Garden Tour May 5th and May 6th Update

The MaryLou Heard Garden Tour addresses and directions are now posted on the tours website: heardsgardentour@yahoo.com

If you live in So. Cal. and want to see some nice gardens, ck. out the website. All the info. is now posted.

JD

Mike, are the same gardens on display both days or only certain ones on Friday and certain ones on Saturday? If so, what day are you and Donna going to be showing?
Sherry

Sherry,

The tour is on Sat and Sun, none on Friday. The way the tour is set up, is that north Orange County is on Sat and south OC is on Sun. The link Mike posted is an email only, here is the link to the site to show what homes are on each day. http://www.heardsgardentour.com/

Mike and I are both on Sat. from 10am-5pm.

Are you planning on coming up for this? It is a great tour with real gardens, not landscaped ones.

Donna

This message was edited Apr 22, 2007 9:40 AM

Sorry about that ! I gave the wrong link. Donna's is the right one.

Yes, I hope to ....just found out this a.m. that there's a Sage and Songbird Festival in Alpine that weekend. I was in a hurry this a.m. and wasn't paying too much attention to the dates...5th and 6th makes more sense as Sat and Sun rather than Fri and Sat! Had to go take a look at the Habitat Hut run by CHIRP in Alpine in the hopes that they would have some salvias that I don't have and to see if they knew what I could expect in the way of salvia at the Festival...I mean after all it's called Sage and Songbird..Struck out in both areas. I need to check dates and times. It's a cool site...but I'm not sure if it's just listing events in San Diego County. I just popped in and out of there because it was taking forever to load. It has a calendar for each month listing various events, sales, classes.

Donna, thanks for the link...several of those gardens are familiar...saw them on the tour several years ago and one of them, I believe, is the garden that had the piece of pottery/ceramic ware done by the people whose work I'd like to collect. I'm going to be sure to look for it and perhaps make an offer on it. It looked *unloved* before. There are quite a few gardens..don't think I'll make it inland to the Fountain Valley ones though.
Sherry

Sheri,
I'll be wearing my alpine outfit and yodleing if that's any enticement for you !!!!!!!
OK...I'll even throw in a few sheep.

Mike, the Alpine Festival is being very cooperative and holding their *do* on Friday just so I won't miss the garden tour, but I'll still be expecting to see and hear the yodeling....I'd drive far to witness that!

JD....Warm up that yodeling! Tomorrow's the day!

Donna,
See you tomorrow....I'll be the one carrying the Hot Lips salvia! And you should be able to hear Mike yodeling all the way from Long Beach........

Yay, your really coming? If there are tons of people here, you better search me out. lol
I also replied to the other thread you posted on also. :-)

Donna

I just got back from the Garden Tour. SoCal's (Donna) garden was wonderful! She had "before" photos which allowed you to see just how much she has done with it. There were so many different and interesting plants, beautiful color combinations, really creative uses of space, it was just fantastic! And I'm stealing her idea for the greenhouse shelves.

Seeing all that made me want to go home and start over!

What a great day..started with stopping in San Clemente at my fave bakery of course...can't hit the road without chocolate croissants.......got some good ideas at JD's for all the vines I want to grow and think I don't have room for...I do, I do...I do have room for them. At Donna's I got to see what the Constance Elliot passiflora looks like at maturity (which was good since she was being generous to give me a seedling). They were both in their element being 'garden hosts' though I'm sure they're now drained by the end of the day. Came home with new ideas and anxious to work on my own mess again after seeing all of these neat and tidy gardens. Tomorrow. Took awhile to get home...no less than 3 very serious accidents on way home..one north through Pendleton, one south through Pendleton, and one on 76 through Oceanside. Incredible...must have been something bad juju going around traffic-wise today. Thank yous to Mike and Donna for sharing their gardens with all of us.
Sherry

Donna, Mike? Are you guys recovered? Any comments/stories to tell? Any photos? I would love to tour your gardens virtually, since I couldn't make it in person.

I have to tell all that both Donna and Mike were 'in their element'....shining stars! I visited most of the gardens on the tour Saturday and a lot were people walking through saying not much, not a lot of interaction with their guests,but boy, at both our DG'ers, things were hoppin', lots of activity and interest and personalities shining through....parties.

Donna, I forgot to tell you.....In the Hot Lips pot, I noticed another small salvia at the base, small, deltoid leaf. Could be one of several types. The Hot Lips was cutting grown, but I gotta 'whole lotta seedin goin' on. You may want to pull it out, or let it grow also and do a cutting from it.
Sherry

Donna, did you faint? :-)

Hi everyone,

No Kathleen, I didn't faint, but I was a complete zombie all day Sunday and today, I've had company since early this morning. My DD and grandson came early today and we went down to the beach and let him play along the waters edge. It was gorgeous down there today with the heat we had. We had a very busy day and they just left a few minutes ago.

The garden tour was GREAT!!! It was a very long day and I enjoyed it so much. I have no idea how many people came through here, but I estimate between 500-600 people. It was to start at 10am and I had people waiting out front early (9:30) so I let them in. The last people to leave was about 5:15. I could stand another minute, so I closed the gate and sat down with a nice cup of coffee and never got off the couch until I went to bed.

I had markers for most of my plants, which most of you know I had help with, but there were a few that I missed and of course those were the plants people wanted to know about. There was one plant that everyone wanted to know about....my Geranium Madernse http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/60114/index.html It was in full bloom and was an amazing site. I told them how it grew and how the stems fold down to create legs to hold up the large blooming head. My Eden rose was looking the best it ever has and I think it has to do with how far back I cut it this year and also I mentioned the Alfalfa tea I gave it which I learned how to make here at DG. One lady said she had seen Eden at several of the other tour homes, but mine had the best blooms and coloring. My chest swelled, I'll tell you. lol

I was so happy to see 3 DG members show up for the tour also. Sherry, Llyod and a new member from my area "missy99912". I was so happy to finally meet her and she even brought me a baby Clivia seedling that she had grown. I then reached into my GH and gave her a passion vine that I had. I was pleasantly surprised to see Llyod come through the gate with his DD and sister in tow. I enjoyed meeting his sister and seeing his DD again. I am sorry to say, that he won't be joining our RU this year, as he will be back east on a former commitment. Then I saw all this red hair coming down the path and knew Sherry had arrived. She had just been to Mikes garden too and gave me an update on him. As she mentioned above, we had a trade going and she gave me a salvia for a passion vine. Now we don't have to lug it to Don's. lol Sherry, I will look for that little seedling you mentioned.

DH needs to use the computer right now, so I will continue later with some pics of the day and of my garden. I hope Mike comes here soon to share his day also.

Thank you all for the lovely comments on my garden, :-)
Donna

I'm so glad you enjoyed your day, Donna, then it was all worthwhile. Wow, so many people! Look forward to seeing some pics.

Kathleen

Donna is right. It was an enormous success.

I too, didn't sit from 6:00 a.m. until after 7:00 p.m. and the people just kept coming all day long.

Was happy to see Loyd and Sheri too !!!

Lots of very nice people and it was a great experience...although next time, I need another gardener to help with answering the myriad of questions the visitors throw at you. It was difficult to answer everyone's inquiries as well as I would have liked given the volume of people who came.

It is a wonderful feeling to share your gardening enthusiasm with other people...from experts down to the "newbies'...

It was also very nice to see lots of children with their parents. I didn't have one problem with anything or anyone, and the kids love the garden art and whimsical things.

"Build it...and they will come"....

Mike

Oh, I'm so happy for you both! Most of us garden really for ourselves, for our own satisfaction, and can only hope that others enjoy our gardens as much as we do. It's wonderful when you can share your garden as a gift to so many people - even people you've never met - and see the wonder and appreciation for your labor of love, what you've worked so hard to create.

Now, how about some pictures for those of us weren't lucky enough to be there?

Mike, your idea of a helper is great, maybe some DG'ers would volunteer to help you guys out next year? (I'd LOVE to do it, but... the commute, you know, lol.)