Great read! Your place sounds like heaven! When my son was stationed in Hawaii I was always asking him & his wife to visit any local greenhouses or nurseries & send me plants. But neither are interested in any kind of gardening so they never did. Now they're in Kansas😕😭. Although they are closer now so we can see the grandson more often.

Your situation is very similar to ours. When we bought our place 25 years ago, we were younger, in better shape, & had more money. But since then, we've had health crisis after health crisis with my husband & he can no longer do any yard work; although I have fixed up containers so he can putter with a few vegetables (he doesn't like flowers). We also had financial setbacks when he lost his job because of his health & I lost mine when my employer (Hostess Brands) folded. I now work part-time so that I can also take care of his appointments & whatever. There never seems to be enough time or money to get everything I want to get done. Or my knees or back reminds me of the passing years😞.

I love that you plan a plant sale for the local zoo! How exactly does it work? Do you charge vendors to set up or do they donate stuff? How do you make money for the zoo? I have donated plants & gardening theme gift baskets to various shelters & rescues to put in their auctions & would love to try a plant sale.

Hi Kathy, add to the equation that my botanical garden covers three acres and includes 50 different varieties of bamboo, anyway........

The zoo plant sale gets the support of local nurseries. We use an open grass area of about 2 acres. Each nursery brings in a selection of plants for sale and they cover a wide variety of plants. They set up their booth the evening before, some use pop up tents. We get orchids, palms, water plants, heliconias, bamboos, trees and more. Sale starts at 8am and finishes at 2pm. Customers start arriving at 7am to get the deals and it becomes a large family affair. The first hour is chaotic. All sales are cash only. The zoo has its own booth with plants for sale that we raise during the year. Other nurseries prefer to donate plants which we sell at our booth and keep 100%

At the end of the sale each vendor comes to the zoo booth and contributes 20% of their sales as a donation to the zoo. Last April we made over $6000.

Lots of hard work and lots of fun and lots of new friends.

Microb, Very glad to read you! I was looking at short YouTube vids of the giant waves in Hawaii and thought of you.
I always bemoan the fact that I live in a benighted area that is totally lacking in "real gardeners"....after reading your blog post, maybe that is not a bad thing. *LOL* I have my plant addiction under control now (I can stop anytime I want to...) but if I had enablers I shudder to think.
I think we spend our strength, time, and youth on our gardens but I think our gardens keep us strong and healthy and young at heart. As long as you can keep looking forward to next year, next season, next seedling there's something to keep you going. Don't wave that white flag just yet. It's doesn't have to be surrender, just a working compromise!

Thank you for the reply! I was trying to figure out how you made money for them. We've done yard sales where people could rent an area but we really didn't make a whole lot. 20% of sales sounds really fair.