Garden Fair

A friend and I went to the garden fair today.  I think I have gone to this fair 5 or 6 times before and I think this one was the best one yet. Our first speaker was about rock gardening by the owner of Rice Creek Gardens.  A quiet woman, not the greatest speaker, but very knowledgeable and very much in the moment.  Such poise, I wish I had it.  Technology problems didn't bother her very much at all. She just talked off the cuff while others figured it out.  She had many slides of beautiful rock gardens and the natural spaces that inspired her to create such rock gardens.  Scenes from mountainous regions of our country as well as Scotland and Portugal.  She had lots of beautiful pictures of miniature plants.  Sometimes I wonder about importing a flower from the high hills of Slovenia - is that really a good idea? How do we know this isn't the next invasive problem we have to face?  But if I plant with only native plants I would not have the pop of some of these imports.  I see a pretty pink flower.  Our speaker says, "See the blue eye?"  I didn't see the blue eye until she pointed it out. She notices things that I don't.  She has the eye of an artist.  And although she is speaking quietly and without much outward enthusiasm, I am hooked by the beauty of her words. At the end we have a question and answer period.  Someone asks exactly what I am thinking, "How did you learn so much?"  She answers, and could any instructor of any subject come up with a better, more inspiring answer than what she said, "I made a lot of mistakes."  Rice Creek Gardens is a place I must visit this growing season.