Hi, Linda!
I am a plantaholic, too! LOL!
CLOSED: UNUSUAL Seeds Swap
Thank you to all who participated. It was fun, and everyone seemed to really enjoy the selections I chose for them.
See you again around Daves Garden!
How about one more great big thank you from me - I apologize about being late, but I want you to know how much I enjoyed this swap.
I really liked the thoughts and comments about what makes a flower/plant unusual or special from Flowerhead, LazLo, Sequee, basket_case, dylan, Theresa, and any others I may be missing here.
And the conversation about mentors really struck a chord here. I'm an old lady now, but I'll never forget my elderly neighbor Mrs. Waterman back in the 70s. I had no clue about gardening, nor was I particularly interested, but out of the blue it seemed a good idea to plant some tomatoes. So, there I was, digging up a plot in total shade, when Mrs. Waterman, with whom I had never before spoken, comes out of her house and advises me that tomatoes need sun. I don't know when the gardening bug actually bit me, but I think it might have been later that summer when she invited me over to her garden to show me her moonflowers blooming on a wire table about 3' above the ground. Little did I know at the time how rare it is to have a neighbor like Mrs. Waterman.
The seeds I received could make a garden a little like Henri Rousseau's jungly paintings of tigers swishing through the blades of grasses and aloes beneath swaying vines of drooping golden bells and strange ceramic-textured shell flowers clacking in the tiger's wake.
Well, evidently, Rousseau never set foot in a jungle and not that often in a real, outdoor garden, either. He frequented artificially heated conservatories in Parisian winters with his easel and left behind great horticural adventures of his imagination to posterity.
Theresa, the uncommon seeds you drew in this swap really owned up to the theme of this swap in a very imaginative way - thank you and all, so much.
Karen
http://www.artcyclopedia.com/artists/rousseau_henri.html
(Best scans for wallpaper etc are under Pictures from Image Archives.)
did you get my seeds yet? plmk and thxs
Karen-Your thanks was so very sweet! It made me wish that you were MY neighbor! Being a professional artist, I especially appreciate the reference to Rousseau-and he, like many gardeners among us, had no formal training, just a passion to create. It is a wonderful correlation! I also had a tremendous amount of fun doing this swap. I have always loved unusual plants, but I have not always saved seeds-this is new to me this year (aside from random easily sown seeds saved and just quickly thrown into the beds from their dried pods) so this swap suited me well!-Kath
Im so glad that this swap turned out as nice as it did. Funny how a simple theme can turn into so much fun. And we all got to see new plants we never heard of before and exchange seeds from all over the world.
Unusual #2 has two ladies from the Netherlands participating! How bout that...