This is the100th Outlaw Gardener post and what fun I continue having doing this. I started thinking about blogging because I'd been reading, enjoying and commenting on several great garden blogs for a few years and thought that their writers seemed like they were having a lot of fun. At some point, The Dangerous One and I began corresponding and a year or so later, as a surprise for my 50th birthday, a meeting and garden tour were arranged. Both the person and garden are pretty spectacular as many of you know. Nine months later Loree came to visit my garden and posted about it here. I remember being relieved that it wasn't a W.W.T.T. (What Were They Thinking?) post. Because it was a rainy day, we spent more time chatting inside than out and she asked me if I had put any more thought into starting a blog (which I only recently learned was an abbreviation of web log.) Anyway, I finally got around to figuring out how to use blogger and started TOG a few days after her visit. I am grateful for her nudging.
Posting on TOG has been enjoyable in large part because of all of you who read and/or comment on my entries. Another blogger called comments the blossoms of the blog garden. Thanks for being so blooming nice, for finding me and making me feel welcome in the blogosphere. It's been great fun to get to know so many fabulous gardeners and to feel like part of an online community of like-minded souls. Through reading your blogs and your comments on mine, I've learned a great deal. Thank you for the time, energy, and heart that you all have been putting into your blogs for so long.
To celebrate the occasion of my 100th post, I'd like to give away a couple of books: Design in the Plant Collector's Garden by Roger Turner and Shocking Beauty by Thomas Hobbs. I bought Design in hopes that it would in some way help me with my huge collection of oddities in pots. After deciding to simply embrace my inner plant hoarder and give up the possibility of ever having a tidy, tasteful garden with nice architectural lines, even pavements, and water features that don't fall on visitors , I feel much better. Lovely book though.
Thomas Hobbs's books are full of gorgeous images and the cover of this one inspired many of us to search out and plant the darkest Rheum palmatum 'Atrosanguineum' we could find. I was given a second copy of this lovely book and am delighted to pass it on.
So, if you'd like to win the books, simply leave a comment on this post. After a week, I'll throw all the names in a receptacle of some sort, have someone else draw a name, announce the winner, and send the books to you.
Thanks again!
