I absolutely enjoy going to these events and have been faithfully going for many years now. I find it truely awesome to find 'gardens' magically appearing several stories beneath street level, and in the middle of winter. What a scene. Tall trees, pools and waterfalls. The displays are meant to be trend setting and thought provoking. In reality some blooms that are used wouldn't naturally come out at the same time. So seasons are suspended. Imaginations are encouraged. I guess the designs may not be to everyone's tastes. And unfortunately the show does tend to get very crowded given the limited space. Plus we could do without the very expensive and mediocre food. I wish we could be a CHELSEA garden but that's outdoors and that woulnd't be possible in Toronto. Yes in some years, the displays have been disappointing - and I have to admit that last year, some show backers weren't there and I felt they were essential to the show. Sometimes the displays are rather repetitive - several showing the same trellis etc.. - all that. Perhaps given the limited space the organizers can be more demanding on display originality. Anyway, I feel that the more participation from garden centres, the more interesting it is for people like me. New plants are introduced, new ideas on gardening, new products. The displays are not the only ones I look for but it's really the market place I enjoy greatly. Ianna

Annie, I am in total agreement - you are the winner of Bingo! Our other winners are: Margo for the Father's Day Word Scramble Game and Erica has just been selected from a random drawing from all the names of those who participated in the Famous People in the World of Plants. (Those who participated got a number assigned for each time they listed information about someone for us.) Thanks for a fun and informative month. I have the prizes ready and will try to get them mailed tomorrow. I'm hoping they might make it to you before the July 4th holiday. We'll see... Jeanne

Kim, Thanks for the info, but with all due respect, we are avoiding the entire DFW metro area like the plague and staying closer to home since there's over 6,000 coronavirus cases down there. Up here where we shop, we have or have had 2 cases in Carter County, 2 cases in Love County, 4 or 5 in Cooke County, TX, 4 or 5 in Montague County, TX and a few dozen in Grayson County, TX, so we're staying close to home until the case load falls significantly in the DFW metro.....and I think that is why I'm going stir-crazy. You know that almost all my favorite places to shop are down there, not up here. Nancy, I'll have to give the full report later, but we went to the meat market in Muenster TX on Saturday very early and then hit Wal-Mart in Gainesville to get a few things. We were home by 10:30 or 11:00 a.m. which is pretty good because Muenster is a far drive and most of our time was just spent on the road. Then, on Sunday we hit Home Depot as soon as they opened and breezed right in and out, and then ran over to the Sam's in Sherman, largely because I wanted to buy a couple of new water hoses and we like their 120' long ones since our gardening spots are so far from the house. We were at Sam's Club when it opened, and there was quite a line to get in, but by the time we parked and walked to the door, the line was gone, so we walked right in without waiting. Sherman was a real experience, and not necessarily a calm, soothing one. More about that later. I hope your shopping trip was successful. Now that I've been out and relieved the cabin fever and bought a few of the things I wanted, I think I can stay out of the stores again for quite a while. I know we'll be staying away from Sherman for reasons I'll explain later. Larry, I understand the feeling of being behind. I've never been this far behind in planting, and I am trying to stay calm and not be overly worried about it. Since our rain basically stopped, we are rapidly going from lakes and puddles and flooding to dry, cracked ground---you know how clay is about doing that. No rain is falling in meaningful amounts and it is getting hot fast. Our rainfall totals for April are far below normal but we're still above average for the year since January, February and March overachieved drastically in the rainfall category. I should be worried about both the early arrival of the heat and the seeming lack of rainfall over the last 3 or 4 weeks, but I'm so happy to be able to play in the dirt that I am not. I miss having cool-season crops, but had I managed to get them planted, they would have rotted anyway in the wet ground, so I just have to accept that this is how it is this year. Since it is getting so hot so fast, I'm going to plant mostly southern peas and only a small amount of green beans today. I can plant larger amounts of green beans for a fall harvest. When the rain almost totally stops in a rather abrupt manner and the temperatures spike quickly, that usually means a hot, dry, miserable summer is ahead and I don't care right now. I'm just happy the rain has stopped. Marleigh, Can you order the mower part online? That's what Tim has done lately, and the parts ordered have arrived within a few days each time. We did go to HD this weekend and he got some parts he needed for something while I bought plants. We were there shortly after the store opened and got in right away, found what we wanted and got out. By the time we were leaving, there was a line waiting to enter the store. Since we haven't been out shopping, I didn't know this was happening, and I was quite shocked. I do not think I would wait in a line to get into any store, and I hope I don't have to eat those words later if the shopping situation worsens over time instead of getting better. Nancy, I have grown legumes both with and without inoculants and I am not sure I ever could tell a difference. If you are growing beans or peas where any sort of legume has grown in recent years, you don't need the inoculants anyhow. The inoculants might be helpful in newly broken soil, but it would depend. We have lots of clovers and vetches growing here on our property, likely surviving remnants from when our place was part of a family's farm, so I haven't worried much about using inoculants over the years. Amy, There's nothing wrong with random thoughts! Was Margaret's open and did you get to have some goulash? My dad loved goulash and used to make it on the weekends when he took over cooking to give mom a break since she didn't like cooking. Rebecca, I hope nothing in your face is broken. I bet you have turned kinds of pretty colors by today. When Lillie hit that parked car while on her friend's hoverboard a couple of months ago, her face turned delightful shades of yellow, green, blue and purple. These were her first black eyes and she wore the colors proudly after she got over the shock of it all. She had swelling around her nose, but it wasn't broken. I think she was a little embarrassed to go to school with her injuries because she is quiet and shy by nature and didn't want for everyone to be staring at her, but she got over it pretty quickly, and her bruising actually faded more quickly than we had thought it would. I hope yours does too. Jennifer, I would bake my own bread (and we have stored the ingredients to bake at least several months worth of bread, so we could do this) before I'd stand in bread lines. I'm not worried this will be a reality for us though. I might be slightly more concerned that the end result of all the closures of meat-packing plants due to high infection rates of Covid-19 among their employees might result in higher meat prices or in some types of meat being temporarily in short supply. I hope Finbar is going to be alright. Chris has had to drive a couple of his birds to the vet in Dallas within the last few weeks, and his vet is not playing around with the virus. The lobby/waiting room at the vet office is closed. There are Do Not Enter signs on the door. They meet you at the car, greet you, have you fill out the paperwork there, and then they take the pet indoors to be examined while you wait in your car. This is a super busy vet practice because it is one of the few that actually sees and treats tropical birds (among other pets, not a pure bird specialist). When they are done, the return your pet to you, you pay electronically, and they give you whatever medications or supplies you need. He said the vet techs that come to the car are masked and gloved, and of course, you can speak with the vet on the phone if needed. I have to agree with dbarron that throwing up in a purse is a classic cat revenge move. Did somebody or something upset Finbar? Larry, I am glad you are able to get some things done. I hope the rain stays away this week and you can make more progress in the garden. There, it is Monday morning and I am at least caught up on last week. Now, I need to feed my pets and head out to the garden. Just to vex me, the sky is very cloudy and they threw a 20% chance of rain into the forecast. I'm just going to ignore it and carry on as long as there is no lightning. Dawn

I love that we all have a winning ticket! This takes me back to my high school days of marching band. We won the Contest of Champions, the ULTIMATE contest for our area, which means state champions, but also regional. We marched in the Fiesta Bowl parade, and hoped we would come in second so we would not have to march at the game. Exactly what we did. Bragging rights without the work. We got the day off. I'm pretty sure I'd prefer coming in second for this particular jackpot. Millions without the notoriety.