Gardens by Kelly Productions

Spring across much of the country is off to an exponential start.  The floral race began here just a few weeks ago with the Scilla and Hamamelis. Along with the rush of green things comes that seasonal rush that every nurseryman feels to his/her very core!  I’ll keep this short but wanted to sound off on a couple of upcoming calendar items that I think you should know about.

This coming weekend I’m trekking to Kansas City for two lectures to the Garden Center Association of Greater Kansas City at the Anita B. Gorman Discovery Center.  My first lecture, Gardening Regionally in the Four-Season Garden begins at 10 AM and is free to the public.  My second lecture, Zoneworthy will be held immediately after.  There is a cost to attend the second lecture (lunch served).  Visit the GCA’s website for more details if you’d like to attend!

I’m thrilled to be headed back to Mansfield, MO and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds for their Spring Planting Festival on May 2 and 3.  Thousands of gardeners annually pay homage to this festival celebrating heirloom seeds, sustainable living, and a simpler way of life.  I’ll be giving a lecture each day.  If you don’t know about Jere and Emilee Gettle’s legacy of passionate work preserving heirloom plants, read more on their website www.rareseeds.com.

And just as soon as I get back to Ames from the Spring Planting Festival, I turn right around and catch a plane to stellar Las Vegas for the National Hardware Show.  My lovely hosts are the editorial team of Lawn and Garden Retailer magazine, the source of all the news for garden centers across the country.  I’m charged with firing up an audience full of retailers about the prospects of Generation Y and gardening.  I can’t wait!  We’ve got a huge number of passionate gardeners under 30 who just need to be coaxed into our otherwise dirty company.

Then….iris season!  Rainbow Iris Farm opens for the bloom season on May 8.  We’re open daily through June 4.  If your garden club or civic group would like to have a guided tour, give our offices a call or send us an email.  See our website for more details.

One last note of shameless self-promotion before I go for a glass of juice.  If you’d be so kind, I would certainly appreciate your nomination for a Mouse and Trowel Award.  These are top honors for garden bloggers, and its only after a little encouragement from fellow bloggers that I’m even passing this along to you.  At the very least, support other great blogs (and favorites of mine) including Fern Richardson’s Life on the Balcony,  Tom Fischer’s Overplanted, Away to Garden by Margaret Roach, or Real Dirt Radio by Ken Druse.  I’ve ranted about it before…too many gardening blogs, too few good garden writers.  Share the love, folks.

And with that, I’m off.  Be well dirt diggers until I write again, likely from the road!

I’ve almost let another month slip away without saying a whole lot.  Alas, we’ll soon be in the throws of spring (woo hoo!) and the chattiness will no doubt commence in earnest with a whole new season of gardens, favorite plants, and ideas to blog about.

Just last week I spent four days in the Philadelphia area while in town to do a talk at the Hardy Plant Society, Mid-Atlantic Group spring conference.  My gracious hostess, the inimitable Stephanie Cohen took me to the Morris Arboretum for a day of plant-sighting.  Check out a few of late winter/early spring divas in full regalia below.  Having been born in March, I have an innate love, though one only recently realized, for the late winter garden.  I hope you enjoy.

But I don’t have to fly to the other end of the country to enjoy harbingers of spring.  In fact yesterday I popped out to Ledges State Park, just west of Ames, Iowa to check on the status of spring.  Winston Beck and Josh Schultes captured these images with my camera while I was busy being giddy.  We’ll relay more reports from our travels as the season progresses here and on our new blog project at www.digthismag.com.  These petite little kiddos are liverleafs or Hepatica americana.  Just look at the genetic diversity!  We saw thousands upon thousands, more than I can recall seeing in recent years.  Though delicate and bijou, these darlings of the first days of spring deserve a place in our gardens if only to herald the arrival of the new season.