This Week Was a Blur

Most of you have probably already figured out that I rarely sit still.  I generally have at least two projects going at once, so I'm used to skipping from thing to thing to thing.  This week, though, I had WAY too many things lined up to do. 

My rose propagation exhibit at yesterday's Culpeper flower show was a big hit.  There weren't enough people there at any given time for me to do any dedicated demonstrations, but I did answer a LOT of questions. 

 

 

What's that I see in the center of the table with the rest of the items in my display?  That would be the award given to the best educational exhibit, scoring 95 points or higher.  I was in total shock when I saw it.  I don't do these things for awards or recognition ... I get my reward when people go home and have success when they try what I teach them.  (It's still really cool to win, though.)

 

 

 

I have two new game camera photos to show you.  In its new spot overlooking part of the Rose Field, I captured two decent photos.  Night #1 had one photo of a deer ... look carefully on the right.

 

 

 

Night #2, the camera captured another image of a fox.

 

 

 

I mentioned that I was out of town from Saturday until Tuesday of last week, helping my brother.  He and his wife are renovating her mother's former house near Abingdon, Virginia. My brother is a VERY talented kitchen installer by trade, and he gets to put his considerable talents to work on his own project this time ... updating the place to make it into a comfortable second home.   My part of the renovation will be to paint the cabinets. I'm working on a custom color that I know you're going to love.

 

 

 

What am I doing today?  The weather is beautiful and it's a great day to work on the new rose bed that I'm putting in along the fence behind our garage.

 

 

 

I hope all of you have a great Sunday!!

 

Rose Propagation Display at the Culpeper Flower Show

Tomorrow is the annual Culpeper Garden Club Flower Show.  I was asked by the club to do an educational display ... hard to do something showy right now since it's early in the season and none of the roses have any flowers on them.  After thinking on it for a while, I decided to make a display to teach folks how to root roses from cuttings ... using baby roses from the greenhouse as the live material in the display.

The kitties always provide more help than I can handle when I'm working on something important like this.  (Here you see Alice trying to make me believe that she isn't interested in stealing the cap from my glue stick.)

 

 

As I began to dry fit the parts of the display board, Alice pitched in to add ballast so the board wouldn't tip over.

 

 

 

Being helpful like this is hard work and it makes a kitty sleepy.

 

 

 

Since helping was obviously wearing Alice out, Dorothy pitched in to give her a hand.  (and entertain herself by playing with Alice's tail.)

 

 

 

Here is the rough result ... I will do a more pleasing job of arranging the plants and photos once I'm at the show tomorrow.  I went old-school with this display, with hand-mounted photos and labels pinned to the backboard.

 

 

 

If you're near Culpeper, Virginia, and you want to learn to propagate roses, plan to visit the Culpeper Garden Club Flower Show tomorrow, Saturday, April 20.  I will be there from noon to 5:00 to answer questions.  If I can, I am planning to do live demonstrations throughout the day.  (that's what the bouquet of florist roses is for.)

The horticulture and education portion of the show is in the Hazel River Inn Armory at 197 E. Davis St, Culpeper, VA.   Designs will be displayed throughout the beautifully-restored Hill House at 501 South East Street.   Admission is free.