Lady Slipper Orchid

A pretty part of spring in Minnesota.

Me? Organize? You Have Got to be Kidding!

For those of you who have taken your life in your hands and walked through my “sewing, craft, plant, stuff” room, know what a mess it is. Surprisingly, I have a pretty good idea where everything is. However, as cluttered as the room may look, the closet is worse. That is where I kept all my design materials.

I absolutely love doing design, but it had started becoming more like a chore. Much of my design materials was kept in a two-drawer organizer which really wasn’t. Each drawer is 18” long x 14” wide x 8” deep. Plus there was also a box with material, one for dried weedy things, one for baskets, moss, containers of dried materials, etc. Doing design meant pulling the drawers out and rummaging through them. By the time I was done, half the family room had stuff scattered around. Dragging it all out and then trying to put it away would have me saying “*!!?#*#?/” to design.

We went shopping! The result was an organizer with more, but much smaller drawers and it is on wheels. The drawers are 14” long x 11” wide. Four drawers are 3” deep and three are 7” deep. It is perfect! Now my design organizer IS. One drawer has shiny sparkle stuff, one has small containers of all sorts, one has fastening materials, etc. The deeper drawers are divided up with small boxes. The whole experience was kind of like a treasure hunt. I found items that were completely forgotten. So much ended up on the bottom of those big deep drawers. The old two-drawer now holds larger items. It’s soooo nice to have it all where I can see it.

By the way, NO the rest of the room still looks the same. There’s only so much organizing that can be done at one time. Give me a few years.

Many thanks and appreciation to Barb Werness for this great article!!!

Perry's Old Age

Perry's fabulous inflorescence has almost completely collapsed. Soon the corm will send up a leaf... only one leaf.... that will probably be the biggest leaf in the entire state of Minnesota.

The links to the college of Gustavus have lots of further information about Perry; using an engine hoist to move the corm into another pot, the problems with finding a pot for a hundred pound corm.... taking mom to smell a "corpse flower" for Mother's Day and so much more!!! Check it out!

All about Perry! Enjoy. I hope they'll keep the web cams going when the leaf is growing.

AVSA National Show

Here's a sneak peak at the winners of the show at the AVSA's national convention in Denver this past week. The gesneriphile list had a posting by Irina N. that included this photo. The winning entry that is featured in the middle of the shot is a hybrid, Rebel's Rose Bud, by our very own Ruth Bann!!!

Irina labels the entries: From left to right Best Semiminiature - Ness'Cranbery Swirl - Beverly Williams, Mississauga, ON Best Miniature - Jolly Orchid - Ann Nicholas, Denton, TX 2nd Best AV in show, Best Species - Saintpaulia grandifolia #299 - Bill Price 2nd Best Trailer - Lady Trail - Bill Price Best African Violet in Show, Best Standard, Best Variegated violet - Rebel's Rose Bud - Richard Nicholas under it - Streptocarpus Cape Beauties - I remember it as a best streps, but do not see it on the list) - Nelly Levine, Arvada, CO 3rd Best AV in SHOW - Mary Craig - Richard Nicholas, Denton, TX Best Trailer - Foxwood Trail - Bill Price Best Other Gesneriad - Pearcea sp. 'Equador' - Bill Price

Congratulations to all the folks who entered and attended the show. I hope we'll have more photos to post when everyone gets home from the trip!

University of MN Arboretun

What a fabulous day to visit the University of Minnesota Landscape Arboretum!!! The peonys were in full bloom.






The bees were enjoying the flowers too. There is a bee on the flower in the lower left of the photo.






This one is named Scarlet O'hara. It's got an almost fluorescent color to it.






It's also the time for the Lady Slipper orchids to be in bloom. The yellow varieties are peaking and the pink aren't in bloom yet.






There were orchids everywhere in the wild flower gardens, along with wild geranium, trillium, Virginia waterleaf and many more. They have name tags on a great many plants making identification very easy.




How about a Celandine poppy?











The pools are stocked with good size koi that will come up to you and see if there is anything interesting going on ... (if you brought food with you....)





The iris were just starting to come into full bloom. Another week or two and the scene would be complete.




Here's the center of the formal gardens. Much more was blooming than shows up in the photo today.



A trip to the Arboretum wouldn't be complete without a trip around the three mile drive that has acres and acres of collections. One of the collectons are the azeleas that stretch almost as far as the eye can see. Their fragrance filled the air too!

Any "plant person" would really enjoy a trip to the Arboretum. There's plenty to see!