More Garden Touring

As part of the continuing Hardy Plant Study Weekend, we had another morning of seminars and an amazing afternoon of garden touring.

Today's gardens were in West Seattle, after which we met Jake and Tad for a Father's Day dinner together in west Seattle. It was a great chance to both catch up, and slow down.

Tomorrow we finish up the garden tours with six gardens in North Seattle, after which we will head to Whidbey Island for an overnight, returning home Tuesday evening.

Here are just a few of the pics I took over the last two days. Enjoy.

This chicken coop, home to three hens, sits in the middle of an elegant Bellevue garden.

And this is the vegetable garden in the same yard.

Moving on.

This special "training pot" has an actual, working train!

We saw so many amazing pots and containers.

There were many wonderful water features.

Including, today, a water feature leaking from the sky. Dodging umbrellas was a bit dodgy, but photos are so much better in the diffused light of a cloudy day.

The view out over the sound from a garden deck. Water and sky were a study in gray.

So many amazing color combinations.

And interesting plant choices.

Transitions

Jill and the kids were delivered to the airport at 6:00 AM this morning. Jill reported via email that by 2:30 this afternoon they were laying or playing in the kiddy pool in the sun. She said early flights make for early evenings and therefore good transitions back to mountain time. I have had trouble sleeping the last two nights, and I was up with Jill at 5:00 AM this morning, watching a World cup soccer game. We were up early yesterday too, watching the USA play their second match, against Slovenia, to a 2-2 tie. Today we were on the road by 8:00, headed to Bellevue for the second day of the Hardy Plant Study Weekend. This is a 3-4 day conference that combines garden tours and presentations by garden experts. This is our first experience with this conference. We started yesterday by touring six gardens south of Seattle in the Tacoma to Olympia area. Then we met at 6:45 at the Bellevue Hilton for an opening evening session. While we were doing this, Jill and the kids spent the day with Aunt Jan in Gig Harbor. Today we had morning sessions at the hotel and then toured six gardens in the Bellevue area this afternoon. We were beat by the time we got home. A meal out helped to restore some energy. We go back for more sessions tomorrow morning and more garden tours in the afternoon. Then on Monday we have six more gardens to tour before finishing up. Today's sessions were quite good and all of the gardens have been wonderful. Here are a few photos of the gardens we visited yesterday. Garden 1 Garden 2

Garden 3

Garden 4

Garden 5

This evening we've done some laundry and have begun to strip beds. We're transitioning back to a 2 person household. I've thought about the kids all day, and I miss them, of course. I'm also very tired and happy to be getting back to normal after three weeks.

Another Drippy Morning

I was up before 7:00 to be greeted by another wet morning. I knew watching soccer was on the schedule, and searched my brain for another indoor kid activity. I came up with The Zoo! So after breakfast I suggested that we might play zoo and I knew how we could do it. We took a laundry basket up stairs and loaded it with all of the stuffed animals we could find. Then I took the kids and the animals to the dining room, moved a few chairs around and told them to decide where the cages were and where to put each of the animals. Then I left to do other things for a short while. When they were ready, we talked about what signs we might need and how we should make them. I got materials and helped them with sign making. Then I suggested we might need a ticket office. Oh, yes, Irene wanted to sell tickets. So we made tickets and money, with Isaac deciding the prices, $5 for youths, $7 for adults. Then of course we needed that ticket office, which fit nicely into a doorway. Irene demanded a ticket counter. Some Styrofoam packing I had in the garage worked nicely and even had shelves where she could keep important stuff. And we were ready. Of course, most of the fun is in setting it up, but they managed to play Zoo off and on all day. The Petting Farm

The Sea Creatures, and yes, that is a Blue Footed Booby!

Meanwhile, Tom discovered yesterday that we had a leak in our yard watering system. He went to plant a new plant in an area near the control boxes and found a hole full of water.

So he spent a lot of time down in the mud, with his head in a hole.

Fortunately the leak was found, once the water drained out, and the fix was made. Now he'll monitor it for a few days before closing everything back up.

It's not like we need to be watering the yard right now.