This year was exceptional in many ways. In February, I got to be a guest judge at the Seattle (Northwest) Flower and Garden Show. The next day, Brent joined me on a trip to Middleburg, Virginia. Here I was a guest speaker , with my great Irish garden friend Helen Dillon, at a snazzy plant symposium. Middleburg is a charming, unspoilt stone village of tasteful saddlery shops and The American Dream come to life. Horses are the raison d’etre here, but gardening comes second. Some homes have their own private air strips.
Fabulous weather at home meant great plant growth and lots of bloom. My iris collection continues to blow my mind with colours I never dreamed existed. I feel an addiction in my already addicted veins bubbling wildy !
Our farm , now in year five, is starting to look  more established. We hosted a few huge garden tours this  past summer. The Hardy Plant Group(s) from Oregon,Washington and B.C. were very enthusiastic and excited to see our new garden.Dozens of cars parked on our front pasture (in the rain), and it looked like Woodstock! Many  of this group had been to our old garden/Spanish home in Vancouver over the years, and they loved roaming the 20 acre new project.  Next came the Perennial Plant Symposium and hundreds more plant crazy visitors. I spoke twice at this conference and chummed around with lots of old friends from all over North America. Then, the Pacific Daylily Convention dropped by. These people made the other groups look comatose !! They loved my daylily seedlings and I gave away some exciting seedlings to other daylily growers.
The nursery was crazy busy and fun as always. We heard all about people’s impatiens mysteriously dying, and could only sympathize as this is happening globally.We completely restored our 110 year old commercial greenhouse – something I thought would never happen. But, our local B.C. Greenhouse Builders did a fabulous job of using and matching the original parts to create a safe and more energy efficient structure. My history with B.C. Greenhouse Builders goes way back. They have known me since I was 15 years old. I somehow persuaded my mother to get me a ‘real greenhouse’ back in 1969. She could not afford it whatsoever, but Henry, the owner of the company (who I still know!) allowed her to make monthly payments. I think it was about 75.00 a month, for one year.Since then, I have had 16 greenhouses from them ! I own the record of having had the most greenhouses from them, period. Now the company is run by his charming sons . In the autumn, Brent and I went to England for a gardeny visit with friends.  It was fabulous, and a big relief for me to actually fly on a plane again. I became full of dread, not of crashing, but of screaming babies and loud,coughing,blabbering co-passengers. It turned out to be  an unfounded fear and we had a great trip there and back. Those beds make flying a lot nicer !
I think it has taken me five years to get over my reaction to the copper theft,squatters,white trash,midnight phone calls from the RCMP,trying to have a French Bulldog puppy,moving from our lovely Spanish home, and finding that a dream was waiting to come true after all !
Thank You, Welbutrin .

Thank You, Cipralex.

Thank You, Brent !