I'm quite familiar with MOBOT, as I was in last year's Master Gardener class. I passed the test, but have not completed my volunteer requirement, as I was out of town all summer. Maybe this year. The Linnean House is my favorite part of the garden - I'm due for a visit! Actually, I have quite a list of my favorites. The rose garden is not among them, though.

I have painted quite a few watercolor botanicals. Love to do it, but far too time consuming in the season when the "models" are available. Photographs just aren't the same.

Definitely will google your favorite artist; I love to find new paintings and artists. One of the few magazines I subscribe to is "American Art Review".

quote:

I was a midwestern weed amongst the flower of southern womanhood.

i adore this sentence. have you ever wanted to be a writer? i think you should write a memoir.

what an interesting life you have had!

If I were to write an honest memoir, I'm afraid it would have to be published posthumously. My life has been sometimes very interesting, and there have been a few people in it who might object to my characterization of them, truthful though it may be.

Some of the stories are well worth telling, but I think I'll postpone it until I get old.

And that's quite a compliment, Piqué.

Susan could write, but she does too many things.

Susan,
Are you afraid a memoir might embarass your children and half of Colorado and Missouri?

Not to mention my brothers and their families.

Mostly I would embarrass myself. I have done some really stupid things, though none fatal, thank goodness.

But I have a really long "bucket list" so I hope to live to be 100!

Climb Kilimanjaro. Brazil for the 2016 Olympic Games. (As a spectator, of course.) And so on.

OK

I'll bite

What is on your bucket list? that is doable

I am thinking that I had better write one out before I no longer have any time left!

Get the garden exactly as I want it, and lower maintenance. Doable, but difficult. I'm working on it.

Teach my horse to be more mannerly, so I can ride for another 20 years. Not impossible, they do get better with age. He's not 5 yet.

Adventurous travel, one trip about every three years:

Kilimanjaro (I'll be going with my son and one of his climbing friends, who would like to climb Mt. Kenya on the same trip.) I will take the easier "tourist" route.

The 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janiero. I'm really only interested in the equestrian sports, but would like to see either the opening or closing ceremonies.

A year in Italy, maybe in Perugia or Sienna. OK, at least more than three weeks.

If things ever settle down (surely they will sometime in the next 30 years) there are parts of the middle east and the Arab countries I'd like to visit. That's a big IF.

The train trip across the Canadian Rockies to Vancouver. And see their Botanical Garden.

These are the big ones. There are plenty of small trips. I'll be going to Lexington KY for a 3-day event after Easter. (I'm referring to competitions in Dressage, Stadium Jumping and Cross-Country on horses.)

In May, a long camping trail ride along the Current River.

In June I'll drive to Colorado to visit my children and go to Apogaea, a pre-Burning Man celebration to see my son's latest sculpture. This one is interactive; there are electronic consoles to control the flames, which are out of reach.

July is unscheduled so far....

Oh, and my Goddaughter is moving to Paris. Of course I'll visit her.

Forgot to say that July is the season of the Union Avenue Opera. Can't miss that!

At our age we have a lot of memories.

Is there a time that you would like to revisit to do over?

A time that you would like to revisit to linger a while longer? To 'freeze' for a bit?

What are your favorite perennials?

Have you visited Longwood Gardens? If you go to their website or FB, they have a wonder glimpse of spring plantings. I visited one summer years ago. I was disappointed in their perennials borders which needed a major overhaul at the time but their fountains, massive park grounds with aged trees and glass houses was spectacular. I'd love to visit now.

What event would make you travel to meet with us?

I find you fascinating and so glad that you joined us!

Hmmm...

A time to rewind the tape and live it again? Oh, my, there's a lot of entertainment possibilities in that notion. In my twenties, my horses and my years in Europe. In my thirties, Colorado and my marriage and first child, In my forties my three children and the farm and caring for the animals.
My fifties I have no desire to relive, too much bad came very close to erasing anything good. Not that there was no happiness; there were good times and good friends, and I am thankful for them. I have been far too busy since then to have time to even think about do-overs.

But I remember a spring day in Austria, on the road from the Vorarlberg to Vienna with my Austrian friend. The apricot trees (Marillen) were in bloom, and we stopped to eat our picnic lunch in a meadow by an orchard. We had seen only snow for months, and the change was overwhelming. I can call back every minute of that day and the weeks that followed. He took me to the opera only a day or two later. His mother had been Prima Ballerina at the Staatsoper, and he had grown up in that world. Somewhere I still have pictures: He is wearing formal dress, European-style; top hat, tails, opera cape and walking stick. I am in a platinum-colored satin dress, with my hair in a chignon. There is a reason I love Vienna. And though we eventually went our separate ways, we have kept in touch all these years, and visited each other a few times. Mostly we only exchange Christmas cards now.

I have never seen Longwood Gardens, but would like to do so, particularly this time of year. I do love it when I can still see the bones of a garden under the skin. There are so many fabulous gardens in the east. I would also put the La Dew garden on my list - would like to see those famous topiaries.

My favorite perennials, that's VERY plural, start with hellebores (mine are fabulous this year), a white re-blooming iris "Immortality" that will still be blooming in late November, and an enthusiastic stand of lysimachia. Two Mme. Alfred Carriere roses are climbing the front of the house, doing well with morning sun only, and a pair of climbing hydrangeas decorate the North side.

There are few perennials that I don't like, but some that came with the house are out of place. The overgrown fuchsia-colored azaleas just don't look wonderful against the red-orange brick of my house, and I would gladly exchange the red peonies for white ones, if I thought they would bloom as profusely anytime soon. I will be planting dogwoods under my oak trees; just whips, so they can get leggy and natural looking. I will never finish my garden.

And I would be delighted to come to any gathering I can reach by train or auto. I don't mind flying, but I truly loathe airports.

Of course, if there is music on offer, that's a plus!

I have met only a few WTFers, but enough that I now crave more! Having faces to go with the names would be a real treat.

quote:

I will never finish my garden.

Ain't that the truth! I'll have to check out Immortality. My white Hellebores have never looked so good as this year. Must take more pics.

Your picnic in Vienna sounds perfect!

Have you ever visited Piano World parties? There are a few threads over there that have a lot of us pictured in them. At KK and Jack's, at Elena's/Jon's party, at Larry Buck's after Mason Hamlin tour, I think Quirt's party is there, and a couple of Cape Cod parties too.

What an interesting thread Susan..

I live very close to Lenexa, just a couple miles away. Your life is delightfully portrayed here, and if you ever come the Kansas City, Shawnee way, do look me up.

Apple, I will be in Kansas City in early June, on my way to Colorado for a visit with my children. My Goddaughter lives there, and I usually stay for a day or so with her so we can have a good visit. I would be delighted to meet you, and am so very happy that you are on the mend. I don't have an exact date for my trip yet, but it is somewhat flexible. I'll be able to give you a better estimate soon.

I'm really looking forward to meeting you.

Susan, you are indeed a delightful companion in this forum. I don't have any particular questions that leap to mind, but hope to encounter you in my (or probably more likely, your) travels sometime.

I and my wife did have a chance to visit Longwood Gardens last year after the WTF get-together in Philadelphia. For me, the water features were perhaps the most enjoyable aspect of those gardens. There was a great variety of exotica in the glass houses, but water, be it still, running, or in fountains is a special delight for me and I've not seen gardens with more water than there. (Of course, my garden experiences are limited. Perhaps some of the grand gardens of Europe equal or exceed it.)

Big Al

One of my projects for my garden this spring is to put in a small fountain. I have a 48" round black "pool" that will be set level with the ground, and a cast concrete bowl on a pedestal to go in the middle of it (set atop a concrete block which will be underwater. There is a hole in the bowl and pedestal which accommodates clear plastic tubing, and an underwater pump. The water fills the bowl and spills over the top and back into the pool.

I will have stones covering the edges of the pool, but haven't decided whether to use white limestone or reddish flagstones. And of course there will be some water-tolerant plantings around the edge.

I had the same bowl in my garden in Colorado, and found that the water attracted birds. The first day I turned the water on, I had hundreds of birds come to it, many different kinds. Some perched on the edge of the bowl to drink, while hundreds of others were in the trees and bushes waiting their turn. Later there were not so many at one time, but always dozens close by.

I do spend a lot of time in my garden, and admit I'd like to have more garden and less lawn. A lot less lawn. I spent seven hours working in the garden yesterday, the first sunny day in several weeks. Ouch. I still have more to do before I can start on the pool.

Once I get all the weeding and mulching done in the spring, I enjoy my garden more. I often take my morning coffee out to the porch, and before I finish my cup I have seen four or five things that need to be done RIGHT NOW, before I forget. And I never finish my coffee.