2012 Olympic Bouquets Score Gold!

The 2012 Olympic organizers should get a gold medal for the lovely nosegays--tiny bouquets presented as gifts to medal-winning athletes upon the podium in the Victory Ceremonies. The Victory Bouquets of the 2012 Olympic Ceremonies symbolize the absolute BEST of the host country at the 2012 Olympics. Not only are the hand tied fragrant bouquets of elegant design and bring a touch of the English countryside gardens to the Games, but also these nosegays are totally created with good eco-intention-- grown and made locally and sustainably. 

The 2012 Victory bouquet with the signature grouping of blooms reflects the design of late, Jane Packer, an internationally renowned UK florist. Each nosegay reflects the vibrancy and energy of the Games with the four sections, each holding a different variety of the rose. Roses are a culturally iconic flower for the British, and the ones being used are Illios (yellow), Marie Claire (orange), Wimbledon (green) and Aqua (pink). Each section is also divided with traditional and fragrant garden herbs – English lavender, rosemary, apple mint and wheat.  Olympians will take home their medal and a locally and sustainably grown fragrant English garden bouquet as a keepsake of their trip to the UK.

From start to finish all 4, 400 Victory Bouquets were created locally and sustainably from local fields. All of the blooms and sprigs of the bouquet are home-grown from local fields, and assembled and delivered at the time of the Games by college and floristry students from across the UK.  The heady scent, vibrant color and romantic appearance of the 2012 Victory Bouquet is the quintessential symbol of the energy of the games and also the timeless tradition of the English garden.

Growing the LOVE in your Gopher Infested Garden

This week I discovered a wonderful new product to help encourage the LOVE energy in your garden, even though you may be waging a full on war with your gophers that inhabit it.

Grow Master-Gopher Baskets protect plants roots from gophers.

Grow Master --Gopher Basket by Western Planting Solutions (at Pini Ace Hardware in Novato) protects the roots of your plants with a very fine and extremely flexible wire mesh bag/basket.  So EASY! They are flexible wire mesh with much more flexibility than the super stiff handmade Chicken or Aviary wire baskets. Affordable too! They have a beautiful, fine, and fluid wire shape--that from my perspective and because I love them so much-- evokes the work of the great wire artist, Ruth Asawa--especially after working with the painful rustic aviary wires! Ok, maybe I'm  slightly exaggerating, but if you ever struggled with making your own root baskets, you know! These are like works of art!  Ha!

Grow Master Baskets come in Mini, Quart, 1/2 Gal, 1 Gal, and1-3 Gal, 5 Gal, and 15 Gal sizes!  Brilliant! Hope our Marin County gophers can't chew through the fine and  flexible mesh! So happy to find it-- thought I would share this new product. Will keep you posted...so far- so good.

Products like this allow me to continue to garden with love and joy. This has not always been the case:

The day I made peace with the gophers in my garden is the day my garden began to really flourish.  I have been working my garden for over 13 years and battling the gophers for about a good six years. On a daily basis, Marin County gophers can suck the joy out of any gardening experience. These critters make gardening a negative and angry experience and can transform your garden as a place of dark energy like no other.

For years, I vowed to annihilate the little beasts which cross into my yard from open space to eat everything in my garden as if it was a Fast Food Drive Thru. I launched full on assaults with every gopher deterrent and device in my traditional arsenal of weapons of mass extermination. In desparation, I have even fantasized pumping gas into the tunnel and igniting it! (See Rodinator).

One morning about 6 years ago,  I woke up to find all 10 delphinium that I planted the morning before, gone. My eye catching one last wiggling stem at the end of the bed, only to disappear instantly down into the hole--as if a cruel scene in a cartoon. That day, I threw up my hands and peacefully surrendered to the tiny beasts.

My new approach was to peacefully co-exist, embracing the little furry friends by actually planting some flowers for them and making baskets out of stiff aviary wire to protect roots of the many plants for my garden. This made gardening more laborious, but the battle was over. As peace began to grow in my garden, so did my love for it,  and it began to flourish.  Planting of course was a total drag.  My choice was either make the rigid baskets of aviary wire, or buy the pull apart ones that are so difficult that you need to channel Herculean strength to open; then dig a hole to accommodate the odd shapes of these root  baskets which seems to always leave gaps that the soil doesn't always fill. Grow Master's new more flexible root basket by Grow Master makes planting a breeze and helps to continue my love of gardening, eventhough I still have gophers in my garden!

I want to give a BIG HUG and Kiss to the Brilliant mind behind the Grow Master--Gopher Basket! Planting is SO much eaiser!!!!!<3

Bright Begininng

Today seemed to be a nearly perfect summer day in the Bay Area, and moved me gather a sunny bouquet from my garden including Just Joey and a variety of yellow roses, with orange milk weed, and tiny yellow sprigs of creeping zinnias.  An appropriate symbol and expression of a bright new beginning of sharing and inspiration.