Garden Tour

Summer is in full swing around our place. Besides all of the art shows and creating new work, we are spending alot of time in the yard and garden. We had a rather late start to the growing season due to the unusual amount of rain and cold spring that we had. Of course, living in the Pacific NW, we are used to plenty of rain - but this year was a bit out of the ordinary. We also dug up some new beds. Some of them are limping along - our tomatoes and green beans are leaving something to be desired - but the sunflowers? They are in their prime right now. The thing that needs to be understood is - we didn't plant any of these. We planted a few ornamental sunflowers last year and every one in our garden this year is a volunteer. We just couldn't fathom pulling them out. They are, afterall, one of my favorite summer flowers! My son is standing next to the one plant that is different from all the rest. Who knows where this one came from. It is the type that you grow for the seeds. We have proclaimed it the "dinosaur plant" because of its huge size. For a bit of reference, my son is 6'3" and his arm is fully extended and he still couldn't stretch it up all of the way. The stalk at the bottom of this plant is huge! And the head of the plant weighs about 20 pounds! Amazing - I am constantly amazed at the miracles of nature. Such a tiny seed can produce such a wonderful and enourmous flower!

In other news - we are prepping for West Linn's Arts in the Forest this weekend (August 14 and 15). We are diligently working to make sure that we have lots of great items available. We would love to see as many of our friends as possible. And this show has a great feature - tree dancers - an aerial dance troupe that performs from the tops of the tree in the forest. Very exciting! Time to get back to the garden and the studio!