After Alice

So, I worked my A$$ off for my daughter's birthday party a few weeks ago.....as I do every year. Every year my husband tells me that the smallest little details I put into the party go unnoticed (the same thing he told me about the Arden Park Garden Tour). I guess I am more detail-oriented, whereas most of my visitors look at the "big picture". That being said, the day after a birthday bash at our place is incredibly entertaining to me. I prefer to go out into the garden early- around 7am- and check out the damage. After seeing the accident scene in our bird bath (above), I went back into the house and grabbed my camera.
The day before was fun, and cheerful.... with kids and adults dressed in grandiose hats or as characters from Alice in Wonderland.
The day after....I find several moustaches stuck to various pieces of backyard furniture. Some I don't find for several days after the party, and I assume they are a piece of rodent.
And the Four of Diamonds....I was pretty disappointed in his behavior. But he got his punishment when the sprinklers came on in the morning....

......as did the Ace of Spades, who remained slouched and soggy in a lawn chair.
But what worried me the most was the pile of seeds that I put out for the kids to plant in little pots. Most of the pots remained, un-planted. But the seed packets? All were empty. Where the seeds went...I had no clue! And this was a week before a garden tour coming through.
At least the bean seeds were easy to find. I found most of them in the mulch, tucked in like they were eggs in a bird nest.

And some were found in the actual pots....although a little more than I would have put in a single pot.

And some of the six packs of annuals that I put out made their way into the middle of our pathways.....

I'm assuming there are seeds there. There's a shovel, and some soil that appears to have been moved around.... I guess we'll find out soon what landed here.

The ladybugs we released? We found them hiding in clusters in the lawn furniture. I'm sure a 5 year old's birthday was the LAST place they wanted to end up.

Part of me was sad to see the party over, much like the praying mantis that was enjoying the bright colored paper lanterns. But now, now we start planning NEXT years party.

Miss the Arden Park Garden Tour?

Whew. It's over. As much as I love going on garden tours, I'm realizing that GOING on a tour is a lot easier than BEING a part of the tour. I'm also learning that no matter what, I will always over extend myself. Perhaps working full time, having my daughter start kindergarten, throwing her the Alice in Wonderland bash a couple weeks ago, AND trying to get ready for a garden tour....well, it was a bit much.
The past few days had my mind spinning. I started questioning myself as a gardener as I saw these other beautifully designed and mature gardens that were on the tour with me. The pre-tour made me stress out, but obviously with just a few days before the actual tour, there was little I could do. I have a habitat garden. I have a children's garden. I have an edible garden. Most of the time I am extremely proud of this, but I don't take criticism well and I wasn't sure what kind of comments I'd hear from my visitors.

So, I changed things up a bit... and did this tour my own way. I enlisted the assistance of friends; friends who share a passion for the way I'm doing things on my third of an acre. I had Charlotte and Kristi, pictured above with me, answering questions on how to grow things organically, as they handed out Peaceful Valley Farm Supply catalogs and free houseplants that we got from Costa Farms . Also included on this table were the spring and summer catalogs for Annie's Annuals, which it was SOOOOO much easier to hand folks a catalog instead of labeling all of my plants! haha!

I also had a whole table dedicated to my favorite businesses and causes. Corona Tools sent some nice canvas bags for folks to fill up with their planting and pruning guides, their recent tool catalog, and if they were one of the first 50 visitors they got a really nice ergonomic trowel from them! Also included in my favorite vendor table was Trailmix.net (my favorite store for helping parents get their kids outdoors!), Talini's Nursery (who have an amazing selection of garden decor, edibles, natives, and Annie's Annuals plants!), Dripworks (irrigation supplies), DRAMM (fun colored hoses and sprinklers), Schreiner's Iris Gardens (my favorite source for iris bulbs!), Stark Brothers (supplier of fruit trees to help people integrate edibles into their gardens), Urban Renewal Landscaping (my gardener, and the only landscaper in the Sacramento area that I know of for the organic gardener!), H. Potter, Authentic Haven Natural Brew tea, and River City Food Bank.

Moving along to my helpers, my friend Amy came out to represent The Lamm Farm!

Amy was super popular on the tour! People were very interested in hearing about her family's lavender farm, and to learn about their recent addition of honey bees. Amy brought several books as resources, and photos of their hives. I loved seeing so many people interested in honey bees (perhaps my neighbors wouldn't mind if I get some? haha)

Speaking of honey bees, since I consider our garden an education garden- I decided to lightly "push" some of my personal beliefs on my visitors. On this table we had ladybugs, where visitors could see with their own eyes how quickly these little beauties can devour a branch full of aphids and white flies. If I convinced one person this day to stop using pesticides and go the organic route, it was worth the time and effort I put into getting my garden ready for the tour. Next to the ladybugs I included a stack of Farmer Fred's "Plants That Attract Beneficial Insects", so that people will stop complaining about how the ladybugs that they buy leave within an hour (um...it's because you don't have anything they like!). The ladybugs were also fun for our younger visitors, which enjoyed it when we let some out occasionally....

Back to our beneficial insects, and more specifically BEES, I included educational signs next to our bee boxes. I also made sure I pointed out the countless holes in our fence that were nests for our native bees and mason bees. The visitors were AMAZED. None of them had seen such a site- and I'm pretty sure they were all going to go home and look for the holes in their own fences. Here I've been thinking my life goal was to educate children, but educating adults on our native bees was so much fun! Pretty sure the other houses on the tour didn't do this, but I am a little more interested in bugs than the average person (I never got around to labeling our worms bins for the tour, and sure enough no one asked about them!).

Have we talked enough about beneficial insects? No? Good! Because we had praying mantis galore for the tour! There were so many visible I was starting to think they maybe called each other to organize this little garden party of their own. Or maybe they just wanted to get into the Sacramento Bee? (ahem, too bad, my daughter got in instead!).

I think I counted three or four of them on my verbena bonariensis which I'm not surprised about because it's covered in bees and butterflies right now.

Speaking of the verbena bonariensis, this was the most popular plant on the tour. Soooo many people asked “what the heck is this?!”, and thankfully I was able to direct them on where to purchase one. I bought mine originally from Annie’s Annuals, but I saw a bunch of them at Talini’s Nursery a few days before the tour. Did I mention it has been blooming for over 6 months now?

The second most popular plant were our artichokes. I had tons of questions about them, like “why did you take them out?” (I didn’t, we just cut them back), “are they not edible, because you left them out there to bloom?” (they’re edible, we just had so many, plus I like the blooms), and “why did that one over there die?” (it didn’t, just the flower stalks died back, but if you look at the base, there are new leaves sprouting). The best comments I received were the five our so folks in our neighborhood that said “You inspired us to grow artichokes….” or even better were the ones that said “…in our front yard!”. For those of you who took the time to come and tell me that, thank you! It means more to me than you’ll know!

Continuing on with the popular plants, my zinnia plants also gathered crowds. The Zinnia elegans ‘Zowie’ pictured above is a fun and funky plant purchase from Annie’s Annuals. If you only knew how hard it was to keep my daughter and her friends from picking all of them before the garden tour!

Another stunning plant that put on an awesome display for the garden tour was Leonotis leonurus, otherwise known as “Wild Dagga” or “Lion’s Tail”. I know for sure that Talini’s Nursery has them in stock right now because….well….I just bought mine like two days before the garden tour (haha! Yes, I will admit to several plant purchases the week of the tour!). This stunner will be blooming into winter for us.

Moving on to the garden décor, you can’t have a children’s garden without silly stuff. Most of the adults overlooked the random toys in the garden, but the kids on the tour ALWAYS found them. The little model windmill above was built by my husband many years ago, and King Kong has been hanging from this windmill since before I even met my husband. There’s usually a little Einstein figure hanging from it too, but I took him off before the tour because I wanted to be sure no one took him!

You might recognize these little aliens from the Toy Story movies (“The clawwwwwwwww!”). My daughter has 24 of these guys, and I think they’re all out in the front yard. As I tried to gather them all a few minutes before the tour started, Kristi stopped me, and convinced me to leave them out. Pretty sure none of the other homes on the garden tour had aliens.

Didn’t I say you’d recognize some of the décor from my Talini’s blog post? Yeah, I spent a lot of time there last week!

This cluster of plants is my attempt to have something actually grow under our large redwood tree. The containers in our backyard need to be plastic, since our 75 pound Labrador Retriever will stop at nothing to chase squirrels and cats along the fence and often knocks over my containers in the process. Using plastic containers at least avoids my containers breaking. Wish I could say the same for my plants!

Another fun item from Talini’s Nursery was this adorable giraffe sculpture. I borrowed her for the tour, and it almost brought me to tears to bring her back to the nursery after the tour. She’s gorgeous, and seemed to love all of the compliments she got from the tour visitors.

The night before the tour I hand painted a few wooden signs to hang on some of my plants. I used these signs to highlight the plants that I wanted people to notice, like the hops pictured above, or the pineapple guava plants that “just” look like shrubs right now but can put on a wonderful display of blooms and edible fruit.

I also swapped out our regular bird bath to put mine and my daughter’s recent (and uncompleted) art piece out. This leaf was our first try at making a leaf out of concrete. It was a bit ambitious for our first try as this was made with a giant gunnera leaf I got from my friend Rob in the Bay Area. My daughter and I are having creative differences on the color it should be, so it has already been repainted a handful of times. I think we’re getting close though! When it’s done I’ll put another post up on how we made it.

The hops arbor still contained the “Bread and Butter-flies” from my daughter’s Alice in Wonderland party.

Here’s how I fixed one of my “trouble” spots. A huge dip in the lawn where there once was a tree would have been a huge hazard for guests if I left it as is. With no time to fill in the hole and put new lawn in, I grabbed a couple of our galvanized tubs, and filled them with marigolds and spinach instead. This is my new definition for “pot hole”.

I was really happy to see a few of our visitors actually play Bocce Ball while they were here. Clearly we have fun here in our garden, it gets used to its fullest! I think my favorite moment of the day was seeing a few of our visitors playing hopscotch! I considered the day a success the moment I saw a few kids CRYING because the parents wanted to go to the next house. Hopefully those parents got a few clever and inexpensive ideas to get their family outdoors more!

As I take the mirror off the fence to put back in my dining room, I laugh at all of the little things that I did in my garden to get ready for the tour that most of the visitors overlooked (like this mirror! Haha!). I laugh at myself for getting myself in knots, I apologize profusely to my husband who I snapped at way too many times, and to my friends that told me I was crazy for being part of a garden tour: you were right.

Most of the time the hammock is a boat, with my daughter as the Captain….searching for land ahead. But today, after the last couple of weeks that we’ve had, this will just be a nice cozy spot for a nap! I may not have the magazine perfect garden, but I do have the garden that is perfect for me and my family.

Garden Inspiration: Get Fun & Funky with Talini's Nursery!

Talini's Nursery is a wonderland for fans of color and whimsy. Every item in the nursery seems to have a story, from their Mexican pottery (totally drool worthy, I want it all)....
....to Casper, their Horticultural Fetis Catus, and perhaps Talini's version of a Wal-Mart greeter. Again, I am not normally a huge fan of cats, but anything furry and rubbing up my leg in a garden setting seems to be getting my admiration lately, and Casper stole several moments.....and about twenty snaps from my camera.....because he is THAT adorable (those human folks pay big money for eyes that blue, don't they kitteh, kitteh?)

Continuing on...despite the kitty following me around, I spy....something awesome, and hip, and on my wish list! Yes, that would be an Urban Farmgirl vertical succulent box! Gardening up is the new "in" thing, and these boxes are super easy to get started! Simply take some cuttings from some of your existing succulents, shove them into the box horizontally, and wait until they grab hold- then hang! Even those of you with the brownest of thumbs can make these work. No excuses!
How cute is this? Mexican pottery bunny+ Urban Farmgirls pot+ a turquoise Fermob bistro set?! Um...pretty much = BEAUTIFUL! Ahem...you MAY just see this on the upcoming Arden Park Garden Tour.... That's right! Not only do they have an amazing selection of plants and garden decor', but they are also helping me pimp out my garden for my upcoming garden tour!

Seriously, they have something for everyone! From aquatic plants to natives, and don't forget those edibles....

....and an expansive selection of roses and fruit tree's.... .....and their collection of shade-loving plants pretty much leaves my jaw to the floor....

.....but their new succulents section kept me begging for more!

Perhaps this is my newest addiction? Because somehow as I was checking out this chair.... a brugmansia sitting behind it ended up in my cart and I took it home with me.... What? Me? Taking home a somewhat picky plant? Yeah, I do that.... a lot. But...the staff at Talini's were nice enough to give me several tips on keeping it happy in our weird climate. For instance, when I'm draping my citrus and avocado trees in Christmas lights to protect them from frost- I need to remember my new 'Charles Grimaldi' Brugmansia likes to be dashing in lights too (or perhaps draped in frost cloth, which they carry there too).... Plant Survival Hint: If you are unsure about how to take care of a particular plant, make sure you ask the staff at the nursery. Don't trust this knowledge to the staff at the big box stores.

Moving along.... *gasp* there's my other addiction: Annies Annuals & Perennials! Yep, Talini's carries my favorite selection of 4" pots from my favorite nursery in the Bay Area! You can save yourself a trip to Richmond, CA (although I highly recommend you make a stop there sometime because the nursery is totally awesome), and just buy your Annie's plants here!

photo credit: Talini's Nursery/Angela Pratt

I know, I know- there's so much awesome stuff here, and it's hard to fit it all into one blog post! But, I can't close out this post without showing you the new chicken coops they're carrying! Sacramento City has FINALLY passed an ordinance that allows people to keep up to three chickens in their backyard. Now the only thing standing between me and getting some chickens would be that husband-figure sitting on the couch next to me now. You know, the one that I said would be my absolute DREAMY KEN DOLL if it weren't for the fact that he hasn't given me the thumbs up on chickens? Yes, that guy. But maybe if he saw these fabulous new coops at Talini's he'd change his mind?!

Photo credit: Talini's Nursery/Angela Pratt

Designed and built by Greg and Brian of TWO FLEW THE COOP, Talini's is lucky enough to have the "Karma Coop" (on the left) and "Coop of the Rising Sun" (on the right). Talk about beautiful garden art!

Talini's Nursery is located at 5601 Folsom Boulevard, Sacramento CA 95819. For more information call (916) 451-8150, hours M-Su 8-6. Check them out on Facebook to keep up to date on new items and sales in the nursery!