Three must attend garden events

For the first time in years three big garden events in my area are actually on different weekends. No choosing which one to attend this year.  I love all of these events, and they all offer different types of plants for your garden.

1. May 16 - Festival of Spring at the Paine Art Center in Oshkosh.  Get there early if you want the latest and greatest in plants.  Also offers lots of native plants.

2. May 30 - Outagamie County Master Gardener's Plant Sale.  A great variety of plants and a very nice price.  Many are dug from the master gardeners own gardens, so you know they will grow in Wisconsin.

3. June 6-7 - Green Bay Botanical Garden Fair.  A huge event that lasts two days and is a great event to bring the whole family to.

Spring is officially here!

Yes, spring is officially here!  You know it's here when you see the first crocus bloom, and today was that day.  Nevermind that snow is forecasted for the weekend, I'm sticking to spring.  I just love how a tiny little flower can bring so much joy!  

Coming out of hibernation--winter sowing hostas

Now that we have had a couple of warm days in here in the frozen tundra, I can feel myself coming of out hibernation.  I even picked up some tulips at Trader Joe's the other day to add a little spring to my house.  Of course, just when I start getting excited about spring it snows again on Friday night.  Yesterday, however, was in the 50's and beautiful.  

Thinking about getting my hosta seeds out today.  I've had very good success at starting them outdoors right about now.  I use my winter sowing containers, which are plastic bottles that I recycle into mini greenhouses.  I cut the plastic water bottles almost in half, drill drain holes in the bottom, and fill them with about 3 inches of soil.  I then plant my hosta seed, label the bottle, lightly water the soil, and place them outside.  Make sure to keep the cap off of the bottle, so water (or snow) can get inside.  I have had better luck using this method to grow hostas from seeds than trying to start them inside.

Winter Sowing Website

Hostapedia

The highly anticipated book by Mark Zilis may be just around the corner.  While his Hosta Handbook continues to sell for $100's of dollars on Ebay, Amazon, and other used book sellers. Mark has taken out a full page ad in the American Hosta Society's hosta journal announcing the new book titled, Hostapedia, will be available in March of 2009.  He is currently taking pre-orders through his business Q & Z Nursery. 

Sad news and happy news

This past Saturday I had to put my dog, Chevy, to sleep.  It has been really lonely in our house without him.  It was a hard decision, but it was the best one we could make for him.  Just when I thought that I would never stop crying the first hosta catalog for 2009 arrived.  It's almost like Chevy sent it to cheer me up!  I've been drooling over the new hostas in the Naylor Creek catalog.  I know for sure I definately want to order Tickle Me Pink. 

Fall Leaves

Fall leaves are great for your flower beds.  We have a leaf blower/vacuum.  The vacuum sucks the leaves up and mulches them.  I use this mulch to cover my flower beds in the fall (after frost, before and you are inviting mice and voles).  Comes spring the leaf mulch breaks down into a good compost.  I recently read an article in one of the gardening magazines that said you should never rakes the leaves from your flower or vegetable gardens.  

Non-Gardening Post - My dog Chevy

It's hard to believe that almost 16 years ago one winter I walked into an animal shelter and saw a sad, scared, droopy eared dog.  My childhood dog had just passed away, and my parents decided to adopt a new dog.   A breeder of coonhounds had recently had all of his dogs taken away by animal control, and here at the animal shelter were two one year old lab/redbone coonhound mix dogs.  One was black and the other reddish tan.  My parents wanted a girl, so they adopted the black dog and named her Reba.  When I first met my dog he was very scared of everyone, especially men.  He had the sad eyes of a hound, and when I looked into them I knew he was going to be coming home with me.  I adopted him and named him Chevy, and we have been living happily together ever since.  Chevy was always a mellow dog, never barked, and loved people.  When I first adopted him he often went with me to teach Kindergarten, and loved to share breakfast with the kids.  He was rudolph in the school holiday concert, and even dressed up as a dinosaur for Halloween.  I lived out in the country at the time, and he loved to chase the corn pickers down the road eating all the corn cobs that fell off the truck.

He is 16 now, and he doesn't run any more.  In fact, he kind of just meanders now.  His back legs are stiff when he gets up from his nap, and the fatty tumor that was once the size of a quarter on his side has now grown to the half the size of a basketball.  He has lost weight and his breath is really bad.  He still wags his tail when we come home, and he still loves to beg for food. But his time is coming to an end.  This weekend we had him up-north where he used to love to go for walks with my dad in the woods.  As we left, I realized this would be his last time he would ever be up-north and that made me really sad.  He would never take himself for walks when no one was paying attention to him, or eat another fish my dad had just taxidermied for someone while they were out to dinner.  I realized this weekend, that Chevy could possibly only be around for a few more days to a few more weeks.  I think the biggest dilemma is that I am given the right to choose if he should be put down or not.  Dogs can't tell you if they are in a lot of pain, and as much as we love them do we have the right to decide for them?   Chevy has given me lots of great memories, lots of love, and now I just want to make sure he is happy and healthy until his last day.