Monday, February 11, 2008

Would You Buy a Ticket to My Garden?

Welcome to my garden!

I've loved it for six years (longer, if you count me coveting it before the house went up for sale) , and although it doesn't look very much like these pictures right now (being bleedin' February and all) I'm posting them to remind myself that Spring is on its way, and it will soon thrive and bloom and burst out of the mucky ground once again. Well, I'm sure hoping....

I'm especially hoping it will look good, say...oh...the weekend of May 11th. That's the week of one of the Courtenay garden tours.

And *gulp* I'm hoping to be one of the gardens on the tour.

After some soul-searching (and letting the article I cut out of the paper mellow on my desk for about three weeks),I answered an ad in the local paper that read "Gardens Sought for Touring", spoken with two nice representatives of a local garden society in charge of the May fund-raiser tour, and have submitted my garden as one of the candidates.

It's always been a little vainglorious dream of mine to have a flower garden nice enough for people to buy a ticket to see it.

So far I've answered a lot of questions about the kinds of plants I have, the general lay-out of my property, sent them many photos, and now I'm just waiting for a deciding committee member to return from her vacation in Hawaii to pop over to my place and interview my yard in person, and make the decision yay or nay on whether my garden makes the cut.

This means I have until early March to wake up my garden and give it a good talking to---

There's going to be a lot of work involved--I spent five and a half hours out in the drizzle this past weekend weeding and pruning my little heart out. It made quite a difference, I'm pleased to say.

But when ever one thinks that soon droves of horticulturally-minded, possibly critical strangers could be roaming along the flower-beds, one does take a more jaded eye around one's own garden and sees all the things that need doing:

The porch railing that needs painting.... The sad-looking area by the compost that needs re-vamping (I have a plan).... The spot where I yanked out an ailing and ugly shrub last season and the empty spot it left behind that needs filling...

Someone said to me, "Are you sure you want to have all those people tromping through? Are you sure its worth the work?"

Yes! Oh yes! (Um, well, I hope so anyway.)

I remember last spring I had a garage sale just before I left for Italy, and one of the little old ladies who showed up at my sale with three of her elderly friends asked me if they could go on a little tour around my yard. It was so fun, pointing out my favourites, and having them stop and smell roses and exclaim over this and that.

I love going on garden tours myself. I get lots of inspiration from them. I guess I'm sort of hoping somebody will get excited over my garden too.

Wish me luck!















































9 comments:

Grant said...

To me, flowers are just smelly overrated weeds, so I would only pay if I got to stomp on them. But that's just me. May 11 is my bday week, so I'll find another less wholesome way of entertaining myself unless you want to combine activities. Can we do a whiskey tasting / chainsaw rampage through your garden with birthday cake and ice cream? I'd pay for that.

Tai said...

Wow! Well, your garden is lovely, so I'm sure there won't be any difficulties having people appreciate it.
I know I do!

(Chainsaw rampage. I bet people would pay extra for that.)

Cedar said...

I think your garden is gorgeous and now I have spring fever. I would pay to tour your garden sans the chainsaw rampage. Wait, ah, yeah sans the chainsaw rampage.

Sugar. said...

Wow Spider! That's awesome! The photos of your garden are gorgeous, so I can only imagine how lovely your garden truly is in person. I would like to see your garden myself one day.

Mel said...

From those pictures I would pick your garden to visit!!

kimber said...

Ah, you won't need luck! You've got a gorgeous garden, worthy of admiration, well able to inspire visitors.

I mean, you and your beautiful flowers have inspired me to start gardening!

blackcrag said...

I'm sure you'll get the nod from the galivanting judge. I've always thought of your garden as a wonderful English garden transplanted to the Island.

When are you going to grow one of those hedge mazes?

BostonPobble said...

I would SO buy a ticket to your garden! I love gardens that look a little untamed. The ones where everything is trimmed within an inch of its life and in perfect symmetry make me sad. :(

Add a bathtub in there and this would be the perfect garden. (A strange reference to a child's book I had growing up that set the standard for all beautiful gardens for me.)

Pol* said...

GOOD LUCK!!!!