Perhaps no other flower evokes a sense of mystery and romance in the same way as an orchid. And what could be more soothing to the senses than the sound of moving water? The Atlanta Botanical Garden has combined orchids and water to create a special allure for an annual attraction that is a 10-week transition from late winter to early spring . Welcome to Orchid Daze: Liquid Landscapes. The botanical garden hosts Orchid Daze every year from February to April and each year chooses a new theme for the popular event. The Liquid Landscapes theme for this year’s floral showcase is a wonderful …

The 24th annual Southeastern Flower Show, ‘In Tune with Blooms,’ hit all the right notes. Chosen by show Chairs Mary and Felton Norwood and Honorary Co-Chair Vince Dooley, the musical theme was evident throughout the show – from the moss covered instruments at the entrance to musical accents in the exhibits to the soothing sounds of piano player Cliff deMarks of Sandy Springs that could be heard throughout the exhibit area on the Friday afternoon of my visit. Mary, who gave a guided tour to a group of Taiwanese diplomats I brought to the show, said she and Felton found the instruments on a …

Dunwoody gardeners can breathe a sigh of relief. Funding for the Extension Office, which includes the Master Gardener program, was restored by the DeKalb County Commission Tuesday in a 5-2 vote that slashes $33.6 million from the $530 million 2011 budget. Until as recently as a week ago, the budget proposed funding the Extension Office for only four more months. Jessica Hill, director of the Extension Office, was still pinching herself Tuesday afternoon to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. “We barely squeaked by,” she said. Grateful at the outcome of the vote, Hill said she was reluctant to say …

Community Garden Volunteers have received the word they’ve been waiting for: approval for the dates for their spring plant sale. Those dates are Friday, April 29 and Saturday, April 30. The sale will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. each day at the Community greenhouse in Brook Run Park. The sale is the Community Garden’s only scheduled fundraiser. Proceeds will be used to support volunteer work at the Community Garden, the greenhouse and the Food Pantry. The latter is particularly important. All of the vegetables grown in the greenhouse are donated to Malachi’s Storehouse Food Pantry at St. …

“We are in a really tough time,” said DeKalb County District One Commissioner Elaine Boyer, to a crowd of about five dozen county residents at a town hall meeting Tuesday night at Montgomery Elementary School. The meeting was one of a series that commissioners are holding around the county to give concerned citizens an overview of the proposed budget and an opportunity to ask questions about specific budget items. The commission will vote on the budget next Tuesday, Feb. 22 Managers who oversee departments that don’t provide essential services know just how tough the times are. Jessica Hill …

This is an important week for those enrolled in or interested in joining the DeKalb County Extension Office’s Master Gardener program. As many are aware, county CEO Burrell Ellis has identified the Extension Office as a non-essential service and recommended that it be eliminated from the 2011 budget. That recommendation, of course, is not good news for the DeKalb Extension Master Gardener Program since it is part of the County Extension office.  District One Commissioner Elaine Boyer will co-host two town hall-style meetings this week at which Dunwoody gardeners will have an opportunity to …

If you love flowers, love people and have a little time on your hands, the Southeastern Flower Show would love to hear from you. They’d also love to give you something to do with that time.Despite a great retention of show volunteers year in and year out, several volunteer time slots remain hard to fill. With the 24th annual edition of one of the nation’s premiere flower shows rapidly approaching, Chair of Volunteers Virginia Lane of Dunwoody still needs people to raise their hands to work  the late shifts on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 26-27.The time slots each day are:  Saturday and Sunday, 4…

It’s one thing to plant a vegetable garden to feed yourself. Lots of people around metro Atlanta do that. It takes a special person to grow a garden and give away its bounty to make sure those less fortunate have fresh produce to eat. Meet Sally Malone. She is the co-leader of Team Food Pantry and oversees the food pantry charity beds at the Dunwoody Community Garden in Brook Run Park. These beds make up 20 percent of the garden space, and produce harvested from them is dedicated to feeding the less fortunate. Every Tuesday, Sally meets two other dedicated gardeners, Pattie Baker and Ann …

Have you ever wondered who planted the thousands of daffodils that bloom every spring at Dunwoody schools and churches? Or who's responsible for the trees that were planted in the median of Ashford-Dunwoody Road when it was widened to four lanes? It was the Dunwoody Garden Club. Want to say thank you and help club members raise funds for more projects like these? You can. All you have to do is buy a ticket to their annual fundraiser. Proceeds will help the club continue to pay for more projects that will beautify our community. This year's annual fundraiser will be held on Feb. 22 in the …

What’s a good way to spend a rare balmy day in January when there isn’t a cloud in the sky and the high temperature hits 70F? A group of Community Garden volunteers decided to spend it at the “community” greenhouse in Brook Run Park. This is a city-owned greenhouse that the city has made available to various groups in Dunwoody, such as the Nature Center, garden clubs and the Community Garden. So far, the volunteers for the Community Garden are the only ones to take advantage of this wonderful growing space. They cleaned up debris and dirt last fall at the then-neglected facility and began …

There’s something about being cold and wet that just doesn’t appeal to me. Suffice it to say, I’ve never cared for winter. However, when I started gardening, I learned to appreciate winter. It is, after all, the best time of the year to enjoy some of the plants in the garden. Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick is just such a plant. Its mark of distinction is its corkscrew trunk and branches that can reach a mature height of 8-10 feet with a spread as wide as it is tall. Classified as a deciduous flowering shrub, Corylus avellana ‘Contorta’ was named for the legendary Scottish entertainer Harry …

Four members of the Dunwoody Garden Club braved a chilly wind and temperatures in the 30s Saturday to honor a friend and former president of the club. Bonnie and Steve Barton, Karen Converse and Betty Dworschak met at 2 p.m. at the Dunwoody Library to plant a tree in memory of Irene Warren. Warren, a longtime member of the club, its president in 1979-80 and its first lifetime member, died on Nov. 9 last year. She was 94. Irene’s son, Lane Johnson of Gainesville, joined the group in honoring his mother. He listened as Betty read a tribute to her: “Irene is one-of-a-kind. Throughout the years …

Unfortunately, due to my day job, I missed Wednesday’s walk at the John Ripley Forbes Big Trees Forest Preserve in Sandy Springs. Karen Converse of the Dunwoody Garden Club, however, e-mailed me to say a nice-sized group of 16 people enjoyed the outing.  Those lucky 16, Converse wrote in her e-mail, heard Ranger Jerry Hightower share interesting information about the ecology, native and invasive plants, history, geology and other interesting information about this special piece of land in Sandy Springs. The huge trees from which the preserve takes its name may appear to be old growth forest …

Park Ranger Jerry Hightower will lead members and friends of the Dunwoody Garden Club on a winter walk at the John Ripley Forbes Big Trees Forest Preserve in Sandy Springs on Wednesday, Jan.19.   Dunwoody and Sandy Springs gardeners who want to go on the walk should meet Ranger Jerry at the trail entrance in time to start the walk at 10 a.m. The trail entrance is on the right as you face the North Fulton County Government Service Center Building (Annex) at 7645 Roswell Road, 30350. Free parking is available in the south parking lot.  The walk will take place rain or shine. Ranger Jerry says …

Every winter when the temperature dips into the low teens, I worry about the half dozen palm trees I’ve planted in the woodland behind my garden. I don’t worry too much about what harm might come to them from snow or even ice. They can act as insulators. Cold is the killer.My palms are all young plants. The oldest has been in the ground only about five years. The newest one was planted last spring. An inspection Wednesday of the ones I could get to – several are down a slope so steep that footing is treacherous even on dry ground in July and August – shows that the ones I can see appear to be…

Normal people flocked to grocery and hardware stores during the weekend to stock up on milk, batteries and other staples. I bought bird seed. Birds are as an integral a part of the garden to me as roses, hydrangeas and azaleas. Unfortunately, I've done a better job of planting bird-friendly plants for the spring, summer and fall garden than I have for the winter garden. Given the possibility that the ice and snow from this storm could linger and cover the natural food sources my foraging friends rely on, I decided it was time to fill the feeders. What a delightful sight to watch the jays take…

When you are shopping for plants and find one that is native to a far corner of the world, do you ever wonder how it came to be on a sales shelf in an Atlanta nursery? And if the plant intrigues you, have you hesitated to buy it because you weren't sure how to grow it in your Dunwoody garden?    Wonder and hesitate no more. Scott McMahan, a rare plant collector and co-owner of Grant Park nursery Garden*Hood, will address both of these issues Saturday, Jan. 15. McMahan will share tales and pictures from his recent exotic seed-collecting adventure in Vietnam at the Trees Atlanta Kendeda Center …

What better way to start the New Year than to place an order from one of the gardening catalogs that are beginning to show up regularly in the curbside mailbox and the e-mail inbox? From the snail mail, I found several offerings from Comstock Seeds too appealing to resist. Among the squashes, Early Yellow Bush Scollop has been on my wish list since a friend gave me the fruit of this variety from his garden a year or so ago. It has great color, is delicious and comes with a bit of history: Native Americans dried it and used it to make gourd-like rattles. Another squash I ordered is Golden …

As if a reminder is needed in the week after Christmas that a New Year is about to begin, one arrived in the mail on Tuesday. It was the Heronswood 2011 catalog. Heronswood was a nursery plantsman Dan Hinckley founded in Kingston, Wash. I was fortunate to visit the nursery in the spring of 2006 less than a month before Burpee, which purchased the nursery from Hinckley in 2000, unexpectedly closed it. Heronswood was a beautiful garden and retail center. The drive onto the grounds struck me as very similar to the entrance to Wilkerson Mill Gardens in Palmetto – except for the ferry ride across …

 Brook Run Park was one of six parks the City of Dunwoody acquired in June from DeKalb County. Prior to the acquisition, the county had created a plan to redevelop the park. The city is now working with consultants on its own comprehensive parks and green space master plan for all six properties. For Brook Run, the city's plan will be less expensive to implement and maintain than the county's. It will be considered a city park, whereas the county's plan was created with a regional perspective. The city's approach is good news for Dunwoody residents. As always, though, the devil lies in the …