My 100th Post And A Giveaway

Saturday was my good friend and partner in crime Diane's birthday and I wanted
to take her somewhere she hadn't been before. I've turned her into an addicted
gardener (or I've helped anyway) so I decided we'd go to a fun little town, hit
some shops and then off to a nursery that is 15 acres of most every kind of
flower you could possibly hope to find.When she got to my place (I didn't pick
her up because she lives about 40 minutes south of me and we're headed north) I
had a beautiful Peony waiting for her - no garden should be without a Peony and
as far as I knew she didn't have one. It was kind enough to still be blooming
although not the best looking Peony on the block at this point. But I took a
picture so she could see what she missed and what I got to enjoy!

We went to Snohomish which is mostly antique shops but also has a nice variety
of gift/fun/decor whatnot shops too. Not your typical touristy stuff where after
you've hit the first one you've pretty much seen the rest of what the town has
to offer. Seen one seen 'em all! Nope, this town is interesting, fun and . . .
well not a place we should have gone and expected to still have time to hit a
nursery that is a whole days jaunt in itself. But we did! Guess we were feeling
a lot younger, full of energy and thinking we could just do it all!
NOT!
And of course I didn't allow time for getting lost along the way.
Like after we got off of 405 and hit 522 and went the alloted 3 miles mapquest
said we should go to then turn left onto Hwy. 9. Nope we went 4 then 5 and
probably close to 10 miles when it dawned on me that if we made that left turn
we were going to end up in Lake Washington! Ok turn around and go the other way
like you were suppose to in the first place - now we can can make that left turn
and stay dry.
We pulled into Snohomish and Diane was impressed with how
sweet the town is with all of it's old buildings.

I knew the first place I wanted to take her was Joyworks, a really neat shop
I've been in a few times before and it has a great variety of new, new imitating
old, primitive and old things stuffed in 3 good sized rooms plus a downstairs
the same size.
We snooped around and bought some fun stuff . . .

I also knew I was having my 100th post coming up and thought maybe I'd find
something there to have a giveaway and celebrate that I actually did that many
posts. I found this little 11" by 11" print on canvas made to look like an oil
painting that I thought was really sweet so decided to buy it for the drawing. I
think if a person wanted to you could even weatherize it and hang it on your
potting bench outside - just a thought!

TO ENTER THE DRAWING

just leave a comment after this post AND if you
would like 2 entries just put a link in your column to my blog mentioning the
giveaway and let me know you did that. I'll let Bob draw for a winner next
Monday.

We left and had lunch but before going to the 2 other shops we thought
to call the nursery and find out what time they closed. They weren't open as
late as we had hoped so if we expected to cover any amount of that huge nursery
we had to skip the other shops and get over there - pronto!

Flower World is amazing, scary, huge and wonderful.Heading through the entrance . . .

Still heading in . . .

Oh to have more time and go check this out . . . there's even ducks and I think
I see little ducks. No time for pictures just keep moving . . . 15 acres . . .
and a couple of hours to do it in.

I'm not sure what this is and had to keep moving - fast. The fact that it's an 80+
degree day is not helping. Luckily they have faucets everywhere and Diane and I
just kept helping ourselves to water, wetting tissues and drowning our faces -
her feet ;-) and anything we could wet and stay decent.

The blooms are very big and it almost looks like a Clematis growing up in a
tree.

What a huge bloom on this Magnolia tree - huge is not even close - it's
gimungus!

A couple more shots to give you an idea of the size of one of the covered areas.

I was happy to find a Celosia Pink Glow. It's just an annual but I'd had one
once before and really liked it.

One of the Campanulas I've wanted. My sister has one similar to this but hers is
a biennial. This one is a Perennial so I'm really happy. It's Campanula
Glomerata Superba and is a beautiful deep dark purple. Unfortunately they didn't
have any pink Campanulas - I was amazed and thought for sure I'd finally get one
with this large selection they have.

I got 2 Lamb's Ears

I didn't buy much because the heat was really getting to both of us and at this
point we weren't moving very rapidly – I was mostly sitting, using their
sprayers and seriously considering a heat stroke! Bob had told me it was going
to be 10 degrees cooler up north where we were going. He just forgot to mention
that it was going to be 90+ at our house. The other reason I didn’t buy a lot
was because the day before I ran into a friend that said they had the pink
Campanula at the nursery she worked at and I went bombing into town to get it.
Well, they didn't have it either but they had other things I couldn't live
without. I bought an Osteospermum Lavender Mist Hardy Sun (African) Daisy. WOW!
A hardy one, now I don't have to buy it every year.

Heuchera Green Spice . . .

I've been wanting some Penstemons and found this beauty. Only problem is it's an
annual and I wanted perennials. O'well this is just to gorgeous to pass up. It's
called Phoenix Violet Penstemon.

I found this Astilbe Visions. I've never had Astilbe before but Diane has one
that is just beautiful and guess what - this is the same as hers so I'm hauling
it home too.

I also bought 23 Daylilies and have no idea if I'll like them or not. But the
price was so great I couldn't pass them up. I just ran up to take a picture of
them and the first one is blooming.

Hey I like it! So I'm off to a good start. Does anyone know what this one is
called

Last but not least of my newest treasures for the garden is Barberry Rosy Glow.

Hope I didn't bore you too much getting to the flower part of this post but we
just had such a great time even after near sunstrokes and getting lost twice -
yes we sort of made a wrong turn again - guess we just wanted to go back and see
those other shops. One thing I did learn is that ya just don't do Flower World
and Snohomish in the same day!