This past Saturday, Geoff and I were fortunate enough to attend the first ever Garden Bloggers Spring Fling, which took place in Austin. I had an incredibly fun time meeting other bloggers and touring gardens. Unfortunately, I neglected to make sure my camera battery was charged, so I was unable to take any pictures. On the other hand, I was free to simply enjoy the gardens.
We started off the day with a tour of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I don’t think I can eloquently put into words what a great place this is. Perhaps repeating their mission statement will give you an idea of why I feel strongly about the center: “The mission of the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center is to increase the sustainable use and conservation of native wildflowers, plants and landscapes. It was just beautiful. Please visit if you have the chance.

After lunch, we stopped by The Natural Gardener, an Austin garden center and nursery that promotes organic gardening practices. I have visited The Natural Gardener on a few occasions, but I never fully realized how big the grounds actually are. Unlike the display gardens of the majority of garden centers I’ve visited, The Natural Gardener grows food! They also have chickens, goats, and miniature donkeys.

Later that afternoon, we visited the private garden of James David and Gary Peese. Again, absolutely lovely. Here’s a picture of me and Geoff, as well as Karen from Savannah Garden Diary courtesy of Julie from Human Flower Project.

Over on the right hand side of the page, I added links to many of the bloggers who attended . Many of them have posted pictures from the event, and they are far better pictures than I would have taken, anyway. You can also find several links and pictures here

Annie in Austin's Gravatar
Hi Anneliese,
You and Geoff were so much fun to meet and talk to at the Spring Fling – it was one lovely day, wasn’t it! My camera went wonky on me, too – guess we’ll both have to enjoy the photos of the other garden bloggers.

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

# Posted By Annie in Austin | 4/8/08 6:46 AM
Anneliese's Gravatar
Annie,
It was great to meet you, too. It was an absolutely beautiful day! Even when the sun got a little warm, all of the gardens had plenty of shady spots to keep cool.
# Posted By Anneliese | 4/8/08 11:04 AM
Mr. McGregor's Daughter's Gravatar
Anneliese – It was great to meet & talk with you & Geoff. Don’t feel bad about your camera – mine was working fine, yet I forgot to take photos of things I wanted. It sounds like you had fun anyway.
# Posted By Mr. McGregor’s Daughter | 4/8/08 2:54 PM
Anneliese's Gravatar
Mr. McGregor’s Daughter,
It looks like you got some pretty decent pictures! I really enjoyed meeting you, too, and I hope you had a great time in Austin. I also liked your post on Skunk Cabbage. 🙂
# Posted By Anneliese | 4/8/08 3:59 PM
Pam/Digging's Gravatar
It was so nice to meet you both, Anneliese. Thank you so much for joining the Fling—and for presenting me with my very own CobraHead tool. My kids are really interested in it (don’t worry, the plastic coating is still on the business end), and I look forward to trying it out.
# Posted By Pam/Digging | 4/8/08 11:47 PM
Anneliese's Gravatar
Pam,
Thank you so much for all of the work you did. The event came together really well, and we were all truly impressed. Your house and gardens were fantastic (so were the Mexican Martinis!).

I hope you get lots of use out of your CobraHead!

# Posted By Anneliese | 4/9/08 1:12 AM
Dawn's Gravatar
Anneliese,

It was a pleasure to meet both of you & Geoff on Saturday.
I’m glad we had a chance to talk. You are a lot of fun!
Getting a Cobrahead Tool is on my list of ‘Things to Do’. 🙂
Thanks for the link. Your site is on my blog as well.

Cheers!
Dawn

# Posted By Dawn | 4/9/08 9:12 PM
Anneliese's Gravatar
Thanks Dawn! It was a real pleasure to meet you, too.

Geoff is frequently attending gardening events in Austin. Keep an eye out for him!

# Posted By Anneliese | 4/9/08 9:26 PM
Linda MacPhee-Cobb's Gravatar
Hello,

It was great to meet you and chat over dinner.

# Posted By Linda MacPhee-Cobb | 4/12/08 12:32 PM
Dee/reddirtramblings's Gravatar
Hi Annaliese,

I just wanted you know I featured the short Cobrahead in a blog post.

I wrote about my battle with the horrid Bermuda Grass: http://reddirtramblings.com/?p=312 BTW, I can’t get your comments section to take my url. Says it isn’t valid.~~Dee

# Posted By Dee/reddirtramblings | 4/29/08 1:25 PM
Anneliese's Gravatar
Linda, very nice to meet you, too. I liked hearing about your experience of moving from New England to Houston. What a gardening change!

Dee, thanks for sending the link and for featuring your experience with your CobraHead! As for your URL not working, I honestly don’t know what to tell you. I don’t know why our comment field would not accept it! I’ll keep an eye out for anything like that in the future, and see if we can figure it out.

# Posted By Anneliese | 4/29/08 2:06 PM

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