Our Garden is a Centerfold

The first day of February already, hard to believe.  Since I've last written, things have gone on about the same with doctor appointments for my mother and my father-in-law.  Every day someone had to be somewhere; but today I have nothing scheduled.  Hopefully nothing unscheduled will arise, either.

In the midst of all the chaos with our elders, something pleasantly unexpected happened.  On December 26 I received a message from Rob Zimmer, a gifted garden writer/photographer with the caption, "Merry Christmas!"

Wow.

Carl and I were truly surprised; Rob has been here a few times and has written articles about garden walks in the area and included photos of our garden but we had no idea he was writing an article about the garden for the magazine, 'Wisconsin Gardening'.

We scurried off to a book store to purchase a copy (ok, three copies) of the magazine.  As Carl stood perusing the article in the book store, a lady seated at a table near the magazine rack said, "Carl, is that you?  This is amazing; I'm sitting here, reading the article about your garden and I look up and there you are!  Can I get your autograph?"

We are humbled by the glorious photographs Rob captured.  He is truly gifted with a camera.
 

A few years ago we were featured in another magazine, 'Our Wisconsin'.  We were amazed by the amount of people who had seen the article and wanted to visit the garden in person.  For awhile I had phone calls every week asking 'When is the garden open?' and 'Will the staff be available for tours?'  (Ha, ha, ha......'Staff', that one still cracks me up.)  I didn't keep track of the visitors generated from the magazine, but I know there were over one hundred people who came to see our horticultural rock pile due to the article.  

Will this article also generate interest?  Hard to say.  Probably just about everyone who has wanted to see it has already done so.  
 

 Carl had been adamant about upcoming garden walks; he wanted to take at least a year's break from keeping the rock pile tour-ready and work on Castle Aaargh this coming summer as much as possible so we're ready for the 2019 American Hosta Convention tour.  We love having visitors, but it is hard to keep the place pristine and get any construction work done, as you well know.  (I mean, I've complained about it enough here, right?)

So far, I've had three requests for garden bus tours this coming summer, two from Wisconsin and one from Iowa.  

Did I turn them down?  No.  I know my health isn't fantastic and who knows what will happen with our elders, but oh, what the heck.  I need to have something to strive for, something to look forward to.  I don't know how long we can continue to garden on this scale, but as time goes on I'm less stressed about people's expectations.  

I told the first group scheduled for June 6 we'd had the yard torn up in November for septic renovations and have no idea if we'll even have grass planted by their visit, but the lady in charge of organizing said it was no big deal, don't worry about it!  
 

 Ok.  I'm not worried.  I should be, though, right?  I mean, look at that lawn..........

Oh, well.  Life is short.  If we can bring a little happiness to people by letting them stroll through or sit on a bench in the sunshine and watch the butterflies, then it's worth it.  And if they see a weed (or a dozen) or a house in need of repairs, well, I'll jack up the staff and tell them to get to work. 

Bring on the tours.