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Spring 2008 Newsletter
Dear Friends,
As most of you know, each year I try to thank you, my customers and clients,
many of whom have become friends, for your business. Again this past year, I
donated in your names to Parkworks, which creates and maintains gardens around
the city, and to Women’s Community Foundation, which makes grants to
organizations that focus on improving the lives of women and girls by promoting
opportunities and fostering social change in the Greater Cleveland area. I
appreciate your response to these donations.
My discussion of weather patterns in last year’s issue was off the mark. Written
in early March 2007, we then went on to endure the fifth snowiest winter in
Cleveland history. As of this past blizzardy weekend, I venture to guess that we
may approach that mark again in 2008.
Although we usually go to Mexico in March, we have given up warm weather in
order to take our Cleveland granddaughters to Paris during the first week of
April. We’ve been promising Katrina for the past two years but were waiting
until she expanded her menu horizons beyond macaroni and cheese. Since there
will be five of us, we have rented an apartment, a new experience. Hopefully, we
will save a bit on meals since the exchange rate is horrendous.
Sam and Amanda, both of whom will turn thirteen this Spring, have become social
butterflies. They have been invited to innumerable bar and bat mitzvahs this
year, driving their parents to the brink of bankruptcy since no girl in her
right mind would even consider wearing the same dress twice. Katrina loves the
theater and seems to enjoy the backstage aspects just as much as performing.
Zack continues to excel in math and sports.
My mother, at 97, although doing fairly well, can no longer travel so the
profits of Southwest Airlines and National Rent-a-Car have increased
substantially. It was very strange having Thanksgiving without her.
In 2007, for the first time in several years, I only attended one national
conference. The Perennial Plant Association symposium was held in Columbus to
celebrate its 25th anniversary in the city in which it was founded. As one of
its earliest members and as an Ohioan, I was one of the featured speakers, my
topic being Trends in Perennial Garden Design. The garden tours were inspiring
as always. One of the tours concentrated on small urban gardens in German
Village and Victorian Village. It’s amazing how many different ways there are to
cope with limited space.
In early September, I ventured to North Carolina with my colleagues on the Plant
Selection Committee of the Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association. We visited
nurseries and arboreta, looking for new and underused plants to recommend to the
members of ONLA. It’s always so interesting to travel to areas other than our
own and see plants with which we are unacquainted.
Being avid Buckeyes, Niki and I, joined by youngest son, went to New Orleans in
early January for the National Championship game against LSU. Despite rumors to
the contrary, the LSU fans were very nice and thanked us for coming to New
Orleans. The French Quarter has almost totally recovered from hurricane Katrina
but the rest of the city has a long way to go. The food and music are still
marvelous so we had a great time in spite of the fact that the Buckeyes lost.
Although I left the Cleveland Orchestra Chorus many years ago, I have never lost
my joy in making music. This February, I was able to join with the choirs of
three churches to perform the Ralph Vaughan Williams ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’, a very
powerful anti-war canatata of which the text was taken mainly from Walt
Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, written just after the Civil War, as well as
passages from the Bible.
See you in May or sooner if you need me. Don’t forget that I make house/garden
calls and that I have a crew that can do garden cleanup.
Perennially,
Bobbie
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