WOW Jodi your garden beds are looking amazing!! You must have spent a fortune on all those bulbs, they are really showing off their beauty.
Loved the tour, Thanks

Di

Great pictures, Jodi. Thanks for the tour! How exciting it must be to have all that great stuff coming up. Really impressive. Alana

Thanks! Actually, I'm not the plant bank... that would be my partner! She's got a much larger budget to work with, and a very indulgent husband! When Larry and I moved here, there was nothing... no gardens, at all. It was nothing but grass and weeds and trees. The landowner and his wife are very good friends of ours, and rent us the upper apartment in exchange for labor. Trust me, there's lots to do here!

There are horses, the kennel of dogs, goats, an aviary of fowl, and lots of yard space. Psyche and I began carving out the garden areas to pretty up the place, but then we decided to sell plants to help offset the cost.

Many of the bulbs and plants we buy are in bulk or we find them discounted. While a lot has been spent to get the gardens going, it's an investment in the future of the plant business. You have to spend money to make money, as the saying goes... and most of what we order goes for sale. We pick a few plants or bulbs off the top to showcase in the gardens.

I've had a lot of fun creating the various beds, conforming them to the natural layout of the land... and the beautiful thing is... if we ever move, I get to take a lot of divisions and cuttings with me for my own yard! And in the meantime, I get to enjoy all this beauty! What's not to love?! :-)

She ends up with lovely gardens, and I get to garden in exchange for rent, plus have a piece to take with me in the future. How lucky can two women get? Even our husbands are impressed by our accomplishments!

And another day begins... today, I'm working on the front Rose beds.

Sounds like the perfect arrangement! Your plan is coming together very nicely it seems ;-) Alana

I really love the tour, Jodi. Thanks a bunch for it.

Xuan

Jodi, thanks for another tour of your garden. They are absolutly gorgeous!!

Jan

Is that what they call having your cake and eat it too? You certainly got a lot accomplished and what beautiful results besides.

Jodi, so very pretty! You have some lovely varieties there, especially the black parrot tulip. You are definitely ahead of me now...my first Purple Sensation alliums are popping, but the bridals wreath will be several weeks from now. And no iris for a while yet either. I imagine you will pick up speed ahead of me now too as your summer warms more then mine.

I have spent another day dividing dahlias and making bouquets for Mother's Day sales, and picking everything I can find for tomorrow and Sunday's bouquets. I am so tired tonight and I still have to go pick up what is left at the two stands. My pal turned her stand over to me for the weekend, being more involved with her cancer diagnosis. I imagine I will be doing a fair amount there for a while until she is under treatment and feeling better. She is researching treatments and Drs today.

But that meant for me that I got to pick armloads of fancy crab apple blossoms and cherry blossoms, and handsful of wild for-get me not and bluebells today too. PArt of the pay back we get for our flower work.

Of course I worried about her the whole time I was doing it!
Treasure the times you have of working with Psyche! THere is nothing quite as fine as working on something you love with a long time good friend beside you, sharing dreams and laughter!

Thank you, everyone! Since gardening is my passion, it's all a labor of love. We do have fun shopping together for new flowers to add, and we stop for lunch every time we hit town to shop. We have fun researching new items to grow, and it's always interesting to get new boxes in the mail containing plants and roots and cuttings!

Yesterday, a box arrived containing Buck Roses. I didn't know which varieties it would contain, and was pleasantly surprised to find some of the very ones I had picked out! Since Psyche is the bank, she gets to choose, but I get to recommend!

I hope all goes well for your friend, Lizalily... I can imagine how you must feel. Modern medicine has made such wonderful advances, though, that cancer isn't always the horrible thing it used to be... there's a very good chance that if caught early enough, it can be entirely eradicated. Prayers will continue.

I can picture your lovely bouquets... they're always so unique! I love the touches of nature using boughs from shrubs you wouldn't think to use, or using foliage with interesting appeal... you certainly do wonderful work!

As new things come to life, I'll add new tours. I love sharing all the beautiful things that bloom here... it's just too pretty to hoard to myself! :-)

Jodi, thanks for tour! I wish I could visit you and see both you and your garden in person. I am sure it would be memorable!

Hatta

Thanks, Hatta! I think you'd like it here during the warmer months... but once winter set in, you'd probably want to head south again! Spring and early summer are so lovely... all the bulbs bloom, and when those are finished, the summer perennials begin to open flowers... and so it goes, until the nights get cold enough to frost. Even I would love to head south in autumn!