Back From Dallas Texas

From the hot heady weather in Dallas - 97F with 70% humidity to a cool 53F when we landed back in Buffalo - life has revved up to the speed of Fall back here in Oakville.  We saved a bundle by flying Southwest Airlines - less than $500 return for the two of us (and that would be Cdn $$) instead of Air Canada's $900 per person.  Even if you count the drive to Buffalo - parking of $50 for the 4-1/2 days - we still came out ahead.  The nice shuttle fellow at the Buffalo airport even showed us where to park and then waited for us as we hauled our bags out and onto his bus.  And I found a discount coupon on-line for the lot.

Our first garden was the Dallas Arboretum.  Here I am with Veronica Sliva taking advantage of the fabulous refreshments.  According to my waiter, who I had no reason to disbelieve, he said that this local beverage I was drinking was called, "whyyyyyyyyyte whyyyyyyyne".  Photo courtesy of Kevin Conroy.

Since I've moved on to another camera, this was the first year that Kevin had something better than a cell phone to capture some images - I think he did really well.  Here are a couple of his photos.  It was so warm that everyone on the tour was scrambling from one patch of shade to the next.

The gardens are changed over 4x a year - as you can see, it's the fall pumpkin season!

We had a wonderful dinner at the Arboretum.  There was lovely seating outside as well - sadly it was just too hot - we all ate inside.

Everyone in the gardening world has challenges.  In this part of the world, it is the heat.  These are their trial gardens - not nearly as colourful as ours in either Guelph or at Landscape Ontario.  But it looked like these Zinnias handled the season not too badly.  One of the plants they do really well in Texas are Caladiums:

or how about this patch:

In my garden at this time of year, there would have been about 3 leaves on each of these plants.

What a lovely spot for a party, or just a day out - just remember to bring a parasol for the sun.

I remember the crape myrtles as being so beautiful - and yet when I go through my photos, can't find any photos to really illustrate how lovely they were.  I should almost make a photo check-list. Nothing too complicated just a little note about the highlights or surprises to make sure I have a good photo representation before I leave the site.

There's nothing like the power of planting in great big swaths of colour - especially when the colours are as pretty as these are.  I was trying to figure out how I could duplicate these colours for my clients  - the first patch is Gomphrena, the other is a potato vine (if I remember correctly).  Will have to really think on it - as neither of these plants perform the same way here.