Pistachios and Pink Taurade

In a fit of year end cleaning, I cleaned out the drawer in the end table next to where I generally sit and write. Amidst some pens, a magnifying glass, a few marbles, some empty seed packets, a few stray plant labels, a little book on Latin plant names, and some spare bulbs for Christmas tree lights, I found some notes scribbled on various pieces of paper – ideas for future blog posts, I assume.

I was once a solitary gardener

I sat down last night to write out a blog post based on a presentation I gave as a participant in a panel discussion on garden blogging at the recent Garden Writers Association symposium in Indianapolis.   Dee of Red Dirt Ramblings and Mary Ann of Gardens of the Wild West were on the panel with me and we titled our discussion "Down the Garden Blogging Path".

We wanted to tell others how garden

An honor from Horticulture: Best Gardening Blogs

Everyone here at May Dreams Gardens is quite excited to be included as one of Horticulture magazine's Best Gardening Blogs.

Apparently, they asked Thorn Goblinfly, the chief scribe of the garden fairies around here what she thought of the idea and she thought quite a lot of it.  She also kept it a secret from everyone else.  Garden fairies are good at keeping secrets, apparently.  It does make

2000th Post

Plopper's Field before the Drought of  '12

The garden fairies have been waiting and watching all weekend to see what I was going to write for the 2000th post on my blog.  They are not very patient, as a rule, and can take over my laptop as quick as a hornworm can devour a tomato vine, if I let them.  

Though it is tempting to find out what the garden fairies would have written for the 200th

Time to celebrate

Dendranthema 'Cool Igloo'

We have agreement from everyone here at May Dreams Gardens that rain is a real difference maker in the garden. 

This agreement amongst everyone is a bit surprising because not everyone agrees on everything around here.  We sometimes have quite the discussions, but that's a story for another day.

Rain is especially a real difference maker when it has been absent from

Dear Friends and Gardeners August 2, 2010

Dear Dee and Mary Ann and Gardening Friends Everywhere,

This letter post is my 1,500th post on this blog.

I thought about delaying this letter and writing something else to mark the occasion, but then I realized that this weekly letter which usually has an update on my garden is a fitting way to mark this occasion.

When I first started blogging, somewhat tentatively back in 2004, I posted a

The names we give to boats, gardens, and... mowers

We like to name things after people and places.

This ferry boat which took seventy plus garden bloggers from Seattle to Bainbridge Island last week is obviously named after a place, the city of Tacoma, Washington.

A few days earlier, we all visited Dunn Gardens, named for the Dunn family members who originally created the gardens following a plan developed by the famous Olmsted Brothers

I can explain, maybe

I've received several suggestions to clarify all the guest bloggers and people (personas) I write about here on my blog. I am happy to oblige and intend over the next few days to create a separate page to explain who all is here and provide some background information on them.

I'll attempt, as best I can, to provide a history for Thorn Goblinfly, chief scribe for the garden fairies. I'll need to

Postmark Garden Bloggers' Summer Camp

Postmark: Garden Bloggers' Summer Camp, Buffalo, New York
July 11, 2010

Dear Family,

Hello to all from Garden Bloggers Summer Camp, also known as Buffa10. I am having a great time and can’t believe it is almost over. Whew! The activities just never seemed to stop!

Yesterday was quite a day. We all got to see a demonstration garden with all kinds of annuals and perennials being grown – get

When A Gardener Flies On An Airplane

When a gardener flies on an airplance, leaving her garden just as the corn is tasseling, the tomato hornworms are threatening, and it is so hot that by mid-morning every plant wants to be the shade, there must be something very worthwhile to get to.


When the gardener sees that the first plane in her journey is a turbo prop jet, she immediately gives herself the job of watching that propeller to

New Page: Five Secrets To Achieving Happiness In Your Garden

Blog posts are sometimes like the blooms of a flower, here today, gone tomorrow, replaced by another post.   Perhaps the blog post is remembered, or perhaps it is best forgotten, almost a weed.

As I approach another milestone in blogging... post number one thousand five hundred, expected to be posted sometime before the end of July, I've decided to copy a few of my favorite posts, or series of

We've come a long way in garden blogging

We've come a long way in garden blogging.

I remember the early days, when we were careful to not reveal too much information about ourselves. After all, who were our readers?  Who was really looking at our blogs?

Few of us posted pictures of ourselves, mentioned other family members by name, or even provided an email address.  If you wanted to get in touch with any of us, you had to leave a

Thank you

I humbly offer thanks to each and every person who posted on their blogs for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.

I wish I had the time to visit everyone who posted for this monthly tradition, but when I did the math on that, I determined it would take me over four hours to spend just one minute on each bloom day post. My hat is off to those who do manage to view quite a few of these posts each month.

Teasers: Five Questions Unanswered

Is it my imagination, or are all the flowers of April bursting into a grand crescendo of bloom just in time for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day on the 15th?

Will this be the year where even I give in to the continuing days of “June” weather in April and plant my warm season vegetable crops early?

What will I do with all of those plants I need to move to make way for the new garden design?

Will I

Tomato Seedling Progress Report: Thank You!

Many thanks to all who read and enjoyed yesterday's post on April Fool's Day about the progress of my tomato seedlings. Some of you got it right away, some of you wanted it to be true but knew it couldn't be, and others decided perhaps  it was true.

But some of you who have been reading my blog for several years, knew to watch out on April 1st for a "tall tale". This was my fifth April Fool's

Garden Bloggers Watching Out For One Another

Lookie what I got in the mail a few weeks ago!

It's a Valentine's Day card featuring of all things... a hoe.

Kylee of Our Little Acre saw this 1950's Valentine's Day card for sale on Etsy and said she thought of me.

... because the little girl reminded her of me?
... because she thought that I collected Valentines?
....because she sent all the garden bloggers cards for V-day?

No, she thought

Old Gardening Books

There was a terrible accident involving a bookcase made out of reclaimed wood, with four shelves, three that were movable, and doors inset with seeded glass to give it an old look.

A week or so ago, I cleared the spot where the delivery persons would carefully place this bookcase in the dining room. They arrived on time, came in to make sure their path was clear and then went back to the truck

What? Who?

It occurred to me that from time to time new readers and returning readers might stop by and wonder about various personas and organizations that I have written about here at May Dreams Gardens.

To help them and me, I've posted several pages to attempt to explain things around here, to the extent I can do so.  The newest page, Societies and Clubs, was added last night.

I myself use these

Yes, This Is May Dreams Gardens

Wait, come back!  You were looking for May Dreams Gardens, right? The blog that never changed its template in over four years? 

Well, guess what? Blogger made it so easy to update templates in Blogger in Draft that I decided to give my blog a spring face lift.

It's still a work in progress. I need to clean up the sidebars, remove some widgets, maybe add others, and move them all around a bit

Garden fairies are appalled

Garden fairies here.

We are garden fairies and we are appalled.

We cannot believe that there have been no new posts on this blog since Sunday.  Honestly, we garden fairies watched and waited and nothing happened, so here we are, once again, doing the heavy lifting to show that there is someone who cares about what gets posted here.

We garden fairies are also appalled about how Carol started