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Fetal Alcohol Syndrome Advocacy

Garden Show 2019: Why? By Delinda McCann

2/23/2019

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PictureSpring flower display near the entrance. This is the first floral announcement that we've arrived at the Garden Show.
The Annual Pacific Northwest Garden Show is winding down in Seattle. I visited for two days this year. This was my thirty-first garden show. I have attended every one of them. Why do I go back? Certainly the dreams of spring and summer during the cold wet winter are a huge draw. I love seeing all the color and smelling the spring flowers. The seminars are informative. I’ve actually found new products at the show that have made life easier for me. I always buy some chocolate bars from a company in Mt. Vernon. Maybe it’s the chocolate that draws me back year after year. 

I really think it is the whole delightful combination of flowers, fragrance, lessons, light, products, music and inspiration that draws me back. I get inspired to think in new patterns. Thinking is hard. Having an event that stimulates so many areas of my brain through all my senses kick-starts my year after semi-hibernating all winter.

​

Picture
This guy is so perfect for my enchanted garden. He's also very doable.
PicturePoster for the drone that sprinkles zinc granules on the roof. A decent idea for steep roofs in hard to reach places.
The product that ticked my sense of humor this year was the drone that sprinkles moss retardant on roofs. My hubby obsesses about moss on the roof. Twice a year we must apply moss killer to the roof. He even fell off the roof applying moss retardant.  He really is obsessive about moss on the roof. Our roofs have a zinc strip across them to retard moss but hubby still climbs up there or sends his chore helper up there to apply more moss killer. Okay, I laughed at the drone. Seems like a lot of trouble just to keep moss off the roof. 

My friend has a six-inch deep eco-lawn on her roof-all made of different kinds of moss. It grew all by itself and never needs maintenance. I’m not sure our roof will last any longer than the moss covered roof. I laughed at the drone and took the slip of information the sales rep wanted to give me. 

I was still laughing over the drone when I got home and told my husband about it. He didn’t laugh. He looked at my pictures and asked questions then filed the precious contact information in his house-maintenance file. Sometime in the next year, we will have a drone flying over our house sprinkling moss killer on the roof. The garden show is life changing.

Picture
Here is what the drone looks like in real life. The gray canister holds the zinc granules.
PictureOne thing that made the culvert work was the blue lighting on it. Lights would work. With time landscaping would soften this up making the lighting less of a feature.
I fell in love with a culvert. This puppy must be six feet tall. I assume it’s real purpose would be for storm water runoff. However, set on it’s side in the garden, it would make a lovely entrance into my enchanted forest. We are really talking about a sewer pipe here-nothing fancy, but with landscaping it could be stunning and define where the road leaves off and the garden begins. Hubby looked at my pictures and commented, “You could plant a pink clematis by it and the flowers would hag down over it making it look like it belongs in the landscape. He’s right. Clematis Montana would be the perfect planting to go with a six-foot tall gray drain pipe sitting beside the driveway. ​

Picture
Another views of the culvert. I really have no idea what the thing is. Part of a septic tank? In my big garden with it's tall trees I need massive accents.
PictureForte Chocolates Mount Vernon Washington 98273 www.fortechocolates,com

One of my favorite products at the garden show is the chocolate make by Forte Chocolates in Mt. Vernon Washington. I can’t say which is my favorite flavor, but the white chocolate with rosemary and pepper is one of my favorites. The Espresso Bean bar has flecks of ground espresso beans in it. They make an orange flavor and a honeycomb bar. I have no idea what the ones with nuts taste like because of my allergy to nuts. 
​

Poor hubby fingered my stash of candy bars wistfully. “I wouldn’t think rosemary and pepper would be all that good.” He’s allergic to chocolate so he’ll never know. I got to thinking about how much I enjoy these weird flavored chocolate bars. Finally, from the depths of my brain, two ideas collided. I could make sugar cookies in my favorite candy bar flavors. I have lots of Rosemary in my yard. We have ground espresso beans. Hubby can get a hint of the wonderful flavors I enjoy in the chocolate bars.
So what keeps me going back to the garden show year after year for thirty-one years? The ideas and the brain stimulation pull me in. I see new ways to do things to make life easier or more fun. The garden show won my loyalty by stirring my sense of creativity.



Picture
I loved the depth these windows in the wall gave this display garden. This is a more civilized version of my culvert.
Picture
I love whimsical details in the garden and this would go well in my enchanted forest. I thought of it as a suitable home for Mary Nortons Borrowers.
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This drew me in. I loved the pink glowing orbs. My enchanted garden needs more soft glowing orbs.
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The waterfall. I do have two places with abrupt changes in elevation. I'd love to put in waterfalls. Hubby doesn't want waterfalls that attract our ducks.
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A different waterfall. Yes, our ducks would play in this and get it all muddy. Still it is a way more attractive enhancement to elevation changes that the brambles. are.
Picture
I was impressed with the drama that can be created in small spaces. We have so many colorful succulents available now.
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This is from the gardening in small spaces exhibit. A pallet garden really does work and can produce an amazing number of flowers and vegetables.
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Even a small space can be a colorful garden. I love to look at the small space gardens because my acre and a quarter is really just many small spaces that must be complete within themselves and blend into the whole.
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Snowmageddon 2019 By Delinda McCAnn

2/10/2019

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PictureOur driveway with hubby bravely setting forth to dig out our daughter's car at the bottom of the hill so she can go to work tomorrow. To get my flower stand to Burton I'll have to take it in the back of the truck down this hill.
Yes it is snowing. Yes, I know it snows other places. Here in the Puget Sound basin it doesn’t snow all that often so we consider it a bit of an event. Our municipalities are well aware that it doesn’t snow all that often and they spend accordingly. There is no point in investing in snow removal equipment that will sit unused for seven out of ten years. Snow usually melts off by noon anyway. 

Thus when we have a snow storm that lasts several days, it is a major event. Most people are snowed in because side streets don’t get plowed and those side streets are on steep hills anyway. We’re the only place in the US that has hills that go from sea level to three hundred-fifty feet in ten blocks and gets snow. Our marine influence means that we don’t really get snow. We get an ice and snow sandwich. Right now we have a solid layer of ice under about a foot of snow. There is a half-inch layer of ice on top of our snow now, and more snow is falling to cover that ice. 

So we have hills, the ice/snow layers and something else. Our neighbor was bragging about his four wheel drive jeep. It goes everywhere. His jeep is not going to go over the down tree in his driveway. We have vegetation that brings down power lines and blocks roads. Douglas firs particularly delight in throwing huge branches at us. Madrone are evergreen. Their broad leaves  catch the snow putting weight on trunks made brittle by freezing temperatures and down they come. When it snows here, the power goes out. 

Picture
Winter blooming honeysuckle has small very fragrant flowers that add an airy accent to Valentines bouquets.
Snow anywhere is a challenge for farmers. We have stock to tend and crops that need protection. Here, we’ve been having an El Nino winter with a warm off shore current. We had one frost that knocked down the dahlias and sent most things into dormancy. However the roses were sending out new shoots before this hit. My plants weren’t ready for freezing and snow.
 
PictureRhododendron Christmas Cheer. I usually have a hundred of these for Valentines bouquets. This bloom will turn brown when it defrosts. There are hundreds of blooms like this on this bush.

PictureThe pussy willow might. be usablele.

Picture
The salal I use for Valentines bouquets. This patch is growing beside the driveway.
I usually open my roadside stand with fresh homegrown organic flowers for Valentines day. We have quite a few plants that bloom in our mild winters. I use the native winter blooming honeysuckle, huckleberry, pussy willow, salal, winter blooming viburnum, and rhododendron-Christmas Cheer. I mix these with tulips from my greenhouse and sell the bouquets at my flower stand at the intersection in the village of Burton. 

Picture
My winter blooming viburnum is six feet tall with hundreds of clusters of pink and white umbrel shaped flowers.

The flower stand was in my greenhouse getting dried out enough to paint when we needed to go to Texas for a funeral. Okay, I still had time to paint the thing and get it to the intersection for Valentines Day. We left for Texas. My daughter called and told us what was coming in. 

We returned home to a winter wonderland. By sticking to the main roads we were able to drive as far as the bottom of our driveway. I’m afraid the best that is going to happen for Valentines day is pictures. I may make myself a huge bouquet with a hundred tulips that won’t be any good by the time we defrost.  ​​
PictureI think this is the rhody Christmas Cheer. It could be a forsythia or huckleberry.

PictureAh the lovely tulips chilling in the refrigerator. I have more of these stashed in the garage and greenhouse. These are my favorites, named Abba. They are double almost like a rose and are heavily scented. They force easily for Valentines day.

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    Author

    Delinda McCann is a social psychologist, author, avid organic gardener and amateur musician.

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