Garden Tour

On Saturday, last, I attended, with two friends, the annual Greece Performing Arts Society garden tour. Greece is a suburb of Rochester. Their performing arts society, includes gardening, music, drama, painting, sculpture, etc.

Here in western New York, summer doesn't start until the end of May. It closely follows a Springtime of, roughly, one week. Rochester Summers are usually "hot and heavy". They visit us from June to mid-September, getting cooler at night in September. We usually have a beautiful Indian Summer from September's end to about mid-October. Then...........brrrrrrrrrrrrr.......... Therefore, Summer is usually packed with events. Like the old saying goes "make hay while the sun shines".

The GPAS is always on the second Saturday of June, rain or shine. This time it was a bit chilly. We wore light jackets. In every garden, we were offered cold drinks but turned them down because we were so cold. Before the show was over, we did stop for coffee to warm up. That tasted soooo good.

There were seven gardens to visit. The owner/gardener is in every garden so you can ask questions and get the inside story on their garden. This year I noticed that many of the gardens had a little "fairy garden" tucked away in the landscape somewhere. I also noticed many beautiful colored glass bridbaths. Some gardens had several. The gardens represented the gardeners esthetic. "Staging" was the order of the day. Some were perfect, every blade of grass the exact same length, all beds edged in professional curbing, some had a vintage vibe, some had a riot of garden sculpture, some had fabulous sheds, some had trickling ponds. It's almost too much to digest. You just have to dream of it and take notes in your guide book.

                                                         Fairy Garden

                        "Staging" seed packets, robins eggs nest, quilt, picket fence chair

                                                                     Garden Shed

 

 

 

Multi Level Pond

We (three) look forward to this annually. It's our traditional "girlfriend" thing. I usually take tons of pictures. I'm always looking for ideas for my own garden. I am definitely going to make a "fairy garden".

 

Recycled Glass Garden Sculpture

These homes always have some sort of patio and from those, volunteers served cold drinks and light snacks (cheese and crackers, pretzels, tea sandwiches, etc,) Another feature of the patios is: they all have live music. And in each garden an artist is sitting at her easel, painting a garden scene.

A part of the tour is a visit the town's Historical Center. Here they have a huge tent set up with a "rolling restaurant", perennials for sale, home canned vegetables, and crafts.  I did buy a couple perennial plants. A tiny hosta for $2 and hen n' chickens for $1.50.  We all had a hot dog from the rolling restaurant.

This is the highlight of my Summer. What's yours?

The Walk

I recently spent a week in a warm, sunny clime visiting my granddaughters. The weather is so pleasant there and, oh, so different than where I live (southwest shore of Lake Ontario). Where I live it's still winter. Spring may or may not arrive on or about the end of April. Then you'll see daffodils, tulips, lilacs and all the flowering trees bursting into bloom. But where the granddaughters live, sunny, balmy, blue skies most of the time and never, never any snow.

So little 4 year old and I took a walk one day while her sisters were in school. We walked to the grocery store to purchase supplies so grammy (me) would have materials to make dinner. These are some things we saw on our way.

                                        A Pond

There were two turtles on this pipe with the blue heron but they dove in when they heard us. I wonder if this is the blue heron that made off with the goldfish in my backyard pond.

                       She loved seeing her shadow in the bright sunshine.

Split leaf philodendrem and mother-in-laws tongue grow naturally and heartily outdoors. You'll see them in the landscape plantings around the neighborhood.


Where I live, we keep these tropicals in clay pots INDOORS and they never look as happy as they look in these pics taken in the south.

        She "rescued" a hibiscus from a roadside planting and made like Dorothy Lamour

This beautiful tile mosaic scene is on the wall outside of the grocery store. It was a lovely walk. She got her free cookie at the bakery department, grammy got her dinner fixins' and we made out way back home.