Spring Spring Spring

64 degrees for two days in a row here in Mansfield, Ohio and everyone is taking advantage.  Flowers, Bees, Snakes  Spend quite a few house at Kingwood Center over the last two days.  Here are few highlights.






 

First bee of the season is worn out from the excitement.  Just look at that pollen mess.  Looking around in the back pond, yes, I see you Mr. Snake.  How's the water?

Kingwood Demonstrations at the Home and Garden Show

Kingwood Center presented demonstrations at the Home and Garden Show this weekend.  Two demonstrations were offered.  Starting Seeds and Succulent Container Gardening.  Bill Collins presented on Saturday and John Makley on Sunday.  Fun and informative as I learned something new at each demo. 



Bill Collins



John Makley

Here they are demonstrating how to transplant seedlings..

.. and below they are creating their masterpieces.

John Makley encouraging the audience to pick out plants used in the arrangement. New term learned at this demonstration was Thriller - Filler - Spiller.  Audience could choose from an array of succulents shown on the table to represent these three descriptions.  

tall are thillers



the rest are fillers



hanging are spillers



Completed container garden





Could it be the last snow?

Today was a beautiful day to be at Kingwood.  Snow covered trees bring a special quiet magic. Also a busy day. Don Miller is back from a two month lay off.  Kathy M and I visited with him on the peony project that we had been working on over the winter.  After that we headed up to the house to work on the attic library project.  Had to stop many times along the way to take just a few pictures of snow covered Kingwood.  Kathy M took this picture of me taking pictures and now it is my favorite picture of me.  We saw Kay Hostetler on the way in to the house.  She was on her way out to take pictures.  Glenna Sheaffer is also back from lay off and we popped our heads in her office on the way up the stairs to the attic. She lent me a book on animal tracts.  I plan to use it in the snow!

Charles Applegate is also back from leave. He showed us the newly created dried flower arrangements.  Christmas removed, the rooms looked strangely barren so the arrangements gave the rooms a pick-me-up.  Charles recycled an  arrangement by removing peacock feathers, replacing with dried flowers.

Glenna Sheaffer created this beautiful arrangement.  I love the sweeping look.  Most of the other new arrangements were created to be place under a dome glass.  Which although beautiful, difficult to get a good picture.  Well, as I said it was a busy day.  So happy to see the staff back at work and to have been able to see just one more snow covered Kingwood before the busy spring begins. 

Hint of Spring

Today I had just about an hour for a relaxing walk around Kingwood Center.  There are two patches of Winter Aconites starting to bloom.  One in the Perennial Garden near the parking lot and one on the back path of the duck pond.  The tulips and daffodils are still just nubs making this just a hint of Spring.

A Year in the Life of The Kingwood Bunnies

At the Kingwood Herb Society meeting last night we found out about our part in the Kingwood Spring Flower Festival, which takes place on April 30th this year.  David Wood wrote a book on the Kingwood Bunnies inspired after finding a family of rabbits in a nest during a spring tour of the garden years ago with his granddaughter. Books can be found on Amazon.com or most Mansfield bookstores.  $1 from every sale goes to Kingwood Center.  This year he will be reading his book in the Gazebo area during the Spring Flower Festival.  We will be winding the kids through the Herb garden to the Gazebo and providing them with veggie shaped cookies for the story time.  Sounds like it will be great fun!

Kingwood Garden Club Meeting

Kingwood Center open one day and it was time for the first Garden Club Meeting of 2011.  Kingwood hosts a meeting, once a month, inviting area Garden Club representatives to keep them current on Kingwood activities and also provide an informative program.  I went today representing the Johnny Appleseed Garden Club.  John Makley gave a wonderful program on Mr. Charles Kelley King.  Today I will share with you how Mr. King made some of his fortune at Ohio Brass.  With a patent for developing a part in the trolley pole.  Trolley poles shown on the top of the trolley below.



Trackless Trolly from an Ohio Brass Advertisment

Link to more trolly images

Kingwood Center - Gates Open Today

March 1st.  My guy and I headed over to Kingwood for a walk.  I took the picture to the left and put it on the Kingwood Center facebook page. 

The ducks and peacocks were happy to see that we remembered to bring a few quarters for corn.