Sue, love the chickies! We're in the planning stages on that project, and your pinterest picks have helped me with our coop designs.
It has rained here almost daily for the last week, but I missed out on it because I was in Oregon, enjoying their version of "rain", which we call "mist". My daughter moved to Vancouver, Washington just in time for the National Iris convention in Portland. After five days on bus tours and another few in seminars, I'm dreaming iris and roses. That vacation was really a top-of-the-bucket-list, dream come true trip. My daughter and I toured the gardens, smelled the flowers, talked to the hybridizers, and met gardeners from all over the world. I talked to BARRY BLYTH!!!
Funny, I didn't bring home any iris or roses, but I did fill a suitcase with conifers and japanese maples.
We went to the Portland Rose Garden over Memorial weekend, but I wish we had found time to go on a weekday. The crowds were too intense for me, and so many families were using the garden for their family portraits, blocking whole areas of the garden. (I did photobomb a few after I got frustrated with waiting!) I didn't go into the test garden because a big formal wedding was taking place. It's Rose Week, and most tourists were there to see the roses, but we couldn't! The Japanese garden, ironically enough, had a sign prohibiting portraiture or posed photos.
The roses and iris in Oregon grow much larger than they do in the midwest. The colors were even slightly different. The photos I did take look great because the whole 10 days I was there, the skies were overcast.
I will try to find time to load photos, but I'll bet all are already in our database. Surprisingly, i saw nothing that we haven't talked about on this forum.
In other news, Wayside had a clearance sale, and I ordered a few Austins, and wow! They sent roses that were as good as or better than what I received from Austin or Edmunds. Nobody compares to Palatine, of course, but these bare root roses look great! Our forecast is for rain rain rain for the next week, so I took a chance and planted them. At $10-$13 apiece, they were a steal.
The weeds sure took off while I was gone, and the roses and clematis all burst into bloom. I love touring other gardens, because when I come home, I have so many ideas for improvements. I'll have to get caught up on weeding first!
