What a day!

Here is an entirely gratuitous photo of asclepias tuberosa, which is one of the few plants where the scientific name has lodged itself in my head. Contrary to what I had written previously, it does seem to attract a good number of pollinators. The blooms lasted a long time, but the plants have now moved on to the development of some wacky seed-pods. I'll most enthusiastically be starting those seeds in the Spring!

But back to today. Scatterbrained in anticipation of my first Garden Club meeting, I ran off to work in the morning without my purse. While driving home to go to Garden Club, the car overheated. And it was leaking something green, so I knew it was going to be a tow truck job. Since I have yet to join cell-phone culture, I went looking for a door to knock on. A kindly family (with the prettiest garden on the street, I must add) interrupted their dinner prep to let me make a phone call, and shortly thereafter Chris and Gabe came to my rescue.

We made it home just in time for me to grab some water and some plants, and, oh wait, is that a snake in the garage? What the heck kind of snake it it? It's colorful. Crud, what do we do? Five minutes, one bucket, one plant tray, one bucket, and one pair of garden gloves later, the snake was gently contained and I was on my way to the Garden Club.

*phew* Those Garden Club folks sure are nice. I am coming at Garden Club from an unusual perspective. When I was a child my mother was a garden club member. For a while. But she was less than pleased at what a social club it was. I think the final straw was when she hosted a meeting at our house and set out a vase of honeysuckle as a decoration. The other ladies had brought along prized houseplants. They spied my mother's uncultured bouquet from the Great Outdoors, screeched "thrips!", and wouldn't venture into the house until my mother had disposed of the offensive blooms.

So, I grew up with a less-than-stellar opinion of garden clubs. As if to remind me of this, a recent guest post at Garden Rant mentioned garden clubs in which flower arrangement is (shudder) mandatory.

So, I am much relieved to announce that the members of the Franklin Garden Club are enthusiastic about new members, even about new members who are perhaps overly Internet-educated while still marvelously short on years of experience! They seem far more interested in volunteering than in social functions. Nobody there struck me as the sort to have draconian attitudes on flowers arrangement or insects. They were, in face, about as nice as nice could be.

I'm excited to finally have some folks outside of my narrow computer-gaming world to share my plant interests with! Be sure to stop by later to see photos of the snake!