2007 Seaside Herb Society Herbal Faire

On Saturday, March 24, I set up my booth at Seaside Herb Society’s Herbal Faire. This was my second year. They have a great location: the Riverbridge Meeting House and grounds in Ormond Beach, right on the Halifax River by the Granada Street bridge.


The main features of this location are the Riverbridge House, where the ladies serve the most delicious lunch, and the stone fountain ringed with trays of herbs for sale.


I brought a white wrought iron planter stand filled with scented geraniums, but outside of that I didn’t bring herbs to sell. The rest of my booth was filled with items from my store – our handmade herbal goods, herbal gadgets as well as herb books and herbal cookbooks. And I used my new Provence theme with colorful Provence tablecloths and some of my own "Provence" items: lavender bunches tied up with Provence fabric, lavender buds in a Provence fabric bag and little jars of Suzanne's Herbes de Provence.


There was an herbalist set up outside the meeting house dispensing herbal advice.


I always liked doing herb fairs when Maggie from Maggie’s Herbs in St Augustine showed up. She always had something out of the ordinary. Recently, Maggie’s Herbs was purchased by a young woman named Dora who stayed with this tradition. I picked up some coconut scented geraniums and a variegated mugwort. [Note on coconut scented geraniums: I read an article once that talked about how scented geraniums are named for fruits, nuts, etc but often don’t really smell like their namesakes. It gave coconut geranium as an example – one of the few that really does smell like its name!]

Dora is also a potter and had several of her things at the show including this birdbath:




Holly from Herbal Creations also in St Augustine was there with her great herbal jellies and jams and herbal mixes. YUM!


One of my neighbors had herbal crafts including a delicious blood orange marmalade.



I liked this booth with cute handmade birdhouses and beautiful painted stones.


The ladies from the Tempting Tub were there again this year with their lovely body care products.


I’ve seen these hypertufa planters at several herb shows now. They’re the perfect containers for herbs – lightweight and earthy. I’m sorry I don’t have the artist’s name; I’m going to have to do better about getting names for my little blog entries here.

2007 Spring Fever in the Garden

On March 31 and April 1, I took my herbs and a few herbal books and other goodies to the 7th Annual Spring Fever in the Garden in historic downtown Winter Garden. This garden show was put on by the Bloom N Grow Garden Society whose members could not have been more helpful and accommodating. They also attracted a good crowd, all of which meant I not only had a good show saleswise, but had fun doing the show, too. They have a website for the Spring Fever which is really spectacular.


I love a good historic downtown area and Winter Garden has a very nice one. Lots of little restaurants, including the Moon Cricket Grille across from my booth with an owner who traded me a lunch for some herbs.

The show took place, appropriately enough, on Plant Street, a brick street with

a beautiful island down the middle and places like

the Garden Theater which welcomed the show.

I was fortunate to be near one of the performers, singer Grant Livingston, who kept me entertained both days with his humorous songs.



My booth was filled mostly with herbs and I tried to bring a good selection of the favorites that everyone wants along with a few unusual things to delight those herb gardeners seeking something different. The biggest hit seemed to be the tray of nasturtiums.

I also brought a few herb books, some herbal gadgets (like herb keepers and mortars and pestles), a few of my Provence crafts and some great vintage wooden herb carriers.


Of course, no garden show would be complete without orchids

or roses and there were many other plant booths, too, although I wasn't able to get away from my booth for very long to take pictures of them all.

Being a potter myself, I was especially interested in several booths that had ceramics:

I've been designing several plant labels including some with herb names in French to coincide with my Herbes de Provence store theme. This artist had several very cute ceramic labels (some with French herb names!) although they're much different than the ones I'm planning. I even made a trade here.


This artist makes large funky brightly-colored ceramic sculptures for the garden including totem-like stakes and a working fountain.


I love this potter's great birdbaths with painted and three-dimensional flowers, turtles and frogs.

Really, the ceramic stuff was terrific and would brighten up any garden.

Also brightening up a garden would be any of the adirondak chairs that were up for (silent) auction:


including my favorite:

The Spectacular Pink Tabebuia

In 1999, I planted two pink Tabebuia trees at Rabbit Hill Gardens, one by the herb shop and one out by the street. For the last several years, the one at the front of the shop has been blossoming spectacularly but the one by the street has only had a few easy-to-overlook flowers. Well, this year the street specimen has redeemed itself. In clear view as you drive around the curve on 19-A, this tree has lost every leaf and is solidly covered in gorgeous pink trumpet flowers in a beautiful round form.

In full flower, Tabebuia trees are surely some of the most beautiful trees in Florida. Several yellow Tabs are seen around Mount Dora and there are probably other pink Tabs but I haven't seen any. Tabebuias belong to the Bignoniaceae family of which another spectacular tree, the purple Jacaranda, belongs. The pink Tabebuia is a much smaller tree than the Jacaranda and both could be damaged if we have a hard freeze into the teens or below. Several vines with very colorful trumpet-shaped flowers also belong to the Bignoniaceae family, with common names like trumpet-, bower-, cross-, or flame-vine.

I went back to the grower where I had gotten my Tabs and was able to find some for the nursery. He is only just now beginning to have Tabs available after being devestated by the hurricanes two years ago. We have a few small trees for sale in 3 gallon size. Tabebuias need to be staked to keep the growth upright and should be pruned to allow just one trunk.

Scarecrow Stroll

We entered the Mount Dora Scarecrow Stroll this year. "Name That Tune" is this year's theme with scarecrows having to represent a song. We haven't done a scarecrow for the Stroll in the past, but we just couldn't resist doing Scarborough Fair (Are you going to Scarborough Fair?/Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme). Our scarecrow is an English gardener designed after Vita Sackville-West who used to garden in tweed jackets and pearls. Of course, she's got her green Wellies, along with packages of herb seeds, a copy of Herb Companion, a book on Rosemary (all laminated to withstand the weather) and the requisite pots of said herbs. Her name is Matilde.

Godspeed Atlantis!

The launch of the space shuttle Atlantis as seen from my back yard this morning.

UPDATE Thr, September 21: After listening to the news last night, I went to bed expecting to be awakened early this morning by the sonic booms of a returning Atlantis. But it came in from the south and all was quite this morning. Glad they made it back safely.

UPDATE: Apparently, others WAY south heard the sonic booms.

The Stink Bug

This weekend in Mount Dora: an art car show featuring highly (and permanently) decorated cars. This afternoon I had a customer drive up in one of the entries. At first glance Goldenrod artist Carolyn Stapleton's VW Bug looks like it's been covered with light and dark pieces of bamboo in patterns that are similar to marquetry. But on closer inspection, it's not wood, it's CIGARETTE BUTTS!! Carolyn's car, named The Stink Bug, features thousands of brown and cream cigarette butts attached with silicone adhesive in patterns that include the phrase "stop in the name of lungs" on the top and "stinkbug.com", her website , on the back.

I hadn't planned to go to the show, but now that I've seen Carolyn's car I really have to see the others. Since the show hours on Saturday and Sunday coincide with my store hours, I'll just have to open a bit late on Sunday. I'll take my camera and have more pictures Sunday night.

2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour Garden #6

I haven't posted for several days. My old monitor has been getting slowly darker and darker until it had reached a point where I could hardly read anything and trying to adjust the brightness and color on Photoshop had become impossible. It was one of those incremental things like gaining weight where you suddenly think to yourself "I think I've gained weight" only to weigh yourself and discover that you've gained 20 pounds little by little over months without realizing it. Anyway, it lasted a long time, that Gateway 2000 monitor that came with my first computer in 1994. In fact, I liked it so much that when I purchased a new computer several years ago, I kept the old monitor because I really loved the screen. So remembering that I had seen one just like it at the Bible School Thrift Shop down the street some time ago, I paid them a visit and ta-da I have my same monitor. It's not as pristine on the outside as my old one but it has the same great screen and best of all: $10. Obviously I'm not one of those people that needs the latest gadgets.

So now on to the last garden of the 2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour. The floppy disc gave up the first few pictures but then started making weird noises, so I only have a few pictures:


The front yard was nice and shady with a perfectly placed vintage iron garden bench...

which the painter had also found interesting.

The backyard of this downtown Mount Dora house was a tropical jungle

with a huge fish pond

and lots of fish.

2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour Garden #5

The fifth garden on the 2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour was very different from a lot of Florida gardens as it included an extensive vegetable garden. Having an herb farm, I run across a number of vegetable gardeners, but overall, vegetable gardening is not nearly as popular in Florida as it is in many other parts of the country.




Two views of the organic vegetable and herb garden.


An intriguing greenhouse which the program said was made from recycled materials.


Another sky vine. These vines work best on an overhang where the flowers can gracefully drop down.


An arbor filled with bottle gourds.


A cute birdbath with a smiling snail. Must have just eaten a big helping of vegetables.


This was my favorite element in this garden: pots of herbs on vintage classical pedestals edging the deck.

2005 Mount Dora Garden Tour Garden #3

I said earlier that garden #2 was my favorite, but I think maybe THIS is my favorite. I love the energy and creativeness of #2, but I think this garden (and cottage house) is the one I would love to live in day to day.


The perfect cottage entrance.


We were greeted by Betty Boop…


and a basket of flowers. I love the skyvine, seen frequently around Mount Dora.


Mosaic stepping stones…


with an herbal theme!


The writing was on the wall along with ivy and a window box.


We got to see not just the garden, but the house, too. Here's a wonderful blue and white porch. Such soft colors and the sunlight coming through the windows - sublime. Wouldn’t you just love to curl up here with a book?


Another artist had been painting across the street.