Austin Nursery Date in pictures

Hey guys and gals, we had a great time this last Saturday, at the Austin Nursery Date!

The morning started out with LOTS of rain, but cleared up by the time we reached the nursery. Our nursery date officially began with a very warm welcome from the folks at The Natural Gardener!! Left to right, Margie (loudigger), Mary Lee (silverfluter), Trois (trois), Nadine (moodene), Michelle (newatplants), and Kay (kaypat). Not pictured are Donna (dstartz, she was running a little late), Pat (pathadden, we didn’t meet her until after the butterfly class), Barbara (Trois’s DW), and me (maggiemoo, behind the camera.)

DG’ers are very serious when we’re getting good information. In this case, about butterfly gardening. The heads belong to Trois, Barbara, and Margie.

This was our first time to meet these Austin members, l-r, Michelle, Pat (pathadden), and Kay. It was good to meet you ladies, I already felt like I knew Michelle from e-mails!

This message was edited Jul 18, 2005 6:04 PM

After the butterfly class we checked out The Plantmobile, the brainchild of Dr. Molly Ogorzaly (“Dr. O.”) The idea is to reach out to area schools, in essence taking a field trip to the school that allows children to learn about caterpillars and butterflies, and the connection between plantlife and wildlife. The lady on the left facing us is Rosina, from The Natural Gardener. She coordinates the classes that are taught there, and she was giving out free ladybugs after the class!

Donna and I pose for posterity. Thanks to Jackie O for taking this picture!

Pat is as happy as the rest of us to be there. (Yep, that’s me in the mirror, taking her pic.)

Jackie O. She was a customer who asked what the deal was about Dave’s Garden (“Where is Dave’s Garden?”) Donna and I filled her in and she remembered seeing DG when she did Google searches on plants. She may register, and possibly subscribe, she thought it sounded really neat.

The entrance to their butterfly garden. Everyone’s laughing because I almost caught a picture of Donna with her mouth open.

Donna’s threatening to give me a knuckle sandwich if I start this thread with a picture of her, open-mouthed. Hey Donna, did you notice that I didn’t?

Lyda Guz, left, is John Dromgoole’s assistant. She’s the one who was so helpful arranging for us to get to meet John (oh yes, we’re on a first name basis now.) :-) On the right is Dr O. She was not only informative, but very entertaining, her presentation was quite interesting!John sure wish you could have been there!


This message was edited Jul 18, 2005 6:06 PM

Kay in the butterfly garden. Can you tell that she just got back from San Diego?

Margie in the butterfly garden. You just can’t stop smiling when you’re around caterpilllars and butterflies!

Michelle, she must be describing the beautiful garden to someone. Sorry this picture is such bad quality, it came out really blurry, but I wanted to include it anyway.

Pipe-vine Swallowtail caterpillar. They come in black and brown. It’s sure convenient to have the dr. strolling the garden with you to point these things out to you!

Another bad picture, but I wanted to show these three young brown pipe-vine cats. I think they are brown when young, then black in adulthood.

One of several potted citrus trees in the butterfly garden.

I took this picture because I had never thought of growing pipe-vine as a groundcover. No trellis structure to deal with, and all the cats are within reach to see. They are still pretty protected, as the groundcover is dense

Butterfly garden.

Butterfly garden. I’m looking forward to another, longer visit!

At last, I got a picture of a butterfly! They all seemed to be camera-shy, would fly off just as I was getting them framed. (Maybe butterflies don’t like to be framed.)

The man of the hour, John Dromgoole, came to meet us after he finished his radio show. John owns this nursery, the Ladybug brand of organic gardening products, hosts an organic gardening radio show Saturdays and Sundays, and I’m told he also has done work with Organic Gardener magazine. He was quite happy to answer all our questions about natural ways to remedy problems, and how to keep our soil safe and nutritious for plantlife. I wonder if he knew what to think of us, yakking up a storm! He and his staff were certainly gracious to us!

Mary Lee is telling John the slug was thiiiis big! :-) Kay looks on in disbelief.

Serious discussion. The bottled water John is carrying is rainwater! He was telling us about this guy who collects rainwater for bottling, it was really interesting. I meant to buy some before I left.

People. (duh)

Barbara, waiting patiently. She has such a pretty smile.

I love it!! The Mocrob(e) Brewery, where the Ladybug brand Earth Tea is brewed.

You get a dollar break when you re-cycle, bring your own container.

The entrance to the nursery part of the garden, beautful morning glories! I didn’t see near enough of the nursery (I talk too much.) They have recently changed the labels on their Terra Tonic Super Soil Activator, so the old label products were all 50% off. I wish I had bought more!

Our next stop was the Emerald Gardens Nursery and Water Gardens. By now I’m not taking so many pictures, so this is all you get. Sorry! They had a whole cart full of plants that were doomed to be dumped if we didn’t take them. Who can resist free plants? We picked up some French marigolds, regular marigolds, petunias, and nicotiana.

The last stop was at Pots and Plants, better known as the “pink flamingo place.” This shot was taken from the car as we drove through the intersection (don’t worry, Donna was driving!)

I really love their whimsically painted chairs.

Those of us who hung in ‘till the end were pooped, but it was a good day!

So…. The next day, several of us went to New Braunfels to Schumacher’s Hill Country Gardens! The mysterious man here is Tom, Mary Lee’s DH.

Their grounds are huge!! As I understand it, they propagate all their own plants. They’re having a great sale on their gallon pots this week.

Tom brought some samples of the grapes from his vines. There’s some serious taste-testing going on here, lol. The grapes – Fredonia and Concord – were scrumptious!

So there you have it, another grand time with fellow DG gardeners! I meant to mention that Nadine brought a couple of friends. Jennifer told us about plantmeet.com http://plantmeet.com/ , you'll want to check it out to see if there is a plant swap coming in your area. Thanks Nadine, for bringing your friends! I'll look forward to seeing you again at the Houston Nursery Date in Sept!

Note:

Hazel, please don't ever not go with us again, we really missed you! I thought of you all day, and I know you would have loved to have met Michelle!

Ruthie, I'm so sorry you weren't able to make it, but I'm looking forward to meeting you in November.

Kip, what can I say? :-)

Since Maggie has made a great start, I will just throw in a few.

At the entry.

Dr. O giving slide presentation. A great show.

Host doing introduction of Dr. O.

Dr. O giving presentation.