Chautauqua County Day Trip Planned

I'll have the details up on the site this week (it is hoped).

5th Annual Odyssey to Ithaca Big Success

Kim Burkhart covered it very nicely over on the RCGC blog, so check out her post. My only complaint: It was wicked, wicked hot. Like, so hot I didn't even feel the motivation to shop much. Not so good for a shopping trip. Not so bad for the budget, though.

Happy Birthday: Buffalo's Urban Roots Turns One

Over on Garden Rant yesterday, Elizabeth Licata wrote a nice post about this milestone.

And this?

An Eryngium of some sort, but tiny, and with wonderful cut leaves that almost make it look soft. Megan and I both fell for this one. Here's a close up, and one with Megan in it for scale.

What's this?

Megan Meyer and I saw this in the rock garden at Cornell Plantations Saturday. We were there on the annual Odyssey to Ithaca - always a swell time! Pardon the horrible picture. It was really hot and I wasn't functioning properly. I say it's a violet. Anyone?

mystery tree

I don't know what this tree is. Do you? It's in Chautauqua County, pretty near the lake (Erie), so I'd say zone 6a. The leaves are alternate and it gets pink seed pods in the fall.

Update: OK, so I should have ran these by The Dragon before posting, because as per usual, he has a pretty good guess: Euonymus europea, the spindle tree. See image, below, that I took at Klyn Nurseries in '04 (now that was a trip).

By the way the tree in question lives at Lana's The Little House, Forestville. Have a cup of tea and check it out. We'll be profiling the Little House's garden in the next (July-August) UGJ.

We need help!...and now, we've got it!

I couldn't be more excited to welcome Debbie Eckerson to the UGJ fold.
(That's Debbie, on the left, with former RCGC ED Susan Latoski on one
of our Odyssey to Ithaca tours.) I've seriously been in need of office
help for a while now, but the timing just hasn't been right. Or maybe,
just a little, I was waiting for Deb. Anyway, when I heard she was
resigning her position at the Rochester Civic Garden Center you can be
sure I wasted no time trying - successfully! - to lure her over to the
dark side. I mean, the UGJ. I've known Debbie for fifteen years and
worked fairly closely with her for most of them, in one way or
another, and I'm totally confident she's going to be a HUGE help! Deb
will be taking care of subscriptions and is also our new calendar
editor. Yay!

High Noon

Here is a blossom from the tree peony High Noon, which was a gift from Ruah Donnelly a few years ago when she was our house guest while researching her book The Adventurous Gardener (see sidebar). She bought it at Phoenix Flower Farm. It's totally, terrifically gorgeous.