Bottle Tree, Fine Foliage, and Slow Flower Garden Book Give-Away
Want to win an amazing group of books on flowers and gardening? All you have to do is leave a comment below telling us the wackiest thing that ever happened in your garden. DO IT – MAKE US LAUGH!!
ABOUT THE BOOKS –
I love these books and I also happen to love the authors! Like chocolate martini love – I know you know what I’m talking about here – good book love is coming at the lucky winner who wins the three books seen above (and discussed below).
Bottle Trees — For years I’ve had a total obsession with bottles in the garden. I’ve built wine bottle paths, collected bottles for bottle trees, and generally drooled anytime I found a piece of glass I could use as garden art in my quirky garden beds. Felder Rushing [right] is a garden writer friend of mine who shares my obsession. He published Bottle Trees: …and the Whimsical Art of Garden Glass to celebrate his joy and appreciation for glass garden art. It’s a sweet little gift book with quotes and photos galore to inspire your garden glass obsession.
Fine Foliage — When my dear friends Karen Chapman and Christina Salwitz [above] announced they were going to write Fine Foliage, I knew it would be a stunning book. Filled with amazing photos of plant foliage combinations and ideas, the book is truly a gorgeous “how to” as well as an educational primer to help the home gardener better understand how to combine plants. I enjoyed every page.
Slow Flowers — Debra Prinzing [below] is a popular garden author and I loved her Stylish Sheds book, which actually inspired my tiki hut shed redo this season. As a cutting flower gardener I was absolutely thrilled with her latest flower book, Slow Flowers: Four Seasons of Locally Grown Bouquets from the Garden, Meadow and Farm. This book is brilliantly designed and photographed by Debra and has some astoundingly beautiful arrangement ideas for the flowers you have growing in your garden right now.
HOW TO WIN THE BOOKS –
It is easy to enter to win all three books in one sh’bang. In the comment section below tell me the funniest most wacky garden story in the history of all stories. One randomly selected wacky story teller will win the books.
I will randomly select a winner to the contest next week on Aug 30th and will send out the too cool for school garden books just in time for you to start fantasizing about next season.
Meanwhile, while you people are telling me stories I’ll be sipping a lovely herbal cocktail out in the garden. Happy Garden Book Contest!
I finally was weeding my flowers by the side of the house. I had fed the hummers. the orioles and put new suet out. I had my gloves, wheelbarrow all in place. I step into the area to be weeded and started out intensely. Then I slowly gazed 2 feet away and saw what looked like a trailer tire. What was that doing thrown in my flowers? My husband is always playing tricks but on closer inspection from a distance, it looked more like a snake. I ran into the house and asked my husband if he had put a joke in the flowers. He said no, and looked. It was a harmless but 5 foot garter snake wound up in a ball. So much for weeding that day.
I was having an invasion of gophers one year and we started keeping track. Based on six months of good success, discussions with Extension specialists, and a little wit and wisdom, I achieve a reputation as an accomplished gopher hunter. For an extended volunteer project with other gardeners, I was given a certificate of appreciation — and a gopher trap.
I have an ongoing game of “where will it pop up next” in my garden. I planted tulips one year and the next year I planted resurrection lilies. Since that time, I am surprised every year to see them in a new spot. This year several tulips were in the middle of the side yard and the lilies showed up near the front door. I know several animals will dig up bulbs and eat them, but I have never heard of them redecorating the yard. Maybe it’s a commentary on my esthetic ability.
We put up our tent for a romantic campout in the garden and – WHOLLA – a little over 9 months later, the little seed planted that night bloomed into a precious daughter.
I watered a plastic plant! Yep, sure did. And I’m a master gardener! It was a perfectly put together plastic poinsettia that Would’ve probably fooled Mr. Joel Roberts Poinsett had he seen it!
I grew cleome one year and they were near the mailbox. They hadn’t flowered yet. The mailman reported to the police that I had pot growing right on the street! Lol. Police actually came and investigated. It was quite the talk of my little southern garden club in Virginia!
I don’t have any crazy stories, yet, but my mother had plenty! She had 2 hands full of green thumbs. Mama could grow anything. In her classroom at school, she had potted plants everywhere. One of her students thought it would be funny to give her some pot seeds to grow without telling her what kind of seeds they were. She put some in a container at school and some in a container on our back deck. She grew a huge, 5′ pot plant. She’d never seen one so she just thought it was a beautiful green plant. One day, my parents invited the neighbors across the street over for supper on the back deck. He was a GBI (Georgia Bureau of Investigation) officer. He saw the plant and about went into shock. My mom explained how she’d gotten it and how she’d been growing it. Needless to say, she was quite shocked to realize she was growing pot. After taking out that plant and the one growing in her classroom, the GBI agent had the student taken into custody. Said student is now a GBI agent.
I planted impatiens..a week later they were half eaten, and some just gone, so decided to replant.
A day later saw the problem, I had a bunny eating them for lunch!!!!
insisted on covering my nice raised lettuce patch after my neighbors snapped a picture of two darling spring deer, STANDING up in the raised bed munching MY SALAD material!! ended that very fast!!
The first year I gardened, I installed a chicken wire fence to control groundhogs. Before long they learned to scale the fence, so I added a floppy ‘shelf’ of chicken wire to the top of the fence. After a bit, I spooked a groundhog outside the fence. It scaled the fence to escape INSIDE the garden. That’s when I discovered its burrow under the brussels sprouts!
I was standing at the sink washing cucks, looking out the window,passing one on my left to the other side of the sink as I went. A cuck, water, wash, pass, a cuck, water wash, pass, the PHONE, water, wash, pass….
I live in So Cal, inland valley area. I have lots of trees around my house and the last year a grey squirrel moved in! I’ve never seen them here before. They’re fun to watch, but they make such a mess and now they’re getting my apples! Was just one, then two and now I’ve seen 3! Wondering about their habitat and what’s making them more urban.
A few years ago, my eyes were attracted to the beautiful red tulips that were gracing my neighbors garden. I was surprised that I had not noticed them earlier since it was time for tulips to bloom. I pointed them out to my wife and she was also thrilled. We continued to enjoy them from a distance for a day or so, then just got busy and didn’t notice them any more.
After another day or so, I saw my neighbor and complimented her on how lovely the red tulips had been. She smiled and admitted that she had “added” some silk tulips since the ones that she had planted had not bloomed! However, from a distance–they were so lovely…
All lovely books to add to my library.
My husband and kids kept saying that anything I threw out there in the garden would grow. So after seeing several disgarded scraps grow and produce abundantly my husband started jokingly asking if I could grow him a car. Boy did his jaw drop when I dug up a transmission. He was just sorry he didn’t specify make and model. This is a true story.
One day I mentioned something about my pet robin. My teenage son thought I was teasing him or had gone daffy. I invited him to come outside and see it. I went outside to my garden and pulled a few weeds. Sure enough the robin who follows me around the yard quickly appeared nearby and I threw several worms to him. My son just grinned.
Planted tons of green beans last year so I could can like mad. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with my bean plants until I realized I planted pole beans in the wrong bed. I had a crazy mess in one bed and an empty trellis in another. This year I wore my glasses…so everyone is tucked into theirs right beds waiting for a good book to be read to them. Thanks for the giveaway and helping me remember that gardening should make you smile.
Years ago my mother bought a ton of flowers to plant along the garden area along her fence line. I volunteered to plant them for her so packed up the dog and went over to her house. Spent a good two hours digging little holes and organizing the layout. I then went into autopilot and started at one end planting working way to other end, oblivious to my surroundings. After another two hours, got to the end and turned to see my accomplishment. However, what I saw was my yellow lab right next to me wagging her tail happy as can be and proud she pulled out every plant I just planted! I have to believe in her mind she thought she was helping! I wanted to be mad but she looked so happy! What can you do?! 🙂
October was quickly approaching and we had to paint the side of the house and that required cutting back the raspberry bushes. Just imagine grabbing a fist full of vines, leaning down to cut and coming face to face with a HUGE lizard! I ran back in the house without touching the ground! Now you have to understand I live in Washington state and we do not have critters as such running around. When I collected myself I ventured back outside I saw Elvis in the middle of the backyard moving very slowly. Grabbing a bucket I covered him and put a weight on top. Then I went back inside and called the neighbor who had put him on the roof of his house 3 houses away back in June! Tricky Elvis had climbed down from the roof via the tree nearby and been roaming around all summer. The owner had given up on him and given away his cage! Surprise, surprise lizards can survive a summer in a raspberry patch in Washington.
this story has been in my family for years…my mom was not a outside person, much less a garden person. one day my day came home from work and mom was in the garden; dad ask what she was doing. “looking for cucumbers” was her answer and dad just started laughing and laughing. pretty miffed at his laughter, she bent back down and continued looking. dad finally told her she would never find them on the cantaloupe vines!!
I have a knack for growing some really strangely shaped vegetables. My first was a potato that looked like a little rubber ducky. I gave it to a woman I worked with and she gave it to her husband as a gag birthday gift. He proudly displaced it in the Man Cave. The following year it started to sprout from the beak and then he became a rhino!
To say my husband likes to control things in the yard is an understatement, especially if it is something he planted…like the lawn.
A year after installing sod in our front yard moles began popping up, first in the raised beds, then along side the pathways in the lawn and finally one day right in front of my husband’s left foot as he stood surveying his kingdom. I heard him cussing about something and went over to see what had him in a fit. I made it half way over there when he ordered me to go stand guard near the street while he ran in to grab a gun. Firing a gun in city limits is illegal here but that wasn’t going to stop my husband, nope, he was mad. Nothing was going to stop him from getting rid of this pest, not even the threat of possible fines or worse.
A few minutes later he bounded out of the house with his shotgun in hand. I begged him to not fire it off. He told me to stop worrying and just keep watch and then pulled the trigger…”CLICK”. Suddenly the air was filled with expletives and I thought I was gonna die laughing as the next moment the hill moved AGAIN! And boy was I thankful no young families were walking by at that moment…that was a close one…oh and no police either. I was so relieved it hadn’t worked…at least for a moment.
I should have known the gun not working wouldn’t be the end of it. Again I am ordered to watch as he runs in to grab another gun. This time it’s a pistol. Well at least it’s smaller, I think to myself as I watch nervously for that squad car I’m sure is going to pull up any second.
One more time I try to reason with him but he hell bent on shooting him that mole. Yes, he was a man on a mission and that mole going to be dead before sundown.
So there he was, standing over the mole hill waiting for what seemed like for an hour. Suddenly the hill moved. He raised the pistol, pointed it and drew a bead and…”CLICK”. Another misfire!
I thought I was gonna die laughing. The irony of it was just too funny. Twice in a row, I mean what are the chances? So I had a good laugh, my frustrated husband just stood there shaking his head muttering under his breath things I’m glad I couldn’t hear and the mole lived to dig another day.
And to this day I believe God heard my prayers to save my husband from doing something foolish and God sent me an angel to put a hand over the fire mechanisms on those guns that day.
My MIL was so excited to see a bird in the garden that she had never seen before. She ran to get the whole family to get a look at this rare bird. At closer look the bird turned out to be a window squeegee laying on the table! Needless to say we all got a good laugh and my sweet mother in law got her eyes checked. Every now and then we ask her if she’s seen the rare and endangered “squeegee” bird.
I bought 5 different sizes of clay pots and numerous plant a to assemble a tipsy pot. After filling all the pots I decided to see how it was going to look before moving it to the rebar post in the front yard. I used what I thought was a strong pole from my tomato cage. I stacked them on the pole, and as I stood back to admire my creation, it fell, and all the pots were broken. I made a picture, titled it crash-pot, put it on Facebook, and started over.
I had a young fellow helping on the farm this year. I had a place behind the house that was to rocky to weed so we built a large flowerbed and filled it with dirt. I had a huge pile of compost in the boys old swimming pool, so we added that to the top of the dirt. I went on to plant flowers in the bed. A few days later I had tomatoes and cucumbers growing like crazy. I pulled hundreds of tomato plants just as they emerged. Didn’t get them all, so now I have several nice tomatoes and cukes growing in the flower bed. The tomatoes in the garden are suffering from blight from too much rain but these tomato plants are green and healthy. They will be my late season tomatoes and the cukes are growing better than the ones planted in the garden. Mother nature knew what I would need and provided it for me.
Great story and also the randomly selected winner of our contest! YAYYYYY!
Please send me your address privately and I’ll send out the books to you!!