I'm thinking spring too, Irina.... Fred already gave me great advice about timing too. My background is in marketing and I'm always trying to approach any event or task from various viewpoints. Mother's Day weekend is already taken - was thinking that this would be a great time to promote these plants as gifts and to encourage other's to explore our meetings and this hobby. Easter - same marketing advantage. I personally think a violet as an Easter gift would be very nice. There is a huge plant sale here locally that one of the garden clubs does and they have traffice of 700 people + in a one day. I need to find out when that is and do it about 2 weeks after that (I'm thinking on the spot here, out loud) so that we could promote our event at their event. I think I just found my date :) Dora

FYI Schedule of events for the Eastern Iowa Garden and Landscape Show: Main Stage 10:00 - Lee Zieke and Lindsay Lee, Willowglen Nursery 11:00 - Lucinda Mays, Heritage Gardening on IPTV 12:00 - The music of Mike Maas and Carlis Faurot 1:45 - The Mays and Lees Panel Presentation Formal Garden 12:00 - 2:00 - Master Gardener Presentations Courtyard of the Visitor Center 12:00 - 2:00 - Brucemore Cutting Gardens Demonstrations Brucemore Landscape Tours - 12:00 - 2:00 IronBelly

Thanks, Hilda - looks like a great theme. I missed the show this year, but hope that doesn't happen again.

I've seen some of the pictures already but some are still new to me. The Opryland Hotel is really beautiful. Most of us don't stay in hotels on a consistent basis. Because inns are not a typical experience for a lot of people, the new fees are showing even more unexpected. Here are probably the most frequent new fees and how to keep away from them. Source for this article: Hidden hotel fees could add up to over $1.8 billion