2008 Delaware County Master Gardener Bus Tour

What a great weekend of discovering two new gardens in North Western Ohio. Our bus trip started from the center of Delaware, Ohio and headed Northwest to the Toledo Botanical Gardens. Were we in for a treat! We had a docent-led tour that was wonderful. The park is divided into many gardens. Since I especially like perennial and cottage gardens, those were big hits for me. The number of plants and design of the the beds gave me some great ideas. The colors were spectacular! Everything was so well marked including the trees. My husband is the tree person. He "graduated" from Master Gardener Tree School last year. I am so proud of my tree man! The Joe-Pye Weed, Phlox, and daylilies were beautiful. The stone wall in the cottage garden is amazing. I wish I had thought to catagorize my pictures by each garden that we visited in the park, but I was just taking it all in. What a gem for Toledo and admission is free!

Here are some pictures of our memorable visit:

Master Gardeners enjoying a hot summer morning at the Toledo Botanical Gardens.



Glass sculpture in the garden
Glass Blower at work

After our tour, we got back on the bus and headed for Hoen's Greenhouse and Garden Center in Holland, Ohio. I had only been to Holland, Michigan before, so another adventure for me. Upon arrival, we were greated by the owners and then let loose to shop. Yeah, shop. There were a lot of wide-eyed Master Gardeners armed with carts. We timed our trip just right. There was a big sale going on and what Master Gardener can resist that. The carts were lined up at the register as our shopping trip came to a close. We bought four Edelweiss, a begonia, two Datura, and an ornamental pepper. What a great nursery!

Well back on the bus to Schedel Arboretum and Gardens. We needed a rest after our shopping frenzy. Walking through the main gate was only a tease for what was ahead. It is like a Disney experience for a gardener--magical. The gardens are located in Elmore, Ohio. Another new experience for us.

The entry gardens are planted taking into consideration plants, color, and design. We were told that the distance from each plant is measured to insure uniformity. There are many levels to these gardens. The lowland garden allows for growing plants and trees that usually do well in a different zone than the upland garden. There are twenty-five varieties of Japanese Maples throughout. We saw pine trees, a Cucumber Magnolia, an Umbrella Magnolia, Cutleaf Beech, Japanese Katsura, Bald Cypress and many more including bamboo. My husband was in tree heaven. The sound of water over a cascading wall, takes you to the magnificant Japanese Garden below. Oh, and there are many bridges over the water too. You are truly taken to a magical place in this garden. We had lunch at the gardens and then a docent tour led my a local Master Gardener. She was awesome! All of us learned so much about the gardens as we enjoyed our time, though brief, at Schedel.

Master Gardeners taking in the view from ground levelA great lower level view




A mature grove of Dawn Redwoods


A view of some of their Bonsai collection.

We said goodbye to Schedel. What a great garden! We know that we will be back to visit both of these gardens in the future.

Our next stop was Northbranch Nursery in Pemberville, Ohio. They were having a sale on hydrangeas, and what a wonderful selection they had. I have never seen such huge and healthy hydrangeas. They were selling them 2 for 1. I did not buy any, but the Master Gardeners went crazy. The bus was filled with beautiful hydrangeas. I bought a Crocosmia and a Euphorbia First Blush.

Well, our annual MG bus trip was coming to an end. We boarded the bus for Delaware, Ohio and off went a lot of tired, but happy Master Gardeners. The belly of the bus was full of plants.

A Weekend of Wonderful Daylilies

What a great weekend! My husband and I spent two days last weekend enjoying wonderful daylilies at two great venues. First, we spent a day in the Hocking Hills at the Lilyfest in Rockbridge, Ohio. This was the sixteenth year for this wonderful festival. Last year was the first year that we attended and we will not miss another one. The grounds of this property consist of three acres of gardens, sculptures, and ponds. The gardens were in full bloom with daylilies everywhere. The masses of daylilies in bloom, in the well designed beds, spread out over this property were breathtaking. My only wish was that there were labels identifying the daylilies. I saw so many that just amazed me. The colors and flower sizes called out to us "take my picture," and that is exactly what we did. We strolled the gardens while listening to music, sipped on lemonade from Annie's Cheesecake, purchased daylilies from Flowers of the Good Earth, one of the many garden related vendors at the festival. We also purchesed a big metal fly from Dave and Tammy Anders. I found a spot for it right away in one of my garden beds. We also purchased a butterfly house from Larry Neff. Yes, a butterfly house! It is a place for butterflies to rest and stay safe from predators. I knew just where I wanted to put it, and it is waiting for the butterflies in my garden bed right now. Well my words can't really describe the beauty of this festival, so here are some of the many pictures we took that day.

My Butterfly House
Oh yes, my garden fly!

The next day, we were off to the Daylily Walk at MarLee Farms in Centerburg, Ohio. A friend of ours, from our Master Gardener Group, and her husband operate this Daylily and Hosta farm. Twice a year, it is open to the public for a Hosta Walk in June, and a Daylily Walk in July. Designer, Asiatic, and Oriental Lilies line the property with many beds scattered throughout. The Millers have more than 600 varieties of hostas and a more daylilies than I could count. There are over two acres of gardens to enjoy and lots of hostas, daylilies, and perennials that you can also purchase. Well, what would a trip to a fantastic daylily haven be without a few souvenir plants to take home. I had fun shopping and enjoyed the walk through the gardens too! A storm was approaching, so we did not write down names of the flowers, but if you would like to know the name of any of them, let me know and I will ask Lee. I know that I will be sharing picture of our new daylilies as they bloom in later posts. Here are a few pictures from our day.

We ended our day with a downpour and a beautiful rainbow over the farm.

Rose Festival at the Park of Roses

It was a full weekend for us. My husband drove home with one and a half cubic yards of mulch on Thursday after work. Our intentions were to get this spread in one large bed and a few smaller ones. My husband took Friday off and we mulched, and mulched, and mulched. It was taking a lot longer due to the somewhat wet soil from the previous rains we had last week. I kept weeding and he kept mulching. Then the rains came again on Friday. We dodged one storm earlier, but around five in the afternoon, we saw lightening and decided, in our best interest, that we better stop. That was shortly after we moved a rather large Early Amethyst Beautyberry (Callicarpa dichotoma) from one bed to a new bed. We laughed as both of us tried to get the large root ball onto a plastic mulch bag to no avail. Then we tried moving it onto a large tarp. We were successful, but laughed silly as my husband pulled and tugged as the stubborn Early Amethyst Beautyberry resisted being dug out of its home and then pulled with all our might to its new home. We have one more Beautyberry to move to this new bed, then we will have a group of three. We also planted three Sedum spectabile 'Pink Chablis' Stonecrop . I fell in love with this sedum. It has beautiful cream and green leaves and pink flowers in the fall. We also had on our agenda a full weekend of garden activities that we put on our schedule and really wanted to attend. One of these was the Rose festival in Columbus and the other was a private garden that was open to the public for only the fourth time. It is known as the Schnormeier Gardens and located in Gambier, Ohio. We did manage to get to these great events, but after two days of checking out these gardens, we still had mulch in the truck bed and needed to clear it before the Monday morning work alarm went off, so we worked on getting it unloaded quickly during Sunday evening. We still have the one more Beautyberry to dig and replant in the new bed, but we made progress and had fun during the weekend too.

The Park of Roses is located in Whetstone Park in Columbus, Ohio. This past weekend was the annual Rose Festival. My husband and I are always amazed at the beauty found in this wonderful park and during the festival, it it magnified. The thousands of rose bushes are breath- taking. We always enjoy the herb garden, perennial garden and the many trees throughout the park, but the weekend of the festival, the roses are the star. I always enjoy the many vendors selling a variety of garden art, flowers, rose bushes, and more. It was fun watching people of all ages bending down and sniffing the various roses. Everyone was taking time to "smell the roses.

Wild Blue Yonder (Grandiflora)

Red Lion (HT)

Gitte (HT)

Orange Sensation (F)

Impatient (FL)

Strike it Rich (GR)

Love and Peact (HT)

Proud Mary (HT)

Prairie Harvest

Chrysler Imperial (HT)

Blueberry Hill (FL)

Some wonderful views of the festival

Black Lace Sambucus

Wow! Do I love this plant. It is everything that I heard about it. Last fall, I bought three of these plants for a small island bed in our yard. I heard about its beautiful burgundy lace like foliage and was told that the flowers were insignificant. It was the foliage that resembled a cut leaf variety of Japanese Maple that sold me. What stopped me from buying it was that I read it was a deer magnet. Yet, I still dreamed of having it. It is the gardener, or really plant lover, in me.

We planted them in the new bed last fall and sprayed the plants with LiquidFence, hoping they would survive the hungry winter deer. Deer are a real probem in our yard. They will pass up a field of wheat, soybeans, and corn to feast on a buffet in our yard. We have also used Deer Scram and had success with it as well. We did find that we really do need to switch, from time to time, what we use. The deer have proven to outsmart us at times. I have a beautiful Blue Muffin Viburnum that I planted four years ago in another bed. This year, it is finally twice the size it was when I purchased it. Every year, the deer have chowed down on it, so I have never had any of the beautiful blue berries. Well, this year, my husband sprayed Liquid Fence on it. Well, there was one area the deer missed and they got to it again, but did not do a great deal of damage. Most of the spent flower stalks are still there, so we are hoping for the blue berries this fall.

My Favorite Dianthus

I received a gift certificate for Bluestone Perennials for the last few years from my sister, the cat lover. This has been my favorite mail order source for nice healthy perennials. I really look forward to receiving their catalogue during the cold, snowy days of December. Last year, I ordered a Dianthus named Greystone. I received three of them and promptly planted them. The description read "white, fringed, extra-fragrant flowers." I was sold. This year, the plants have formed a wonderful fragrant clump of beautiful white scented flowers. This plant has lived up to its description. I know that I will look forward to seeing it pop up in my garden again next year. It has been in bloom for the last three weeks and is still looking good.

Favorite Early Long Bloomers

I have really enjoyed some of my spring long bloomers this year. I have noticed how long these perennials have stayed in bloom and wanted to share them with you. The first plant is know as Sea Thrift (Armeria). It is like having a little clump of grass with round flowers that look like lollipops swaying from the top. I have both the pink and white flower varieties.

Contrasts in the Garden

As I was taking pictures of the lilac shrubs in bloom, I started to think about what this area of the backyard looked like just a few short months ago. I needed to be reminded of the wonderful transformation that has taken place.

During the early March winter storm that hit this area pretty hard. We refer to it as the "blizzard of 08."

This is a spring view as the Dwarf Korean Lilacs were in bloom in May.