Why am I not surprised!! We have a big Garden Tour each year. Big fancy gardens in private homes. The paper did an article one year on the trouble that one nursery had gettting all the plantings done so that the Lady "gardener" could show off "her" hard work. It would take hours each day just to keep all the fancy containers cleaned and shiny.

Post some pictures. We'll let you brag!!
PB

I'd much rather tour a "garden" than look at a carefully landscaped McMansion myself. Good for you for having your own tour. Maybe next time you can find some more "real" gardeners and have an anti-establishment tour.

Too bad you don't live near me. This is a very artsy area near the Delaware river and we have scads of garden tours with none of the Mcmansions ever on them. It's always the old country homes,the Victorians and the cute little gardens tucked in back of the duplexes right in the towns. I know exactly how you feel. When your garden looks terrific you just want to share it with the world. Wish we could all come and see it. Hey...do you have a camera? Maybe we could take a virtual tour of your garden.

Thanks all, I really needed your support. I have thought of mailing everyone on that list to tell them what happened and inviting them for a tour, and asking to see theirs, but I cant decide. It would be great if they would side with me, but I wont expect it. I have tons of pictures in my digital camera but cannot figure out how to save them and share them. I have uploaded 2 photos to Yahoo, because it worked as an attchment, but now I cant get them to email as attachments anymore from my Kodakshare software. Kodakshare Help doesnt help. Yahoo Help doesnt help, neither does Yahoo Cust Svc because I dont know what they are talking about. Most my pics are saved to my Kodakshare software, but they are saved where I cannot link to them. Can anyone help? I dont want them saved to my harddrive, naturally, as that would overload it. I cant load them into my Yahoo albums or photobucket.com without having that path! I am a beginner and need help. I could email you each a link to my Yahoo photos, but your accounts are disabled for replies.

Here's a link to Photbucket.
It's a free site that lets you store and share photo's.
Just click on the "Join Now" tab and follow the directions.

It's real user friendly and I believe you'll like it.

Enjoy and Good Luck,
Lee

Here is a link that might be useful: photobucket

Oops, I left out an "O" in photobucket !

Lee

I can certainly understand why you felt left out, but I think there are some other ways to turn this into a positive thing. First remind yourself that not only do your gardens give you a wonderful creative outlet and much pleasure, but they also give many other people who see them a bright spot in their days as they come and go past your property.

It could very well be that one solitary individual dropped the ball because they were a poor communicator or simply wasn't considerate of somebody else's generous offer. Committees like that are often volunteer led and therefore the whims of one person takes precedence because nobody else wants to get involved.

Here's the thing. I am in the floriculture business. I get asked often for donations to groups like these, and also get asked to give presentations for which I never charge a fee. Why? Because I am passionate about sharing the love of plants with as many people as I can. Several times I directly approached several gardening clubs and just asked outright if I could join. I wish you could have seen the backpeddling. I wasn't embarrased, but those whom I asked were. You see, turns out they are not so much about "gardening" as clubs who use gardening as the reason to have gatherings. Duh. At first I was a little miffed, and then it hit me. Would I have been disappointed if they'd invited me and then found that out after the fact? You betcha. I still donate and I still give presentations, because it fits my view of mentoring.

If you have a passion to share, then find ways to share it and that "cheated" feeling.........well just let it go. There are other outlets you may find fit the bill. If your community has a master gardener program, then inspire them to consider hosting a tour of their own, and this time to focus on serious gardening. I have seen some gardens worthy of tours in the most unlikely places. Churches with bibilical gardens, hosta enthusiasts, public low income housing and even penal institutions. Tours to fancy homes are OK, but they don't draw gardeners, they draw wanna bes.

If you still have feelings you need to work through, then maybe you could sit down and write a polite but frank letter to the editor of your newspaper or your local chamber of commerce, or copy it and send it to both and remind them that a thriving and healthy community encompasses the whole nine yards and by including gardens in every part of the home and business community in their tours would serve as a better inspiration to everyone to get involved and make their part of the world more pleasant.

Yes, I'd love to see your gardens as well. What's a gardener without a little bit of passion? LOL. Just don't let it get under your skin.

Oh, yeah!! I remember the one and only Garden Club nearby my home. I should have noticed that not a one of the members had a single blooming thing in their yards. They should have called it a Flower Arranging Club.....with store bought flowers. The last straw came for me when they had someone come in and show us how to make funeral wreaths.
PB

I too briefly joined the local Garden Club and discovered that it was too much Club and too little gardening, so I resigned.
Wwhen the "Entertainment" turns out to be a member's slides of a cruise, that's just too much.

Well, despite the fact some of the garden clubs of whom I speak really don't keep gardening the focus, they still donate plants and planting to public areas and therefore do accomplish a needed task. One I continue to support, even if I don't fit into their criteria. They are as diverse as any other sector. I am on a yearly tour for an educational group, however. I gladly show them my warts, as well as my efforts. They get to see some of my brain fart designs when I got too busy to look up the description of a tree and went by memory...........LOL.......that one is currently an example of a pollard since it outgrew the site in four years, the current bug of the year, examples of animal or insect damage, and a myriad of weeds with a pep talk on how one can spend so much time being a/r they never enjoy the beauty of the flowers. It's a hoot. I say if you aren't satisfied with the status quo then do something about it.........like you did with a personal tour. Share the passion, and save the hurt feelings.

Well, you said it was sponsored by the local newspaper? Harumph! Newspapers-there's your first clue. I could write reams about all the things I dislike about news "services" and the disservice they do in a community. One-sided reporting, politically skewed editorials, ignoring the good and sensationalizing tragedy, publishing photos of people in the initial thoes of agony of loss. How these "news" people go home and call themselves humans, beget children, and have the nerve to show their inhuman faces in a community, I really don't know. Well, ok, even snakes lay eggs, so I guess I can cut them some slack on the crack about begetting.

Advertising a garden tour, then to not even have the courtesy to let you know that your particular garden didn't fit the criteria, or that what they were looking for just wasn't located in your neighborhood, or that this wasn't actually a Garden Tour hosted by the Beautification Committee, but a Contest to see who has the best gardener hosted by the beautiful people committee. So instead of serving the community, your newspaper serves those who have money.

I'm sure your garden is very beautiful, and I understand that the gardens that get toured often suffer a lot of damage in the course of the tours. Those wealthy people won't care though, they'll get to hobnob with the other wealthy people in their town and then they'll have their gardener come in for a little overtime next week and put everything right again. Even though you truely wished to share the beauty of your garden with the people in your town, sometimes our greatest blessings are our unanswered prayers.

Cheryl

I would love a chance to see your garden. It sounds like one I would enjoy. Is there a chance your garden was not included because of the location? I have the impression that the others might have been in the same neighborhood. It is indeed a loss to the garden tour visitors

I bet it was paid for by realters and developers that just wanted to show off their product. Our area has garden tours that are fund raisers for good causes, like Hospice has one each year. They have all kinds of gardens in all kinds of neighborhoods. I never have my garden on it because it is in July when my garden is not at its best (ok, I confess, I am a spring gardener).

I wouldn't say it was rejected until someone actually came out to your place and then turned up their nose at it, which is what I thought you were going to describe. If your part of town wasn't really what they wanted, then that is what was rejected--not your garden. Somebody at their end who saw pictures of your place in full glory might rush to put it on the list. It depends on what they are looking for. Here the annual municipal tour has certain criteria that must be met, including spotlessness. I am sure most of the places that make it would bore me, so I don't bother going and certainly do not attempt to get my garden on it. You see, I usually have weeds and fallen leaves. Maybe even some dead stalks. I know, I know.

If they have your tour set up like the one here there is some paperwork that gets filled out, maybe you are even supposed to send photos or encouraged to do so--I don't remember.

That tour's planners missed out on real gardeners' gardens...sounds more like a richie rich real estate tour.

Our town's garden club is more of a society/exclusivity thing. One lady with a gorgeous property on Lake Tamarack had the surprise honor of having them visit and present her with a 'garden of the month' plaque...which they promptly collected at the end of the month, never asking her to join! Since my house is not high end I know I'll never be plaqued OR invited, regardless of the actual garden itself.

Alia

Not knowing the particulars of the garden tour, it's hared to say why your garden was rejected. The fact that no one came out to look at it would tell me that they were aiming at gardens in a certain part of town. This would seem to me to be short-sighted, especially if it was being sponsored by the town beautification committee.

I've been chair of our Master Gardener Garden Tour for three years, and I will tell you that the reasons we reject gardens are pretty varied. Sometimes it's because of location. With gas prices so high these days, we try to keep things pretty well grouped together, or if we have to spread out to different parts of the area, we try to have 2 to 3 gardens groups together in a given location.

We also look for diversity in gardens. Big, splashy gardens always draw in visitors, but we also like to show a couple of small gardens where tour goers could say to themselves, "I could do that."

Lastly we have to consider what will be blooming on the day of the tour. If a garden looks great in April, but the tour is in the middle of May, there could be a total lack of anything blooming when the tour day arrived.

If you are really wondering what happened, I'd contact the person in charge & ask some questions. It certainly is curious that no one ever bothered to come & preview your garden.

don't feel bad. My garden club had a walk 2 years ago (ticket $10), and I offered my 2 1/2 acre lot, but was rejected, AND I was president of the club at the time!! The committee wanted the 8 homes within the city limits, with easy street parking. They thought if there were 2 homes, 4 miles away from the city in opposite directions, the viewers would feel cheated it they did not have time to view all the homes. I was later relieved because I did not have to make my yard a showplace that summer, and have the 'five finger blight' arrive the day of the tour.

The request if you can call it that to see my garden came
from a woman that called and said she had heard that I had
a beautiful garden and she wanted to have her club meeting
at my house so they could tour the garden and when would be
a good time for them to come.
Needless to say, I declined the honor.
She probably thought I would be so flattered I would roll
out the RED carpet.

Most people want to come and sit and watch the birds
especially when the Hummingbirds are migrating. It is a
sight to see for sure.

I wish you could post your pictures here for us to see.
It is so easy to do with Photobucket.

I am a beginner and need help. I could email you each a link to my Yahoo photos, but your accounts are disabled for replies.

Since you don't want your pics on your HD you could, if you had a few extra bucks, is buy an external HD that attaches to your main comp via the USB or firewire port. That's what I did to keep my laptop from getting cluttered.

The other option is to take them to a place like Walgreens or CVS and have them 'develop' your pics onto a CD. Then you can upload your pics from the CD to something like Photobucket or Webshots.

HTH