Food, Flowers and Friends

Flower Shows, Disco Bus & Chicken Feet. What do they all have in common? Some ten years ago, on behalf of Conard-Pyle, Garden Media Group (then known as Impact Marketing) brought a busload of garden writers from New York for the first ever Philadelphia Flower Show Early Morning Walk About. Felder Rushing and I took a train to New York City, had dinner with James Baggett, and then the next morning at 6:30 picked up a dozen garden writers on the “disco” bus and headed for Philadelphia where they’d tour, eat and listen to Felder talk about making planters from tires. That year Michael Petrie from J. Franklin Styers’ took first place with his tower of tires.

Today, that event has morphed into a wonderful GWA Region II meeting, with early morning tours, brunch, speakers and the ever growing list of door prizes. This year was wonderful, as I have visited Ireland and could well envision the lush Irish countryside. As is our tradition, we took a group of garden writers with out clients out to eat. Here we are at the Melting Pot where some 30 of us gathered around fondue pots and engaged in a very high buzz level of conversations. Harvey Aronson and Irene Virag, GWA Fellow, along with our dear friend Stephanie Cowen kept our table entertained. The night before, Steve Hutton and Peter Cilio graciously hosted Samantha Thorpe, James Baggett, and David Speer for dinner. Doug and Karen Jimerson were supposed to come but got snowed in back home in Iowa.

The Flower Show was beautiful, but I’m really digging my own flower show on my back porch. This is a Raymond Evison Patio Clematis Angelique with Blazin’ Rose iresine from Simply Beautiful. I gave all my plants on my sun porch a good feeding of Dynamite and they all took off. It’s great plant food – full of vitamins and nutrients as well as the right balance of NPK. But the best part is I don’t have to feed them again until I bring them in next October – it last 9 months. I’m looking like a pro!

Spring is here officially and the forsythia is about to pop. I’m eager to get back out and get my hands dirty.
Suzi