Last night I had the good fortune of sitting down at my office after a week long absence and found my computer with its firewall down, downloading all sorts of updates and acting strange. Needless to say, my hard drive crashed! All of my beautiful pictures! It is undergoing surgery in Tyler right now to fix the problem and hopefully recover all of my lost info.



However, I still have all of my pictures from the last trip and will try to write about them in sequence as the days go by. I had a wonderful visit at The Arborgate Nursery in Tomball. Beverly and Pheobe were so kind to show me around as we discussed all of the fun and amazing possibilities in Horticulture. They had a wonderful display of a burgundy form of Crinum 'Queen Emma.' This beauty was at least 5 feet tall and I wonder how much more it had to go! If you are trying to make a statement or want a centerpiece for your garden (Gulf Coast regions) then you might give it a try.



Also blooming were some of our favorite summer bloomers the Tiger Lily (Lilium tigrinum/lancifolium) and Gladiolus natalensis. It is amazing to note how the environment can change bloom times. Our parrot glads finished such a long time ago and so had many of theirs, but these were tucked away in an area next to a structure and in a cooler patio area. Mother Nature always has fun with those sort of things!



One of the most special areas of the nursery was the herb garden, dedicated to Madalene Hill. Madalene Hill had such (and still has!) an influence in the world of herbs and I would do it injustice to ruin her great legacy by trying to write about it on my short blog. I had the pleasure of meeting her last year at Festival Hill at Roundtop while speaking at the Oktober Gartenfest and had a wonderful visit. The inscription reads "This garden honors Madalene Hill...herbal mentor & educator...dedicated February 6, 2005."



The Arborgate was beautiful, so if you live near Northwest Houston, stop on by sometime. They will be carrying our bulbs this fall and I will be speaking there on Tuesday October 10th, at 10AM so come on by! You might even get the normally quiet mariachi band to play you a tune...