A Wonderful Group

I'm happy to report that this past weekend's tour went very well.  The Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society visited us and they were such a friendly, warm group of Master Gardeners.

We worked as late into the evenings as we could last week and were up early on Saturday to try to get in some late minute touches.  Ann and Jessie were here bright and early to add some polish to the garden, too.  We all ran in six different directions at once, but finally had to cease and desist when I yelled, "The bus is just about here!"  Shovels, wheelbarrows and tools miraculously disappeared as the bus neared our driveway.

  There I am, waiting for the bus to back into our driveway.

Oops, guess we should have pruned the willow tree a bit more.  Buses are bigger than I thought.

There were 44 people onboard and they had only 45 minutes to see the yard.  We have a sort of a 'system' for taking folks through the gardens; we start in the driveway and work our way around the front:

After seeing the front of the gardens, it's time to view the Pachyberm, above.  Then we normally go back in front of the house and through the garden gate, but they had a tight schedule, so we bypassed the normal route and everyone picked a trail to get to the back yard.

On to the backyard

 I forgot to mention to them at the start of their visit that we were in the middle of remodeling our Formal Garden, but no one seemed to mind that it wasn't done.  (And was a total mess.)

My only regrets with larger groups of people is that I don't get a chance to talk to everyone.  I was able to ask some questions of their very illustrious members and learned a few things about my own plants that I didn't know before. 

Heading out toward Quarry Hill

We hoped to get a group photo of everyone, but there were members scattered all over the yard.

People everywhere!

Heading down the hill

Carl, in the dark blue shirt, leading the tour.

Joel managed to get a group picture of some of our visitors.

All too soon, it was time for them to leave.  Hard to believe how fast the time flies.

 

Screech Kitty led the tour through the Egress Garden Gate.  He's a veteran tour guide around here.  

I sure wish the MG's could have seen the yard at its peak bloom season.  And I wish the Formal Garden had been done on time, too, but oh, well, gardening is a process, right?

As we all know, a gardener's work is never done.

Our thanks to the Wisconsin Hardy Plant Society for some wonderful memories!

And a special Thank You to Ann, Jessie, Richard and Emily for their help, too!