Yes, yesterday was truly incredible. It blew my mind. I mean I knew I would be taken with all the roses and the very cool environment but the amazing beauty simply knocked my socks off. Everywhere you turned literally were beautiful old graves draped in breaktaking roses, iris, california poppy and many, many other types of thriving flora. I took a zillion photos and will share those as soon as I get them up into my Photobucket account. I thought the sale was handled very well. Although everyone was hot for the roses they wanted it was very polite and courteous gentle nudging and leaning in that was never mean or rude. People were focused but not nasty about getting the roses they wanted. I doubt anyone left without at least one rose. I am so totally out of room I bought a good sized International Herald Tribune that I may keep or give to a friend. I wanted Coulterville Red but they went fast. But there is always next year. My only regret was that I did not meet anyone from GW. I recognized Jeri and Clay but every time I tried to go speak to Jeri there were two people ahead of me waiting for her attention:) It was just an intense kind of day that way. I think we need a GW section for future sales:) I have one suggestion for the very impressive folks who pull this event together and keep the Cemetery shining. Can we talk about all the wonderful Iris growing around the grounds? Can those be included in the sale next year? The lady who was there thinning the iris yesterday kindly gave myself and a couple of other ladies each one as they were going to be composted evidently anyway. That nearly started a stamped. One person even accused me of yanking it out of the ground so I could have one! I think the Open Garden Sale could easily become a roses/iris event. Thank you for all the hard work in making the cemetery so outstanding in every way and the Open Garden Sale such fun. For anyone who wishes to go be sure and give yourselves LOTS of time. I only had the morning to be there yesterday and that was a mistake. You need the whole day. Kate

Time for this one to move on.

The Victorian style of gardening was dead, dead, dead right around 1900. It survived in public parks and railroad stations but most people had come to dislike it intensely. One of its chief features was the bedding-out of annuals, both flowering and foliage plants. I am now seeing some of these foliage plants, like coleus, so popular in the 1800s, popular again. Huge foliage plants such as cannas were also big with the Victorians and scorned after 1900. William Robinson and Gertrude Jekyll began a revolution in English gardens. They advocated naturalistic planting styles and perennials. They also wrote books. Jekyll designed gardens for the very rich in England, never stirring from her hidden home at Munstead Wood, which I have had the great good fortune to visit. Jekyll was inspired by English cottage gardens but her gardens were planned for the upper class. Her books were very popular and well-to-do Americans bought them with enthusiasm. However, American gardeners soon found that English garden books do not translate very well in our climate. A whole new garden literature, most of it written by women gardeners, arose. These books were, I believe, the largest influence on American gardens from 1900 til WW2. They generally showed naturalistic groups of perennials in geometric beds. Borders were hugely popular, as well as the style described above, so often with a sundial at the center. Sorry for the long post!

We were on the way home, so we missed the whole show. Our neighbors saw everything. The tornado funnel cut across Lakeview Golf Course, which is just across the bay from us. It shattered trees on the course and at a house directly across the bay from us. It then entered the bay, becoming a waterspout, and spewed lake water all over the houses. North Arm is only about 1,200 feet wide at our house, so the funnel was about an eighth of a mile from us, 600-700 feet. Incredibly lucky for us, the funnel veered a little north and did a lot of tree damage three houses to the north of us. We just had one medium-sized willow branch blown down at our place. There was no rain falling at the time of the funnel, and the sirens started wailing just after it passed our house. We were without power for about six hours and without cable/internet for 18 hours. Another lucky pass...