Christine, GWers are few and far between in these here parts! But hello, I'm 30 min from the WI border, in IL and also 30- ish. Come on by to IL I'll, make yah a cup of tea., Karen

On Thursday I visited Land of the Giants Hosta Farm and The Flower Factory. Both are between Janesville and Madison in southern Wisconsin about one-half hour apart. Jeff and Penny Miller were excellent hosts at Land of the Giants. Jeff spent about two hours showing me around and describing his breeding efforts. He has about 400 streaked hostas and it seems he's out early every day pollinating their flowers with a huge variety of pollen. Jeff showed me over 1,300 seedlings he planted out from the tens of thousands of seeds he started indoors in late 2009. Jeff said he had over 1,700 named varieties of hostas with over 500 listed for sale. It was a fantastic visit. I came home with two hosta purchases, a generous division of Emerald Ruff Cut and a young Roy Klehm. I highly recommend visiting Land of the Giants. It is a very impressive display of hostas on hillsides in bowl shaped setting. It is less than two hours from Chicago and well worth the trip. Just call ahead for an appointment. If you cannot make the trip Land of the Giants does mail order, too. The pictures on the website cannot convey the awe inspired by a visit, however. The Flower Factory near Stoughton, Wisconsin was my second stop. They have a terrific variety of perennials in about 20 hoop houses. The hostas were great, but they were only about 5% of the plants displayed. There were probably as many varieties of sedum as hostas, for example. In addition to hostas Lakeside Dragonfly and Cat's Eye I brought home several rock garden plants I had not seen before. The heat in the hoop houses was hard to take on a 90 degree sunny day or I would have spent even more time. I highly recommend a trip to The Flower Factory. Mark Here is a link that might be useful: Land of the Giants Hosta Farm

I'm a little more reserved this year with starting seeds, especially my tomatoes. Usually they are flowering before I can get them into the garden, so I've only started them a few days ago. I have pepper plants sprouting. I saved seeds from some long red sweet peppers I got at Sam's Club a few weeks ago and they were so delicious. I hope the seeds reproduce true to the original. I plan on getting my 16' x 20' greenhouse set up as soon as I get the lawn in the area raked and all the downed branches picked up. Today it's raining, so no outside work could be done. As soon as it's dry and nice out again, I plan to start some cool season veggies like spinach, lettuce and beets. I devote most of my garden to tomato plants, using wire cages for support. I end up every year with a tomato jungle, and lots of tomatoes to eat and make into juice. A few years ago I tried growing tomatoes hanging downward in large pots and had tomatoes to eat already on July 7th, my granddaughter's birthday. I may do some of those again this year, but it's hard to find places to hang the pots because my trees are so much bigger and not much sunshine gets through except where the garden is. Looks like this week will stay cool and wet here along Lake Michigan. Hope it warms up after Easter.

The suggestion by the previous post is a very good day trip. The Dubuque Arboretum is very nice. Also, Mineral Point on the way back from Dubuque to Madison is a nice small town with some older buildings converted to artsy type of shops. The southwest part of Wisconsin has alot of nice scenery. Also, if you are based in Madison and want to go to Wisconsin Dells - hwy 12 through Baraboo is a nice drive alternate rather than the interstate. Just a warning Wisconsin Dells is fun but its the typical commerical tourist place if that's what you are into. If you are based in Madison every Saturday morning there is a farmer's market on the Square which can be very entertaining. Also, on Wednesday, Aug 3 is the last concert on the Square in Madison which is a free concert at the Captial Square that starts at 7 -- but you should get there plenty early put out a blanket and relax with food and beverage. Have a great trip!! P.S. I think the Wisconsin Forum becomes dead in May because we can finally get outside after being cooped up for 6 six months! Here is a link that might be useful: Dubuque Arboretum