Garden Indigestion

My daughter Francie and I went up to Walnut Creek Thursday night to be ready for the Garden Conservancy's seminars on Friday and garden tours on Saturday. The title of the event was Plant Driven Design, (after the new book by the Ogdens, who were speakers,) - and indeed we saw lots of plants, and lots of design! I would love to talk more about the presentations and the speakers, but the fact is, I have a slight case of garden glutton's indigestion. So much information, so many images, and so many absolutely astounding gardens! The day of the garden tours was cool and misty, with occasional sprinkles, but it never poured. Two of the gardens, both designed by Bernard Trainor, were repeats for us, but both had matured in the two years since we last saw them, and coincidentally, in both we were fed. Lunch in the first, wine and cheese in the second. Before and in between seeing them, we saw a tiny new John Greenlee grass garden, an old California estate garden with a Thomas Church terrace and swimming pool, and, finally, an absolutely astounding new estate garden full of South African plants, glorious fall colors in trees and grasses, and lots of children's toys dotted over the lawn, designed by Chris Jacobson. I was overwhelmed. There are of course lots of questions elicited by each one. The South African garden, for example, was immaculately maintained - which I guess is easier if you have three full-time gardeners, as its owners apparently do. I look around my own garden and see the grasses invading the ajuga, the vinca taking over the herbaceous bed, and the jasmine polyanthum strangling the large shrub roses. How guilty or inadequate should I feel? What is a reasonable standard of maintenance, when there are only two gardeners (me and my husband) and we are both 77? In any case, seeing these lovely and fascinating examples of the garden designer's art led me to get out my trowel and pruning shears and go at it today. I'll try to talk more about the ideas I discovered in a later post...after I've had time to let it all settle.