Pumpkin Glow

Kingwood is decked out for the Pumpkin Glow.  A great idea started by John Makley a few years back and now designed each proceeding year in more of a fashion as a money maker endeavor.  Buckeye Garden Club decorated the front gate for a couple years, but this year they switched out decorating the front gate with the Kingwood Hall Doors.  So Late Bloomers, who in past years did Kingwood Hall doors decorated the front gate as well as the corner of Trimble and Park Ave.  What a great job.  

 

 

Kingwood 5K

WE DID IT!

Yes, it took me three years, but I finally entered the Kingwood 5K!  Here Kathy and I are coming to the FINISH LINE!  Picture compliments of our best bud Lynn who turned up along the course in various places to give us encouragement.  Yes she took better ones, but this is the one where I look thin!  Perfectly beautiful day.

Showed up early because I didn't turn in my registration form and needed to guarantee that tee shirt.

Here is a picture of the THIRD ANNUAL TEE SHIRT

The tee shirt features Kingwood's Indian Runner ducks.

Kathy's goal was to finish within two hours.  We finished in 51 minutes.  Yea us!  Here is a fantastic video by Missi which documents the entire morning!  THANKS MISSI.

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/aynBgGgxUW0?rel=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

http://youtu.be/aynBgGgxUW0

Next year....COSTUME!

Townsend House Tour

Here is the picture tour......  words to follow at a later date!

THIRD ANNUAL Kingwood 5K

Tee Shirts from 1st & 2nd 5K

This year's Third Annual 5K is scheduled for June 9th.  Well, I have paid fees for two tee shirts and still have not walked or ran in the Kingwood 5K.  2012 is the year!  My good friend Kathy M and I will be at least starting out together.   She has already signed up, so I'd better get my registration form in.  I'm not even sure how far 5K is.  I missed the Capitol 10,000 (I know how far 10K is) (6.2 miles) this year by one week so I'm really looking forward to the Kingwood Race.  I know I said this year I would dress up, but I think I will save that endevor for 2013!  I do have four more weeks to come up with appropriate attire, maybe I can get creative by then.  The 2011 tee shirt was moderned after a tatoo that someone has on his back.  Note:  I don't plan on getting that creative!

Spring Flower Festival

This years Spring Flower Festival was a lot of fun. I wish I would have taken more pictures. For sure one of Bill Collins in his animal bandana! I started off in the Trimble Road parking lot with Jane J.  We had a great time welcoming people to Kingwood and chatting.    I did a two hour shift there and then got a call from Kathy M to go over and meet her at the Linden Road gate.  She was hanging out there by herself so I hung out with her for a while maning the gate.  When her time was up there, Kathy grabbed a snack from Cafe on Main and we sat down in front of the greenhouse for a spell.  So many familiar faces.  It may have taken a few years, but I have really met quite a few people around Kingwood.  Kathy had to run off to another volunteer obligation, so I went on over to where Lisa Duckworth's daughter Becca was showing her goats.  This is my new friend Toby and he made his premere at the festival this year.  We had met the week before and became fast friends.  The kids loved him as well.  After that, I moved to the plant sales area where I finished up my day of volunteering helping out Becky and Juli.  I was worn out with all the hellos and it was a long day, but I enjoyed it so much more that last year.  I do hope Kingwood will continue it next year in some form or another.

Spring Flower Festival 2011

My first Kingwood Spring Flower Festival and I took home two ribbons.  Day of the show turns out all I had to enter was a hosta leaf and a Mountain Bluet.  But that was enough as both took home a ribbon.  Second place hosta leaf and Honorable Mention Mountain Bluet.

I had high hopes for a herb basket design and also to bring in an iris.  But my chives, for the basket design and my iris were on their last hurrah just the day before.  By show day, they were not show worthy.  The hosta plant was given to me last year by my good friend Kathy M.  The Mountain Bluet came from a plant I got last year, which was an extra from the herb garden.  The show was great fun, hanging out with Elin D and Lynn H.  Next blog I will show some of the other exhibits -

Kingwood Bunny Party / Kingwood Spring Flower Festival

Well today was the Kingwood Spring Flower Festival.  The Kingwood Herb Society was in charge of the Kingwood Bunny Party.  David Wood wrote a book about the year in a life of a Kingwood Bunny and that is how it started.  For more info on his book see my March 4th blog.  His wife Pat L wrote a book on Lasagna Gardening.  She was giving a lecture on Lasagna Gardening and he did a bunny party with his book.  It was a long day with a lot of preparation.  Had to come up with buckeyes, acorns, milkweed pods that included the seed.  It was a tall order for this time of year and one weeks notice.  Bonnie H came up with a brilliant idea to give out peacock feathers.  Day before, we iced many cookies and I baked 48 cupcakes, which turns out to be four dozen.  It has been a long time since I did math!  Others baked some as well.  We also iced the cupcakes.   At the party I handed out goodies and wore a bunny mask.  I took some cute pictures on this project.  For more pictures go to the Kingwood Herb Society on Facebook..  So let's look at a few of them!



Welcome to the Bunny Party





Those Bunnies are Nancy P and Kay Hostetler



Cute kids getting their picture by Lucy.



David Wood handing out milkweed seeds.  Don't let too many get away!



And finally - the kids favorite part.  Everyone gets a peacock feather from Bonnie H!



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





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!

This countdown is being interrupted for news ------------ of the Kingwood Center 5K…..

Since you have your calendar out anyway to mark off ONLY THREE DAYS TO GO…
… Mark the date of June 11^th.              - Kingwood Center 5K -    Second Annual



Tee Shirt from the First Annual Kingwood 5K

I was unable to participate in the first annual 5K last year as the Kingwood Herb Society was hosting a speaker event …at Kingwood Center...at the same time of the race.  Debra Knapke, who writes books on Ohio gardening and is also referred to as The Garden Sage, gave a wonderfull lecture.  A link to her web site: Click to go to web site of Debra Knapke

As I watched last years, participants getting ready for the race, the excitement of my joining them for this year race started.  In Texas we have the CAPITOL 10,000.  It is an AWESOME 10K and some wear costumes.  Thinking the concept should be introduced to the Kingwood 5K.  Of course I would probably be the only costumed participant.  Should I be a worm or a flower?   Having made some sketches it seems both have easy designs, I’m glad I’ll have a few more months to think it over.

Kingwood Center is Closed for the Season

For 2010, we were able to take part in Kingwood Christmas Festivities, which was more that last year as Kingwood Hall was dark for the Christmas Season.  But again this year the gates will be closed for January and February  I fear this will be a new tradition.  I volunteered to help pack up the decorations, which keeps me around there for one more week. Will be working with the Buckeye Garden Club on Tuesday straightening up the Reading Room. Wednesday, Thursday and Friday it will just be whatever needs to get done.  I signed up the extra day on Friday just to work with Kathy M.  We have so much fun.

Onward to 2011 and let us see what that brings. 

Christmas Traditions - Jim Smith on Piano in Drawing Room

Time is counting down and there is only one more day of the Christmas Traditions theme at Kingwood Center.    Last night was a lot of fun volunteering in the house.  Kathy M and Mary Lou M (my neighbor cross the street) were both there with me.  Same crew as day after Christmas.  Unfortunately is was slow from 5:30 to 6:00, but that gave the three of us time for a fun visit.  Once visitors come, we place ourselves one upstairs (me), one in the assembly room (Mary Lou) and Kathy was the greeter - money/ticket taker.   Sometimes the hostesses switch shifts on the hour, but this system worked for us last time, so we stuck with it.  

Well, while I had abandoned my post upstairs, it turns out the Grinch came and took just one light from the Christmas tree in the Drawing Room.  Of course that made the whole strand go out.  John Makley put Doug McCraken to work on it as the guest entertainer  Jim Smith was fixin to play the piano for our musical enjoyment right there in the drawing room.  This room gave me my second scare of the season, just like at the Christmas party.  As I was talking to Jim, I saw movement at behind the tree and almost screamed as at first I overlooked Doug  as a manikin.  First Jim and I played the game what is wrong with this tree.  Jim got it first, I had to be told.  Then I blinded Doug M with my picture flash.  After that, Doug M went back to work.  Tree issue was resolved,  visitors started to arrive, and Jim started to play. 


The music was lovely and Jim took requests from the visitors.  Everyone commented on how much they enjoyed his playing.  I was lucky to have been scheduled to volunteer during his performance as it was rescheduled from December 12, cancelled due to ice.  Here is a link to his web site.  I looked it up this morning and copied this part as I found it interesting.


  Jim Smith

Jim recently released an album, under the pen name of Brandon St. James (www.brandonstjames.com) which features 12 of his original compositions. The recording, “Only Dreamers Understand” covers such a wide variety of musical styles (pop, folk, ballads, jazz) that it’s hard to narrow down into a description of just one musical style. A multi-instrumentalist and experienced session musician, Jim plays all of the instruments on the recording (except for drums on 4 of the selections), and covers all of the vocal parts – including the backing harmonies.

Winter Wonderland Tour - Interest in the Winter Garden

A tour of the grounds, showcasing areas and plants with a winter interest.  Resceduled from earlier in the month due to too much snow along with ice.  Just Kathy M and I showed up for the walk.  Considering both of us are already familiar with roaming the gardens, John Makley was a good sport to take us out tromping through the snow anyway.  Bonnie H would have probably been on the tour as well, but she was hostessing in the house at that time, scheduled to do that before the tour was rescheduled.  The walk took us through the woodland garden, perennial garden and up through the terrace garden.  The terrace garden, close to the fountain, is where I took this paperbark picture.

Kathy M was interested in the winter color of dogwood. 

I found an appreciation for winter willow.  I may not have an opinion on willow in summer, but the reddishness of the branches make it stunning in winter.  Kingwood has nice clusters of willow.  Is it called a cluster?  Maybe grouping?  Anyway this is an eye catching patch of willow.  It is cut down to the ground every year and regrows to this height

Among other things, we noticed oak trees keep some of their leaves, although brown and dead on their branches.  Blue Spruce can easily be overlooked in summer, but stands out in a winter scape. Grasses can be left standing to give visual interest.  Also learned why the rhododendron curls its leaves in winter.  It is to conserve water by reducing the leave surface exposed for evaporation.  Huh.

At the end of the tour, John let me view a book by Rosemary Verey titled The Garden in Winter for some additional reading.  It also has gorgeous pictures. 

Snow

I love that sticky wet snow that clings to the trees (and in the right temperatures makes a good snowman).  It has its drawbacks though.  As in if you have to shovel it or drive in it.  Unfortunately a sticky snow fall occurred on the day scheduled for the Interest in the Winter Garden Tour and it had to be rescheduled to the 26th. I did get out to the gardens soon afterward to get a winter photo in the perennial garden.

I am aware of the damages freezing ice can have on tree branches, but I guess I didn't realized that the snow can be damaging as well, until I noticed the guys were diligently removing the heavy snow from the hedges.  My arms were aching just watching them push the snow with brooms.  As I fed the ducks, it seemed they made quick work of it and moved on to another project. 

Kingwood Happenings - Christmas Workshops and Events

Kingwood Center 's web site has been updated with all the December happenings.  Bonnie H. has done a fabulous job providing an informative page (detailed with pictures!)  I have signed up for the wreath making workshop on December 1st and plan on attending the caroling on December 9th well as other events like Interest in the Winter Garden on December 12th.  More Kingwood happenings can be found on the web site under Education then Programs.  Visit by clicking on the link above or go to http://www.kingwoodcenter.org/