What a Sad Little Face

This pitiful little face was one of the last things we saw before Mr. G and I left for a long weekend in Asheville...

Gillie a.k.a. Gillie Monster a.k.a Sugar Booger a.k.a The Booger obviously knew something was afoot...I don't really know how because we don't do a lot of travelin' together...actually, none since the Boog has been with us...and that little sad face is pretty much the reason why...

But, once we were on the open road, the mood lightened as we headed off to scope out Asheville as a possible re-location spot...

We only sang The Booger Song once every couple of hours...and then we'd sing the Baby The Woo song...Baby The Woo's real name is Suki...but bowing to the required law that affectionate nicknames shall be strange, we wound up with Baby The Woo...that's Woo in the background...Mikey the Black Shadow is peeking into the shot...


As much as I fancy myself a seasoned traveler, perusing the travel pages with great interest, basically, I'm a Nester Extraordinaire...I can be away for about 2, maybe 3 days, and then I'm really to Be Home...not on the way home...At Home...and every time I'm sitting through some endless drive or flight home, I make the same solemn vow to never stray from my own backyard yard again...because there's no place like home...

What gives me solace when I am away from home (havin' forgotten that vow many times over) is finding a garden where I can sit a while, maybe pull a few weeds...knowing this about myself, our B & B was specifically chosen because of its gardens...a Garden with a friendly Orange Cat is the apex of the Away From Home Comfort Zone...alas...no orange cat in the garden...but our last night there, as we sat on the front porch having our evenin' cup of coffee (makes me sleep like a baby...I'm afraid to even think what that says about my metabolism), a chatty Orange Kitty Girl wandered by the front porch, just to say "How ya'll doin?"...it was, possibly, the pinnacle of our trip...

Many a cat has crossed my path while I'm away from home and they are always a blessing to my soul...

The knot garden below sits beside the inn's carriage house, on a slope, and was formed with a great deal of thought and care...this garden reminded me of the importance of structure within a garden, even if the structure takes backseat to the flowers and decorative devices...and thus reminded, this fall and next spring will be spent adding much needed "bones" to my garden...




Asheville's gardens awe me as much as San Francisco's...I guess having cool temps in the summer (although not when we were there) even if only in the evenings and in the morning (and then how hot is it really going to get? Hot is 95-plus temps for weeks running and night time temps that don't go below 80....it is already "warm" when you get up in the a.m.) encourage the gardens to just throw caution to the wind and bloom and grow and bloom...every where I saw overblown flower beds filled with huge perennials...very few annuals...just made me sick to think of my for-all-practical-purposes empty flower beds limping along through a Georgia July with August about to come on...

I found another garden of sorts to enjoy~the North Carolina Arboretum...a great place...miles of trail, but since I was sportin' my strappy little Aigner sandals, that wasn't happening...plus, apparently our coastal Georgia heat followed us to North Carolina...it was blazing hot in the middle of the days we were in Asheville...

But, I'm getting ahead of myself...before we went to the NCA, we dropped in at the Western North Carolina Farmer's Market...it was a bustling place! I'm used to the farmer's market in Savannah (just not all that much goin' on) so I was happily overwhelmed by the many vendors and their beautiful piles of vegetables and fruit...and especially pleased to see all the plants for the garden! I directed Mr. G into the parking lot of Jesse Israel's shop, hopped out of the car only seconds after it rolled to a stop and start drooling over the great plants...I still regret not buying that white-tipped canadian hemlock...I just wasn't sure it would take the heat & humidity down here...and it wasn't cheap...

Several plants did manage to snag a spot in the mega mega mini-van before it headed off to the arboretum...a pot of yellow crocosmia (I have the orange & love it), an agastache (easy to find, but I haven't put one in here), a dwarf cavendish (for Mr. G who has a strange fascination with banana trees), a pot of hens and chicks (I've developed an equally strange fascination with succulents & simply cannot resist grabbing a pot of Hs & Cs whenever I come across one), and a caryopteris "Snow Fairy"...I'm pretty ticked with myself because I meant to ask Mr. G to swing back by there so I could grab some more yellow crocosmias and some Caesar's Brother irises...and some "Lavender Mist" meadow rue...dang...

Just across the way, we wandered through the building, looking at all the wonderful things, and I found a little lady with a wonderful German accent selling 3" pots of herbs and dried flowers from her garden...I bought a huge bouquet of dried sea holly and 3 pots of santolina...

We thought about dropping by on our way out of Asheville and picking up some of that lovely produce, but I was so worn out that I couldn't face dealing with a mountain of whatever once we made it home...

I did manage to uncover one more plant source before we left the mountains...there is a nice nursery in the little town of Horseshoe Bend, on the way to the Pisgah National Park...I ended up with 2 red cordylus and 2 "Red Buttons" fountain grasses...oh...and I picked up a delightful geranium with thick cream-edges leaves...I can't recall where that one came from...perhaps Jesse's? oh well...like I need something else to stick in a pot and tend to...

ah, if only plants and orange cats were not joined on the List of Consoling Delights by hot chocolates, glossy magazines, stacks of intriguing books, and lots of starchy cheesy foodstuffs....I'd be a thinner and more financially sound woman ...but perhaps not a richer woman...