Two for the price of one on May 4: the Idaho Botanical Garden and Boise Garden Club will be conducting dueling plant sales that day. Since they are just a few blocks apart, let me suggest you shop early and often.

BOISE GARDEN CLUB PLANT SALE

SATURDAY, MAY 4th 9am to noon

1302 Warm Springs Ave.

Beautiful plants – annuals, perennials

vegetables, herbs, Heritage tomatoes

Plus ceramics, tools and everything to

make your yard special all summer long.

Autographed copies of the new Rocky Mountain Gardeners Handbook will be available for $20.(Signed by none other than our very own member, Mary Ann Newcomer, the Dirt Diva.

All money raised will be donated to the Idaho Botanical Garden.

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Wait, there’s more!

Spring Plant Sale 2013

ANNUAL PLANT SALE!
Garden enthusiasts look forward to this event each spring. The Idaho Botanical Garden Plant Sale offers water-wise and unique plants for your private garden. Look for the Plant Sale Catalog to plan your purchases (and your yard) in advance. Garden Members have exclusive entrance on Friday evening and are encouraged to mingle while enjoying a glass of wine and bit of cheese. Back by popular demand, all garden lovers, regardless of membership, are invited to shop on Saturday.

Members-Only Exclusive Sale: Friday, May 3rd, 2013
4 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Admission is Free.
This is an exclusive member event for current Garden members only. ‘Plus’ guests, friends and family of members are welcome to join us for Saturday’s Public Spring Plant Sale or may join/renew their membership at the kiosk before entering. If members need help carrying plants, Garden staff and volunteers will be available for assistance.

(Please bring your membership card for faster entry, if you do not have your card, a membership list will be available for look-up.)

NEW* Public Spring Plant Sale – General Public Welcome: Saturday, May 4, 2013
9 a.m. – 2 p.m.
General Garden Admission Applies.

Friends, Romans, Countrymen/women, get your clickers ready: yours truly is going to visit P Allen Smith and friends at Moss Mountain Farm  in Arkansas. The fabulous cookware maker, Le Creuset is a sponsor. They gave each of us our choice of color for the small French Oven. We are to create/make/photograph a kick butt recipe, and send the beauty shots to Allen and staff. When it’s my turn to be featured on the web, they will keep track of the likes, comments, and atta girls and hopefully there will be too many to count! Oh yeah, and if that’s the case? I get a 3 piece set of the new Soleil cookware line. At which point I will be forever grateful and will pony up my first born male. You in? Thanks.

ps, I chose the color “Fennel.”

I am often asked about Pinterest, my radio talks, etc. Here’s the latest contact info:

My email is maryann@idahogardener.com. Feel free to write to me.

I can be tracked down on my blog: www.gardensofthewildwildwest.com.

You can hear me on the River Radio, 94.9 Boise ID. Podcasts are at www.riverinteractive.com, look at the Morning Show.

I am on FB: https://www.facebook.com/manewcomer, and Twitter as @wildwestgardens.

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/wildwestgardens/plant-palettes1/

To go with those luscious lilies, I have a passel of dahlias to “pre-start,” today. Several years ago, my great horticulture coach, John Dodson, taught me how to jump start my dahlias. They are all about warm weather, so you need to give them a start in black plastic pots. Using 1 gal. pots (recycled is awesome), fill the pot w/planting mix about 2/3 full. Place the dahlia tuber on top, with the eye bud facing up. Top off with potting mix. Gently tamp down. Water thoroughly, only once. Make sure you’ve labeled the pots accordingly (if you care). I put mine in a line up against my southwest facing house foundation. You probably don’t need to water them again until you see the first set of leaves,up about an inch or two. Water thoroughly, but only once a week. Too much water will rot the tubers.

Here’s the 2013 lineup for Ranch du Bois: (click on the photo to enlarge it)

A few years back, during a Garden Bloggers’ Fling adventure in Buffalo (Garden City USA by anyone’s count), I fell head over heels for the gorgeous lily, Scheherezade. An “Orientpet,” its the best of two different types of lilies, the lovely Asiatics and the beloved Trumpets (think Easter). Seemed like every other garden in Buff was sporting a huge planting of these. I couldn’t take my eyes off them. 

You know where this is going:  I ordered up several of these, and a few more. Just to set the pace. From the sublime Scherezade, I somehow drifted right over into the hot red category. We’ll see how it grows.

With the best characteristics of Idahoans and folks from the Intermountain West, Raw Materials placemats, napkins, aprons and giftbags are straightforward, hardworking, and no nonsense. Check them out here: http://www.rawmaterialsdesign.com/our-roots.html.

They’ll have a booth at Farm Chicks, in Spokane, June 1 and 2.

Here’s a piece I wrote on Cougar Annie. Check it out. http://issuu.com/leafmag/docs/leaf_magazine_spring_2013/49

Aerial view of Annie’s Garden

What’s left standing.

The work of an 11 year old girl. This is but one vignette from her amazing fairy garden entry at last year’s Boise Flower and Garden Show. We were so dazzled by it, the 2013 show will feature a miniature garden contest. Welcome one and all: instructions for entering are here: http://www.gardenshowboise.com/features/miniature_garden_contest