Garden tour

May has been an intensive month for gardening and garden touring, and we're only half-way through! I figured I'd better post my images from the Denton County Master Gardeners' tour (held every Mothers' Day weekend) before I hit the Garden Conservancy's Dallas tour tomorrow.

Many learning opportunities can be found on garden tours - how other gardeners create solutions to common problems, what plants are doing well or have become (too?) popular, etc. The Denton County Master Gardeners went the extra step to supply literature, experts and demonstration stations at each garden stop. My faves were square foot veggie garden (hello, raised beds) and the values of soil amendments, specifically compost and expanded shale. I use both of these products liberally when double-digging my new beds. Love 'em.

Here are a few more good ideas . . . .

Want a green roof without climbing a ladder and freaking out your spouse? Try birdhouse first!

Happy water lilies.

We all loved this huge white clematis, which we believe is Clematis 'Henryi.'

Another fave was this rose, 'Mermaid' I think it was. It was quite large, in shade and had super clean foliage and flowers. But the best scent of the day came from Rosa 'Veilchenblau' (not pictured).

Want an herb/veggie garden? Get a horse trough and plant away. Not everything has to be difficult. Really. I heard a lot of positive responses from touring gardeners about raised veggie beds constructed out of cinder blocks. Not the prettiest, but practical and economic. Not permanent either.

A lot of really lovely gardens have one thing in common, great vignettes. Makes for great pictures, especially if you keep it simple.

Happy koi.

Glad these bunnies haven't found my veggie starts yet. I'm sure this gardener and her grandchildren love their tea parties.

From the same beautiful garden as above. This lady has whimsy down pat.

And she probably hosts great parties. I know a few other gardeners who give Martha a run for her money. Of course I love going to their gatherings. One day (when the boy is older) I'll be a super hostess again.

Nothing says happy like a bed full of daisies!

Wild America

We hadn't been in the new house for 48 hours before we met the locals. By that, I mean rabbits. I was warned we would have rabbits before we moved here. But they were not warned about us (meaning the dog). Our golden mix was delighted to find a bunny nest and was chasing the freaked-out little cuties around the backyard. Luckily, I was able to get to them before much damage was done. So I spent the next few days tending to the adorable furballs. Keeping them out of harm's way. Happily, the left the nest box on their own, and I haven't seen them since. Sorry I don't have any pictures to post. They were super cute, but I didn't want to stress them any more than necessary.

Shortly after the rabbits were handled, we had new guests. Bees. On our first Monday morning at the house, construction workers started grading the empty lot next door. After one pass with the skid steer, the work abruptly stopped. Then I saw the most interesting site, cottonwood tuffs or dirt flying through the air and organizing in my front yard. What?!? No, wait, it's a bee swarm! And they're swarming before my front door. Now they are heading into the water shut-off box in my front flowerbed! Are you kidding me? This is crazy. 

So it seems the construction disrupted a bees' nest in the ground next door. Now those sweet (thankfully) honeybees set up shop in a box in my flowerbed. I'm all for bees. Great pollinators in need of all the help they can get. I just didn't want to host them so close to (inches from) home. 

Well, we finally found an available bee keeper to remove the majority of our honeybees. Dr. Dean Hansen, a large and small animal vet for 32 years, was great. He came over late on a Friday night, donned his full beekeeper's whites, and got to work. Since it was dark, all the bees would be in their new "hive." Dr. Dean then used a crowbar and a painter's scrapper to remove as much of the comb as possible. He put the comb and two handfulls of honeybees (approximately 5,000) into coolers in the back of his pickup. He hoped to integrate them into another half-hive box had had going on his property. Like many beekeepers I discovered, Dr. Dean is quite a generous and interesting person. 

After he was done removing what he could and the bees once again calmed down, Dr. Dean showed us a portion of the honeycomb he removed. The honey was the lightest I'd ever seen, and so sweet. Can't get any fresher either. So we've already enjoyed our first (and probably last) honey harvest at the house. 

I do have a few worker bees remaining in the box. But I'll let them stay. It's not likely they will make it through the winter, but they aren't bothering anyone. Wonder what will show up next?