4" and the dandelions twice as high. Fortunately my son and his
girlfriend showed up to help. She deadheaded slimey things and that made
a real improvement. Then we all picked the dandelion blossoms and stuck
them into small vases for centerpieces. The people thought that was a
funny touch.
The convention goers don't grow just daffodils, they were interested in
the other things happening in our gardens: the trees, wildflowers,
ornaments, perennial collections. Bill and Hurst have great collections
of conifers and clematis and more. Hurst knows all the Latin names and
blew people away with his depth of knowledge. Bill looks great as a
garden ornament. Nah, I'm kidding, he knows his stuff .
The Caton garden has one hill that Don planted anything blue on: violets,
scilla, mertensia. It looked like water and was a big hit. Mary Lou
Gripshover also has a steep hill covered in wildflowers. Janis Ruksans
was taken with her stand of native erythroniums (trout lilies). They were
interested in the wild violets that grow in profusion in my garden,
including the Confederate ones and told me how much they had paid for a
pot of them. They were also interested in the yellowwood tree. My new
Harry Potter garden was a hit with some, as was my attempt at a moss bed.
And for anyone that's interested, the moss took 200 people walking on it
better than the grass!
My husband is not a gardener. He is a mechanical wizard though, good
with a chainsaw and good for heavy lifting: I'm keeping him. His
convention contribution was creating the DaffMobile. He had an old BMW,
cut off the top, cleaned everything out, and painted it sky blue. A
friend Jim H. then painted daffodils in various colors all over the hood,
sides and back of the car. Then they stuck a daffodil flag on a pole
from the trunk. He parked it in the driveway and a lot of convention
goers had their pictures taken on it, in it and with it.
There were 2 public gardens on the tours: Cincinnati Nature Center and
the Civic Garden Center. Both were enjoyed mightily. Convention goers
were particularly taken with the tree and hosta collection and the new
Peggy Macneale Daffodil Garden at the Civic Garden. I routed the buses
through Ault Park in Cincinnati which is a magnificent old WPA project
but they didn't stop.
Okay, back to the dining room. It took me half a day to sort the Tinker
Toys leftover from the Saturday night flower arranging. Yesterday, I
delivered and donated them to two inner-city schools. Wait, I feel
another nap coming on..................
Linda Wallpe
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