There's No Place Like Home

Our vacation in the great Smoky Mountains was wonderful!  The Husband, our two dogs, and I spent five days with six of our dearest friends, and we all thoroughly loved our time away.  I only have a minute right now to leave this short note ... to let you know that I missed all of you and I'm anxious to get back here on a more consistent basis, but it will be a few days until I can fill you in on everything we did in the Smokies.  In the meantime, here's a little taste.

We stayed in this cabin ...

... spent a lot of time on the back porch,

... and saw the most beautiful scenery.

I have tons and tons of photos to share our vacation with you, and I'll be back to do that this weekend.  Who would have thought that we'd have so much fun with eight people and seven dogs in a cabin.

This is all I can do right now.  It's time for me to grab my list, gather all my stuff, and pack my truck for the 3-day plant sale at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden.  If you're local, and you come to the sale, please stop by my booth and say Hi.

Catching My Breath

This week, so far, has been a LOT about accomplishments and not so much about blogging, I'm sorry to say.  I have a spare few minutes right now, so let's see what I can do to get all of you caught up on the happenings here in Hartwood.

The Husband and I are taking a trip with friends this weekend.  In preparation for this, I have a huge list of things that MUST be finished before we leave. 

Early Monday morning, before the breeze came up, I was out with my sprayer of herbicide, killing the weeds and grass that have sprouted in the area that is to become the new gardens by the barn.  This is my version of multi-tasking, because the herbicide can be working its magic on the weeds while I am busy with other things for the next week.  (I will show you more about this in a later post.)

This area will look a LOT different, once the herbicide has done its thing.

In preparation for the plant sale at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond, I have to have ALL of the roses in the greenhouse potted into their final, big boy containers before we leave .  I finished this on Monday ... spending all day with my hands in dirt, potting and arranging roses on the benches in the greenhouse.  The big pots take up SOOO much more space, and there isn't a spare square inch of room left in there for anything.  Everywhere you look is wall-to-wall green, with a few flowers thrown in for accent.  The fragrance is a lovely combination of humidity and rose perfume.

As The Husband was updating the calendar on the Hartwood Roses web site, adding a notice there about the plant sale, we noticed that the photo they use on that page is a photo of ME.  I didn't believe it at first, but The Husband wisely said, "I think I know my own WIFE!"  I had no idea that anyone was taking my picture.

I was gone all day Tuesday, hostessing at a house on the Virginia Garden Week tour.  I dressed up in my finest pseudo-19th Century day dress, complete with a swishy slip and a garden hat with flowers.  The house belongs to rose friends of mine, and I was honored that they thought to invite me to be one of their hostesses.  We had a beautiful day, with light overcast and warm temperatures.  Everyone who knows me knows that I am a storyteller at heart, and I love doing stuff like this.  (I probably should have had someone use my camera and take my picture, because I looked really cute!)

The plant selections throughout this garden are SUPERB!

This vignette is on the patio, off the sunroom ... which would be a beautiful spot to have morning coffee.

I found the quote on the plaque to be particularly appropriate for me right now.

Speaking of storytelling ... yesterday evening I gave a presentation to the monthly meeting of the Rappahannock Area Master Gardeners Association.  This is a great group of knowledgeable folks who were eager to learn more about roses that are well-suited for growing in our area.  I always start this particular program by assuring everyone that the combination of "easy care" and "roses" is not an oxymoron.

Mutabilis is one of my most favorite, easy-care roses.

While I have been working on nursery business, hostessing tours, and giving presentations, The Husband and our daughter have been quietly working behind the scenes making the gardens look beautiful.  Monday, he took delivery of a dumptruck-load of mulch ... it's good to have friends with access to a dumptruck.

This ten-yard load of mulch will not be nearly enough mulch to do the whole garden ... but it's a good start.

For the past two days, after work hours, the two of them have been weeding beds and spreading mulch.  What is love, you ask?  I think it looks a lot like this:

The Daughter, pulling weeds in the Rose Field.

A freshly-mulched bed in our front yard.

and a close up of the dogwood tree ... it's particularly lovely this year!

As people get spring fever and look out into their gardens, I guess they have decided that they need some roses because orders have been coming in pretty steadily ... thank you for this, if you are someone who has placed an order.  Receiving orders means that I have to spend a bit of admin time here at the computer, which gives me a nice break from outside work each day. 

'Dr. W. Van Fleet' was the first rose to sell out this year.  Most folks remember it from their grandparents' gardens, and they want to grow it for themselves.

Today will be spent on final preparations for our trip.  We are taking the dogs with us, and this means we have to pack all sorts of extra things for them.  Our new hitch-mounted cargo carrier should hold most of our gear, leaving more room inside my Jeep for the dogs' comfort ... it's all about the dogs, we all understand.

HOLD THE PRESSES!!!!  I just got a call from a blogger whose blog I follow but I have never met in person, and she's on her way over for a drop-in visit!  How cool is that!!!!  Gotta go now, 'cause I have company coming.

Anyway, I will be unplugged until next week.  Please enjoy whatever spring weather you have where you live, and I will see all of you when I get back.

A Very Successful Plant Sale!

What a frantic pace I kept this weekend!  The plant sale in Richmond was Friday and Saturday, all day both days, and I worked by myself.  Whew!!

The weather was fabulous!!  Blue sky and wispy clouds, though the temperature on Friday was a bit warm in the afternoon. 

Though it's a ton of work, I love taking the roses on the road like this, because I get to meet and talk to many more people than I can when I'm open here on the weekends.  Folks I met ranged from experienced rosarians to complete beginners.  You all KNOW how much I love roses, and I love TALKING about roses almost as much.

The photos of me in this post were taken by my friend Jim, who volunteers at the garden.  He snuck around like some sort of photo sniper, snapping photos without my knowledge.  Jim is such a darling ... there's no way I could be anything but delighted by the attention.

All of the pots on the tables are primped and staked, and alphabetized so I can find them easily.  I made sheets of photos and descriptions and hung them clothesline-style, to show customers what the flowers look like, and to help them decide. 

When people are shopping here at the nursery, they can walk the garden to see the mature-size roses.  Few people are really familiar with old garden roses, so visual aids are a great help.  On Saturday, I brought a vase of roses with me, cut from the garden that morning, so everyone could see the flowers in person and experience the FRAGRANCE.

 

As you can see, I am NOT a gifted flower arranger.  It didn't matter, because I was taking this arrangement apart all day, handing roses to people to smell.  In the vase in this photo, I see Felicia, Maggie, Rose de Rescht, Angel's Camp Tea, Madame Caroline Testout, White Cap, and one yellow petal left on Zeus.  (Hot and sunny conditions are not good for cut flowers.)

Jim liked how I hung my hat on a bungie cord while I set up on Friday morning.  After everything was in place, I wore it the rest of the time ... the clear sunshine would have fried my fair skin in almost no time.  (Sunblock is a totally essential part of my morning routine.)

In the end, I sold a few roses, answered TONS of rose care questions, held a few hands as customers made their choices ... and I was so glad to get home each day to get off my feet.

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog.)

Flowers on Friday ... Beautiful Rose Clusters

I worked most of today, getting ready for the plant sale this weekend in Richmond.  There are so many things to remember to do ... taking the roses on the road is quite an undertaking.  Early this morning, after I made my To Do list, I picked up my camera and set out for the garden.  The roses were calling.

'Kathleen'

Hybrid Musk, 1922

'Bubble Bath'

Hybrid Musk, 1980

I kept thinking ... All work and no play ... you know how it goes. 

'Friends Forever'

Shrub, 2001

"Darlow's Enigma"

Hybrid Musk, found rose

As I walked the garden, the roses that called to me most were the clusters.

'Princesse de Nassau'

Noisette, 1829

'Alister Stella Gray'

Noisette, 1894

Most of these roses smell so good!!  I wish I could send you the fragrance.

"Caldwell Pink"

Polyantha, found rose

'Alba Meideland'

Climber, 1986

I'll be out bright and early tomorrow morning, loading the truck with roses and supplies for the plant sale.  I hope I haven't forgotten anything important.

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog.)

The Ginter Plant Sale

The plant sale at Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden this past weekend turned out really well! I have shopped this sale as a customer many times … this was my first experience there as a vendor. Having done the sale at Hartwood Days the weekend before, Steve and I were able to fine-tune what we needed to do and how we would do it for Ginter. This helped a LOT.


It looked for a while on Thursday like it wasn't going to happen.


I missed the first day of the sale … I was on Day 2 of a really nasty cold. I felt too bad to go out, and I had no business taking my germs on the road along with the roses. Steve (bless his heart) took the roses I pulled from inventory and he set up and manned the booth by himself. He decided that he could make it work, if I was available to answer questions over the phone. So, I sat on the couch, blew my nose a lot, watched TV, knitted, and answered about 30 phone calls from Steve. “Is this Rose Technical Support?”, he would ask.


Most of the questions were about the details or habits of specific varieties. Steve was able to answer almost all of the other questions by himself. He’s helped me in the garden enough, or watched me do it myself, to be able to advise customers on our routine of rose care … which is what many wanted to know. I cannot possibly thank him enough for doing this.


I was nearly 100% on Saturday, so we both went to do the second day. We loaded the truck with more roses, to replace the ones he’d sold the day before. There were more people shopping on Saturday than there were on Friday, and it was a good thing that both of us were working the booth. We were busy.


Our new rose tags with photos were great! They allowed people to browse the pots and see what each one would look like if it were blooming. I wish I’d thought of this before now. It would have made the first part of the season a whole lot easier.

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog)

Taking the Roses on the Road

This will be the second weekend in a row that I will have the roses away from the nursery. Our booth last weekend at Hartwood Days taught me a lot.



(That’s not my laundry in this photo … the booth next to me was selling skirts, tops, and sundresses.)

Lesson #1: If it’s not blooming, people probably don’t want it. This has been easy to deal with here in the garden, because I have the mother plant to show … can’t do this at a remote location like a fair or a plant sale. I had a vase of flowers to show as examples, but it just wasn’t the same.

Now, all the roses have photo ID tags. I’ll put them into the pots as I arrange them in my booth. That way, people can browse and ask questions … instead of having to shop from my list or know in advance what they want.



Lesson #2: It’s a waste of time to bring my crocheting, because there’s always someone who wants to visit. At Hartwood Days, many of the people who stopped to chat were locals who asked questions about our house. Others were drawn in by the display of roses, and they wanted to know how to better care for their own roses … or they wanted to tell me about the roses their mother or grandmother or neighbor grew … I love hearing these stories, BTW.

 Lesson #3: It’s easiest to make a point if I use a visual aid. The best idea I had while I was packing for the fair was to grab an empty bottle of fungicide and toss it in with the rest of my stuff. This was great because I could show people the actual chemical that I use to spray the roses, instead of just telling them about it. I think I’ll make up a rose care card if I have time, so I don't have to write “Bayer Advanced Disease Control … get it at Lowes” over and over again.

If you have the time, stop by my booth at Lewis Ginter, tomorrow from 10:00 – 6:00 or Saturday from 9:00 – 3:00. For details and directions, click HERE.

 The roses are on sale … $10.00 each, and I have brought back the Buy 3/Get 1 Free deal. See you this weekend in Richmond!

(written by Hartwood Roses.  Hartwood Roses blog)