Washington Native Plant Society 2007 Native Plant Garden Tours Saturday and Sunday, May 5-6 FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBIC This year's native plant garden tour will be held on the weekend of May 5-6 as part of the Native Plant Appreciation Week activities. This is the weekend before the spring native plant sale. At least ten private gardens will be open to showcase a diversity of garden themes and plant collections. The gardens feature creative use of native plants to enhance living space, add beauty, and attract wildlife. The gardens are located in various areas including Seattle, Mercer Island, Woodinville, Lake Forest Park, and Shoreline, and will be open to visitors at different times throughout the weekend. A final list and information packet of gardens will be available by the end of April. To receive this packet, please contact Alan Yen at sedgeyen@yahoo.com. Here is a link that might be useful: 2007 Washington Native Plant Appreciation Week

Ooooh! More great advice! I LOVE the idea of Easter Brunch at the Kennedy Center! It is special enough for the occasion and unique to DC. Plus, I checked it out on Chowhound (thanks for the link!) and the reviews are very favorable. Oh, I'm getting excited now! I've also arranged for a Capitol tour with my Senator's office and requested a tour at the Bureau of Printing & Engraving. I passed on the White House tour because it seemed like a lot of security hassle for a short tour. Did I make a mistake - is it really not to be missed? Emma, you are not alone in your enthusiasm for Air & Space - I will go with an open mind! I booked our hotel at the Embassy Suites near Dupont Circle, but I'm not totally sold on that idea. It is a 5 block walk to the Metro which sounds kind of far to me. I'm wondering if I should change to the ES at either Chevy Chase (Friendship Heights) or Alexandria. Both have Metro stations very close by, and it sounds like lots of restaurants as well. Alexandria sounds very charming, I'm leaning towards that way. Will we miss anything if we stay too far out? (Are those places too far out?) I need good restaurants and shopping, don't need nightlife. We'll be there for a week. (I did check out the ES at the Convention Center but it is coming in at over $350/night including tax. I just can't bring myself to go that high!) Thanks again for the great ideas - keep 'em coming! Nicole

The only thing I am afraid of on the general forums is when people pop in and say something even I know is totally not true, and they usually pronounce it dogmatically, as if it is gospel. Sirens go off in my head and I think, "Oh MY. How many people are going to glom onto this bit of gospel and run with it?" The phrase "First, do no harm" always comes to mind. That, and what Amy said. And what Dawn said. I bet you can predict what's coming, Bruce! Totally believe that. And what Jen said. Brr today. Since it will be cool for the next few days, I'm in no hurry to run and get raised bed soil. But am looking forward to the present forecast of really warmer temperature in 4-5 days. I shall be prepared. HJ, I had that happen, only cardinals up in Minneapolis (I'd like to think ONE cardinal, and it very likely WAS the same one as they were extremely territorial up there.) The first time I was standing outside after it had snowed, marveling at the beauty, and thinking of Russ while shoveling the driveway. Glanced up when I got out there, and there was a cardinal,stark red against a white background, on the light pole across the street, directly opposite me on our narrow street. My first thought was how beautiful the scene was. As my mind was occupied with thinking of Russ, how goofy he was and how I wished I could be visiting with him, I'd glance up. There he sat, just watching me. This continued until I was through, and then he softly flew away. Then I actually keyed into him when I'd be out in the winter, or spring or summer that year, and he often would be sitting fairly nearby, oh, say 15-20 feet, and just watching me. And so I came to associate him with Russ, after that first time. I never though it WAS Russ, but I didn't discount the possibility that it might be a messenger carrying messages about Russ or from Russ. Or maybe he just found me interesting. haha As we know, birds are no different than humans. Each one an individual, with THEIR own little quirks. Now down here, the cardinals don't appear to be quite as territorial, and further, none of them has shown the slightest interest in me, nor have any of the other birds. :) The ticks and chiggers, on the other hand, they think I'm magic. I suspect you had a riveting movie to watch last night, Dawn. That was OUR deal at sleepovers. Big batch of popcorn snuggled up together on top of the quilt, not under, with our OJ, watching one of the marvelous movies. Beautiful memories. It is proving to be an extra special day here today, full of thankfulness and love for gardening, nature, and people, and the source for it all. The only gardening I'll do today is potting up, no small thing in itself. Hope you all are doing well!

Larry, Someone else got 5-lobed bells this year too, maybe it was someone on one of our OK gardening Facebook pages. I'll get an occasional five-lobed bell but not often. It sounds like you were very busy, even as a child. I think you would have made a great doctor because you would have been trying to save your patients, not trying to kill them by supper time (I hope). My best friend contracted polio from the vaccine when we were young children. He survived it and appeared to have mostly recovered, but had a limp forever after. The polio came back when he was in his 40s or early 50s and it killed him. I never knew that could happen---like he wasn't really cured. It stayed hidden in his body for decades and then came back strong. Nancy, I'm already exhausted and we have almost 24 hours more to go. She is more exhausted though. We were running around all day and when we got home about 2 pm, she grabbed her pajamas and told me she was going to go take her bath and get ready for bed---and she was serious. I told her it was not bed time, but swimming pool time, and she woke right up. Now she's fighting to stay awake until after dinner time. Unless she gets a second wind, I think it will be a really early night for her tonight. This week the kids are fascinated with icebox melons. I harvested 13 of them yesterday, ranging in size from about the size of an orange to the size of a cantaloupe and they are in love with the little ones, which I think are the variety Mini Love, and also in love with the fact that there are three colors of flesh---red, yellow and orange. We have tons of icebox melons to eat, and even are sharing them with the fawns and the mothers every evening. We slice and eat melons daily. The nice thing about the icebox sized ones is that they have a pretty long shelf life, so you can cut one or two every day and there's less (if any) left over to put away in the fridge. I don't even put all the melons in the icebox----I just leave them sitting on a counter until we use them. Usually if we cut one or two, we eat all of them that day, or throw out the leftover pieces for the deer. It is so much more convenient than having to cut up a huge one and deal with pieces of it in the fridge for days and days. I didn't do anything in the garden today. I'm just hoping and praying the heavy rain they're saying we will get on Sunday and Monday actually happens. There's been a ton of rain to our south in Texas, particularly in the areas that are in Extreme Drought, so I know that those folks are relieved. The amount of rain they got won't remove the drought, but might knock it back a good deal. The cooler temperatures are very, very nice, so at least we have that, whether the rain comes or not. The garden still looks pretty bad, but when I consider that we're in Severe Drought, I realize it looks about as good as it possibly can considering the weather we are having. Dawn