{"id":74,"date":"2008-04-06T16:37:47","date_gmt":"2008-04-06T22:37:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/gardenblog\/2008\/04\/06\/flowers-and-fellowship\/"},"modified":"2008-06-13T16:55:28","modified_gmt":"2008-06-13T21:55:28","slug":"flowers-and-fellowship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/2008\/04\/06\/flowers-and-fellowship\/","title":{"rendered":"Flowers and Fellowship"},"content":{"rendered":"

The long awaited Garden Bloggers Spring Fling took place this weekend, and it was well worth the wait. It was a picture perfect spring day in Central Texas. There was only a slight chill in the air when we met the group at 9:00 am at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center<\/a>, and almost no wind at all. We spent over an hour strolling through the gardens, checking out the view from the observation tower, looking at the information in the library, and getting to know each other.<\/p>\n

Although I am a rather introverted and somewhat shy person, I felt very much at ease with this group of almost total strangers right away. The tour of the Wildflower Center was completely enjoyable, with many well-known favorites on display, but also lots of plants that I had not seen before, or which I had misidentified in the past. One of the most impressive features of these gardens to me was the hardscaping and building architecture. The cisterns and aquaduct structure were absolutely enchanting, and there were several beautiful arbor structures covered with vines of every sort.<\/p>\n

I only took a few pictures, but they came out pretty well. Here are some of my favorites.<\/p>\n

\"Louisiana<\/a><\/p>\n

Louisiana Swamp Iris Near Deep Pool<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Texas<\/a><\/p>\n

Texas Huisache Tree in Bloom<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Scarlet<\/a><\/p>\n

Scarlet Penstemon<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Mixed<\/a><\/p>\n

Mixed Wildflower Bed<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Lunch was a tasty Mexican fare, with lots of lively conversation and a lovely talk by Tom Spencer. The highlights of Tom’s talk for me were the description of his meditation on a yellow flower, which eventually took him back to a perfect moment in his childhood when all was exactly as it should be, and his writing to his Father on the theme of gathered stones.<\/p>\n

The afternoon began with a trip to the Natural Gardener<\/a> nursery, which has grown dramatically since I was last there several years ago. The variety and volume of plants at this nursery are remarkable, especially considering that most of them are native or adapted to our area, and that they are organically grown. I spent alot of time looking at the trees and the display gardens all of which were impressive. Highlights here were the purple martins over the vegetable gardens busily doing whatever it is martins do, and the new pondless water feature that they are building.<\/p>\n

The last stop of the day for us was the visit to James David’s garden. I was completely overwhelmed by this garden. There were so many plants that I had never seen before, and many familiar ones as well. But it was the sheer size and density of the garden that amazed me. There were massive fig trees at the back of the property, and an incredible pomegranite tree perched high on the hill at the back of the patio. There were two striking water features, and some of the most beautiful orchids I have ever seen. It was a feast for all of the senses. So full of sights, sounds, and smells.<\/p>\n

At this point we had to take our leave of the group to head home and relieve our dog sitter. It was a truly memorable day which I am grateful that I was able to share with so many unique and creative people. I look forward to virtually visiting with everyone in the days, weeks, and months to come.<\/p>\n

Blessings,
\nCarol<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The long awaited Garden Bloggers Spring Fling took place this weekend, and it was well worth the wait. It was a picture perfect spring day in Central Texas. There was only a slight chill in the air when we met the group at 9:00 am at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and almost no […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,3],"tags":[348,50,345,358,86],"class_list":["post-74","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-gardening","tag-blogging","tag-garden-bloggers-spring-fling","tag-gardening","tag-photography","tag-wildflowers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phuiL-1c","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostvalleygardens.com\/LVGblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}