Can't wait for Spring!

Tacoma Home & Garden Show is January 27 - 31, 2010 at the Tacoma Dome

Oregon Yard Garden & Patio show is February 12 thru 14th, 2010 at the Oregon Convention Center.

Portland Home & Garden Show is February 24th thru 28th, 2010 at the Portland Expo Center

Northwest Flower& Garden Show is February 3 - 7, 2010 at the Washington State Convention Center

Okay - 350 daffodils before 5:46 am? Please tell me you did it the day before. :-)

Rachierabbit usually updates these, so I'm sure she'll get them on the calendar.

And welcome to DG and the PNW Forum, mstish!

Northwest flower and garden show is ON??? Does that mean they found a buyer for the show? Where did you get that info? I could not imagine Seattle without that show.

Oh, that's right. I forgot about last year. I seemed too lucrative a deal to pass up. Unfortunately I didn't have my checkbook with me.

Shoot! We could have gone in together!

:-D

I never miss the Portland shows. I actually take a day off work so I can go to them when they aren't so crouded, I spend all day. I take my camera and a small notepad and get great ideas for eveything from a pruning shape to a color scheme. The trick, I have found is to limit the amount of money you take to the show. Leave all credit cards and debit cards at home and bring just the cash you want to spend. It's difficult but a good idea.

Some lilies last year.

This message was edited Nov 17, 2009 5:07 PM

Your yard looks great. We do photographic garden tours here. This winter would be a good time to show us your pictures. hint, hint.

I will add my welcome Mstish! I like your ideas about keeping things "under control" at the flower shows! Mom and I tried taking the bus one year, which should have been very effective on limiting our purchases...didn't work. It is amazing how much stuff you can pack and still maneuver!

Welcome Mstish, fellow Portlander!

Hi Judi - I knew there had to be some portlanders here in DG.

It is so cold here right now. I had an elephant ear plant that started some babies at its base last summer so I carefully devided and them and put them in another pot. They grew to about a foot tall and then the cold weather hit. I read that I should let elephant ear die back to the ground and then dig up the tubers and store them in a dry cool spot. Well, I went to dig up the newer ones and they had no tubers, just roots. I quickly reburried them and mulched the heck out of it. Not sure what to do with them now. Anyone know how to handle Elephant Ear in an 8b zone?

Can you believe this canna? It is in the low 30 today and the nights have been in the 20's and it is blooming.

This message was edited Dec 6, 2009 5:19 PM

Mstish where in Portland are you? Yes, it is pretty cold here and the wind last night was fierce. My garden looks like a waste land.

I'm kinda new to gardening so I can offer no advice yet, but I'm learning a lot from the kind people on DG!

I'm in NE Portland. My house backs up to Woodlawn Park. Where are you located?

My wasteland this morning..only thing still green are the EG's.

Is that near Woodlawn school? I volunteer there one day a week to help kids with reading.

I live near SE 34th and Hawthorne.

I look out my back fence and I look right at woodlawn school. I am in the very southeast corner of the park where the walkway goes through to 13th. My condo is the one with the lattice over the chainlink fence. It has jasmine growing on it.

Judi - it's a small world.

There is a great used book store on Hawthorn around 37th or 38th were I get a lot of gardening books.

This cold spell is making me worry about my fuchsias that are overwintering in my garden shack. I just checked them and I think some are not going to make it. I hung a few light bulbs in the shack to add a few degrees of temp. Sure hope it works.

Just on the other side of this fence is the park and then the school.

I think we need to stop posting anything from summer. That photo of yours Ms Tish is causing too much pain. Lovely garden spot.
This is what I am looking at.

Mstish it is indeed a small world. I love going to the school - the kids are so cute but some have terrible reading troubles. The SMART program is very good. I may recruit you.......

Soferdig - lol - this is what I have to look at now.

I spend a lot of time this time of year looking at photos of last summer and thinking about what I liked and didn't like. I think the pics help get me thru the cold winter days when I can't garden.


This message was edited Dec 8, 2009 6:46 PM

Soferdig - How long is the growing season in Montana? What elevation are you at.

Judi - What do you do to scratch your gardening itch this time of year?

More winter gloom....

Nice Ms Tish to have green on this time of year hanging there. Ours is all brown and white. I like the fact that you have pots that arent frozen. If I had that I would be digging landscape rocks and cutting sod etc. I miss the Pac NW. Our growing season here starts about end of march with perenials and leaf bud and goes like crazy from May through early October. Then things start to color and go dormant over the next month and a half. By mid November we get our first cold days. This year on the other hand has had a 5F on October 3-6th and it wiped out our garden colors.

Mstish I'm one of those odd folks who likes the bareness of winter. I like the sculptural forms when trees and shrubs are bare. I even like the dead-looking beds and the bare soil where the tomatoes and green beans were planted. I don't get antsy about working in the garden until the end of February or March, and then I can't wait to get out there. I am also not one to do any gardening at all in weather as cold as this. When it warms up a bit I may go out and rake twigs and the last of the leaves and put them in the compost bin. For me, the thrill is watching the garden transform from winter to spring, and from summer to fall. i like the ying yang of it all.