Travels and Adventures and Seedlings

Got anything on this weekend coming? Maybe you'd like to pop down to the Harrison Lewis Centre in East Port L'Hebert for the 'Tree-dy Saturday' seedling exchange/sale. You can find out more about the Centre at their website, and I will tell you more about it in the not-too-distant future. I haven't been there yet, and won't get there this weekend because of a previous commitment, namely a talk at Bunchberry Nurseries in Upper Clements for the Magnolia festival, as mentioned before. 

I haven't updated for a few days and haven't been visiting many blogs this past week or so but with rather good reasons. First, this past weekend, I was away in beautiful St. Andrews, New Brunswick, for Charlotte County Blooms, an annual event that takes in gardeners from the local area. I'd been invited to speak here several years in a row, but it's always been the same weekend as Saltscapes Expo. This year, they changed the date, and I was sooooo happy to come to one of my favourite Maritime communities. 

The morning speaker was the inspiring and affable Betty Kennett of Hampton, NB, and she entertained and educated the crowd of 200+ gardening enthusiasts. In the afternoon, it was my turn to (hopefully) be entertaining and educational too. What a LOT of hard work put in by everyone who organized this fabulous event, and by all the exhibitors at the trade shore part of the day. My garden hat is off to them all. 

This young artist creates fabulous sculptures from wood: from Celtic designs to pea pods! His work is gorgeous, although I don't think I'd put it outdoors in my garden. I'd have it in my office where I could always look at it while I was working, regardless of the season. 

Longsuffering spouse went with me to St. Andrews, which was awesome because he got to drive on this rather long trip, while the weary gardener, garden writer and editor slept. And we were put up by wonderfully gracious and friendly hosts at their home, Tatterscot, right on the main street in St. Andrews...

Where their back yard is actually their front yard because it looks out on the sea. And I mean RIGHT. On. The. Sea. Well, the lower Bay of Fundy, and to be exact Passamaquoddy Bay, the lower end of my own Bay of Fundy. So they know all about gardening by the sea, and they do it very well. 

This photo was taken at mostly low tide, and I don't have a good photo with me of what the scene would look like at high tide...because most of my photos are back home in Scotts Bay with my external hard drive. I'm in Liverpool again. 

Well, I'm in Liverpool a lot these days. Because I took on a new challenge a while back, and now am editing three magazines for DvL Publishing; Rural Delivery, Atlantic Beef, and Atlantic Forestry. It's a lot of work, but a lot of fun too. I've been privileged to write for Dirk van Loon a good deal over the past number of years-and in fact, he published the first thing I ever had published, a story that was in Atlantic Horse & Pony (where I'm now contributing editor) back in 1990. It's pretty cool. Car's getting quite a bit of mileage, and Spunky is cranky when I'm away, but I'm loving the new challenge.

The goutweed is the only downside, as it's getting out of hand in my garden on the days I'm away. Anyone got a cure for that? We won't be giving away any at the Tree-dy Saturday, however!