News & Events
Thank you all SO much for your support for our yearly garden tour honoring our late founder Mary Lou Heard. Even though we had to change the date, and in doing so lost several garden hosts, we saw so many…
It has surely been a wild rollercoaster that we've all unwillingly been traveling on since the "shut-down" began last year in March. We watched in horror as hospitals were overflowing with COVID-19 patients, many of them our loved ones, friends, and…
Admission Booth w/ a living roof! My husband and I always seek out botanical gardens to visit whenever we travel... here's the latest one that I'd like to share with you from the Lone Star State of Texas! We've been…
Growing up in the 1960's PEEPS were a part of of my family's Easter Celebration. Most kids received them in their Easter Basket, but my mom used them for a table decoration. She usually started decorating our dining room table…
Like a Dickens novel - “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” 2020 seemed to start out like any other new year. I do recall it was more fashionable to have a motivational word for…
The reason I found Heard's Gardens oh so many years ago is due to two years of unsuccessfully trying to grow sweet peas. I had friends who grew mass quantities of these butterfly winged beauties and I was quite often the…
Most 19th-century Americans found Christmas trees an oddity. The first record of one being on display was in the 1830s by the German settlers of Pennsylvania, although trees had been a tradition in many German homes much earlier. The Pennsylvania German…
As you know from a past newsletter, I have been walking in my neighborhood during my lunch break to try to keep the COVID-19 "15" from appearing on my hips, tummy, & derriere - you get the picture! Well I've…
Tucker the Tomato Eating Dog! Tucker, a black and tan smooth-coated " miniature" dachshund was my son Shaun's gift from his grandparents for Christmas 1998. Little did we know that Tucker would forever change the way we grew tomatoes. It all started when a…
To say I live for the Mary Lou Heard Memorial Garden Tour could quite possibly be an understatement. The motto “real gardens by real people” is a mantra for me. Throw in Mary Lou’s inspirational personal story, raising money for…
One woman’s vision forever transformed our notion of a garden. So begins the story of Jennie Butchart, who used horse and cart to transfer topsoil to the famous sunken garden at The Butchart Gardens in Vancouver Island, Canada. With 55…
History of the PoinsettiaEuphorbia pulcherrima is a shrub or small tree, typically reaching a height of 2–13 ft. The plant bears dark green dentate leaves that measure 2.8–6.3 inches in length. The colored bracts—which are most often flaming red but can be orange, pale green,…
