More From Blooms

Today was the big day that Martha came to present her new line of products at Home Depot at Canada Blooms (www.canadablooms.com). We were delighted that she popped in to say hello to our group of garden writers who were enjoying lunch at our regional meeting. Kudos to Mark Disero who told her that there were a group of writers who would like to meet her and to Martha who is probably like any other senior executive - managed to the minute to be gracious enough to say a quick hello.

She's taller than you'd imagine & looks better than anyone else I know in a Home Depot apron.

Now, today was the day I was going to indulge myself and just take pictures of flowers. Yes, still at a ridiculous 1/8 of a second - and the same earlier rule applies, just shake head side to side quickly to bring flowers into a better focus. Most of these shots were taken at the PickOntario flower booth.

This stuff looks like an exploded pink Brillo pad. It would be a lot of fun to fiddle with if you were doing a girlie table.

I wouldn't necessarily think of combining tulips and lilies, but this was very pretty and had such a lovely scent.

Lisianthus is such a lovely flowering plant - a shame it takes so long from seed to bloom. Hard to believe that something so lovely would have no scent at all.

And more lisanthus....

And you guessed it, even more lisianthus...

Now that's a seed package. None of that little tiny wussy envelope nonsense - almost have the feeling they've started to grow before you've even got them planted.

This was a corner of a booth where they were selling lamps - kind of fun if you wanted to do the whole casbah number.

Guys and gals working on the trades competition. Will have to go online to see the finished product and see who won.

Here are some of the professional arrangements. While there are very few of us who can do the whole nine yards, there's always something you can take and use on a smaller scale in your own home.

Can you guess the inspirational dance this arrangement was designed for.

And a couple more of the competitive pieces - boy, those Home Depot bags really do draw the eye.

And just because it's been a few days, I know there are the hamamelis fans out there who are wondering what's happening. Well, here's Hammy looking utterly fabulous and completely alone in my March garden.

I'm really tempted to put in a little mini-grove near the edge of the property so everyone can enjoy and smell them.

And a few borrowed views - trees starting to flower.

My first snowdrops at the edge of a neighbour's garden.