Light and bright: the world famous White Garden at Sissinghurst Castle, Kent
Credit: Jonathan Buckley
It all started, for me, as a passion for growing plants successfully. Then came learning how to manage their height and bulk, so that they didn’t all fall over and swamp each other. Next came the need to learn to plant for every season and a love of evergreens.
Last but by no means least came an appreciation of flower and leaf colour and texture, along with other important fancy visual stuff, a process that is ongoing, of course.
A significant light-bulb moment on this gardening adventure came for me, not from studying the famous colour wheel, but after a visit years ago to the (then) well-known flower border of the colourists Nori and Sandra Pope in the walled vegetable garden at Hadspen House, Somerset.
Effort launched to boost home ownership in Wisconsin
June 9, 2021 GMT
MADISON, Wis. (AP) A new statewide network to help Wisconsin residents buy, fix and remain in their homes was announced Wednesday, an outgrowth of a yearlong task force that studied impediments to home ownership.
The new effort, dubbed Take Root Wisconsin, will bring together existing nonprofit leaders, housing and lending experts, state officials, local treasurers and others across the state that already work to help low and moderate income residents with housing issues.
Take Root Wisconsin’s work will be paid for initially with funding from the founding members. It will take a regionalized approach to address housing issues, according to a homeownership task force report also released Wednesday.
I celebrated a successful day with boardwalk ice cream. I stumbled upon a place called Sweet Charlie's, they are a nationwide chain and they recently opened a new location on the Seaside Height's Boardwalk. To be honest, I never heard of the place but once I saw Hand Rolled Ice Cream on the front sign, I had to give it a try.
This week, the Snake River Canyon around Centennial Park and the Mogensen Trail has been a common topic for my stories. My wife even took note and decided she wanted to take the kids on a hike down the Mogensen Trail. We ve lived here a long time and never stepped foot on the trail. Apparently it looks a lot better from a distance. She said it was covered with poison ivy and stinging nettle. She also came across what she thought was a rattlesnake. While all those things are possible to see in the canyon, I m not sure I trust my wife to be able to identify them all. Honestly, I don t trust myself to identify all the Idaho hazards correctly. I definitely know this was a Danger Noodle or a Nope Rope though.