That was my garden that was raided and my neighbor caught the thieves. That is exactly why I am not offering my garden for the tour. Hideko Gowen's yard has been vandelized numerous times. It's far back from the road and easy to do. In addition to having opened her garden for tours, she sells from her home also. Last summer I was in south Minneapolis when I drove by a house that looked familiar to me. I stopped and got out and I was admiring the yard from the sidewalk. A woman came out and I complimented her on her garden. I asked if she had been featured in the StarTribune once. She said she had been. I told her they had called me a couple of times after my garden had been nominated, but I was hesitant because of what had happened after the neighbor's house was on the pond tour. She said, after being in the newspaper, her garden was raided a couple of times. That pretty much sums up why I won't be on the tour. My yard is fenced and the gates are locked. Last year I got a garden sign for the front gate and it was stolen. I got the idea from McTavish. It said "Welcome to Teresa's Garden, gardening forever, housework whenever. So now there is another Teresa out there with my sign. Sad but true. Anyone else out there with a similar experience? Ken in Adrian, MI - has anything like this happened to you? T

Funny Moc, a bus for the hosta. No, I meant this year you can choose. I like the bus - it makes it easy and you don't miss anything. The only thing I didn't like about driving is that some people missed some gardens. We barely made it to the last one in Lisle and had to speed tour. Our timing must have been off earlier in the day. These people work hard to prepare their gardens and they are all different and worth seeing- I don't want to miss one. When we have been on the bus, someone else keeps time for you, finds the place for you and deals with traffic. On the other hand, we have a good car for touring and we will be driving to the convention. Ken, things keep changing, bus, no bus, choose the bus... I think you should go to a convention again and see if anything else has changed:) Beverly

thanks for the nice comments... Sheila is indeed talented. Perhaps her only serious flaw is poor judgement in men - her first husband can be a real jerk! Teresa - I haven't heard any of the financial details... except that the auction raised $20,000 or so. I'm sure the proceeds from all the raffle items will be reported in aggregate, so we'll never know how many tickets were put in the baggy for the quilt. I'm hoping at some point to find out how much my auction donation plants brought... and I'd love to know where they went. Right now, Xela is in four places... my garden, Roxanne in Iowa's garden, Danny von Eechaute's garden in Deinze, Belgium - and ??? Sookai is also in four places... my garden, Joan's garden in Savage, Hank's garden south of La Crosse, and ??? I know, I should have stayed for the auction... but I knew I couldn't afford to buy any, and we desperately needed to pick up the house when it became clear that our outdoor party was going to have to move indoors... melissa - I messed up... I copy-pasted this from a posting on another forum I frequent, and I changed all the picture links but forgot I had the other kind of code in the text... got to be more careful about that!

Ahhh, finally home. Of course, the first thing I did was check the hostas, and the second was start watering. My son unloaded the car - Good son! The convention plant, Czech it Out, is kind of puny and will need some babying. Loved the alternate, a tetraploid version of Orange Marmalade called Smash Hit, but that was only given to people attending as a pair. Saw so many hotas I wanted, but there were already 20 hostas waiting to be planted at home, and some are giants. I got Double D Cup, Olive Branch, and Ghostmaster from Rob Mortko (Made in the Shade). He was kind enough to bring Double D and OB just for me and hold them until late Friday so they didn't have to sit in a hot car during the bus tour. PIcked up Seducer and Pocket Full of Sunshine at Dry Creek Hostas, one of the tour gardens. They had nice big plants, will have to add them to my list of places to visit while in Iowa. Bought Golden Needles and Church Mouse from Land of the Giants (I think), Neptune, Royal Tiara and Emerald Charger from In the Country, and Power Keg from Naylor's. Also got the Hostapedia and the Field Guide from Mark Zillis. They're very interesting. My mother lives just north of Cedar Rapids, and I spent Sunday and Monday with her. Stopped at In the Country as well. I finally had to put the books in the car, couldn't stop looking at them. Last but not least, I won a wonderful collection of gardening tools in the hat contest. Had a great time, but very glad to be home. The garden is dry and full of weeds, lots to do. Photos will take a while to edit and post.