Changing of The Guard

The 62nd Annual Garden Writer’s Symposium in Dallas, Texas has come and gone. We came, we saw, we truly rocked the place!

I’m still beat and I’ve been home for 5 days now.

The New Products exhibit was the happening place to be, as always. Our booth was a major hit, and I do believe we just might have been the talk of the show. Our sweet, Garden Candy theme tied it all together and brought people in. We were so busy I only got to walk around as the show was closing, so I missed what most of the other vendors were doing.

Once again, Novalis outdid themselves. Linda Guy and Jim Martin sure know how to attract people to their booth. Their give-away plant (With garden writers, it’s all about the give-aways so they can test them in their garden and then hopefully write about them for the World to see!) was a new Hydrangea paniculata called Hydrangea paniculata ‘Bokratorch’ Mystical® Flame.

Flame was their theme and flaming it was. Jim’s costume was over the top steaming hot this year and everyone loved it. Between his flames and my ridiculously large hot pink tutu, we felt we were in a wedding party – we posed for so many pictures.

It was fun, for sure. Here’s a picture of Jim and I during the show.

Our Garden Candy booth was mostly pink and brown with lots of color from Echinacea ‘Hot Papaya’ and ‘Raspberry Truffle’. Our Garden Candy gift bags included one Echinacea ‘Raspberry Truffle’, one Heuchera ‘Dark Chocolate’ and, even though it didn’t really play into the theme, one Heuchera ‘Stainless Steel’.

I threw in a lot of “stainless steel” looking items for decoration, so it all worked perfectly. Also in the bag were fact sheets on each plant and a goody bag filled with Lindt Raspberry Truffles and Ghirardelli Dark Chocolate squares.

Sometimes I think people come for the candy and not the plants…haha!

That’s OK.

We had 50 garden writers to our suite for chocolates and adult libations on Sunday evening after the lectures.

It was a great time. The perfect sized crowd and everyone had a blast. We served our now famous (and mighty potent) Raspberry Truffle Martini to celebrate our new plants and the Novalis group, our partner for the evening, served up some mighty fine Flaming Bubbles.

As promised, here are the recipes for both:

Raspberry Truffle Martini

2 parts Absolute Raspberry Vodka
1 part Godiva Chocolate Liquor
Shake over ice and pour! It’s that easy and oh so yummy!

Flaming Bubbles

fill 1/3 of a champagne glass with pomegranate juice
fill the rest of the glass with good, non headache forming Champagne.
We used “J”, which is one of our favorites. It ain’t cheap, but who can stand a champagne headache?

So, there you have it – two delectable adult beverages, both of which could be used for an upcoming Holiday party.

As the years go by and we accumulate cocktail recipes, I do believe we will publish a recipe digest. It’s so much fun coming up with a recipe each year to match the plants. My husband adores this kind of research and he’s always a happy taster.

So, the show’s over…why was I in Dallas, sweating to death for two days after?

Besides touring the lovely, perfectly manicured and pumpkin crazy Dallas Arboretum & Botanic Garden, the symposium that followed is a great place to network, learn and tour other exquisite gardens.

I did notice a sort of changing of the guard this year. There were not nearly as many editors from the big gardening magazines as there usually are. No one from Fine Gardening. No one from Better Homes and Gardens. No one from Garden Design.

It was a bit weird.

But guess who replaced them?

There’s a whole new generation of fun-loving, energy-filed, young garden bloggers out there and they were in attendance in full force. It was great to see new faces and to finally put names, and faces to my Twitter followers.

Social media was such a huge part of this symposium that our name badges also had our Twitter and Facebook names on them, so your could connect the social media dots.

How cool is that?

It was fun to have people come up to you and say, “Hey, you’re plantweenie!”

It was also fun for people to put two and two together in the booth when they realized that the person in front of them in the embarrassingly large pink tutu is also the author of this fine publication.

I loved when folks said, “Did they make you wear that?” Who is this they?

Apparently, they don’t realize I AM the crazy mastermind behind all this. He-he!

We launched our first issue of The Weeding Gnome one year ago at the 61st Garden Writer’s Symposium in Raleigh, NC. I can’t believe it’s been a whole year. It was so great to have some pretty famous writers come up and tell me how much they enjoy reading this e-newsletter. Quite a few said they get many e-letters and blogs and mine is the ONLY one they read on a regular basis.

I rock…haha!

I even learned a lot in the lectures this year. They were much more my speed and geared towards my generation and teaching the older writers how to connect with my generation (and the next).

Much more about this next week…along with a mini documentary on the really cool community building things they are doing at North Creek Nurseries.

So, I welcome this new generation of young people who are passionate about gardening. Many of them don’t own homes or they garden on a balcony, something the garden club ladies of yesteryear would never allow. Some take over others or abandoned gardens if they don’t have one of their own. These guerrilla gardeners will stop at nothing (short of being arrested, I assume) to have a space to garden.

Who could deny them a space in an abandoned lot or a former crack-hoe haven? I love it and I’ll work hard to help them shout from their rooftop gardens and abandoned lots about how awesome gardening is and how healthy it is to find your community.

I think I’ve finally found mine…thanks Garden Writers, for taking this conference in a direction that makes me proud.

We’ve got some amazing ideas and we’re not afraid to use them!

As I am a firm believer in building my little community, if you aren’t already a fan – ”Like” the Plants Nouveau fanpage on Facebook. And if you tweet, follow me on Twitter. My name is @plantweenie and we gave away lots of extra stuff to our Twitter followers just to see if anyone was reading. They were and they benefited. You could too!

If you go to my personal page, Angela Treadwell-Palmer, on Facebook – or the Plants Nouveau fan page, you can see lots more pictures of the Garden Candy booth and the exquisite gardens we toured in Dallas.

Happy Weeding and remember…It’s OK to drool (over new plants!).

I’ll be searching high and low for cool fall container plants this week for my garden. Wish me luck. This is always a frustrating time for me.

Happy Weeding!

Angela Treadwell-Palmer
President, Plants Nouveau

PS. Echinacea ‘Hot Papaya’ continues to be our most popular new selection. If you don’t have one in your garden by now, for shame! It is the most amazing color. It begins the color of the inside of a papaya and ages to a deep pomegranate red as the double, fluffy, pompom in the center fully matures.

Plant this selection in well-drained soil with lots of direct sunlight and you will not be disappointed.

This is one of those rare plants that is SO much better in person than in any picture. Try it, I promise, you’ll want more and a your neighbors will want it too.