Christmas 2005 Newsletter

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The morning air is crisp, the trees are littering the ground with leaves, and the garden is turning shades of brown and orange...as much as I hate to admit it, summer is over and fall is upon us once more.

As usual, Mother Nature threw us a few curve balls to keep things interesting this year. April started off more like May with two weeks of warm weather. As we all know, it is not unusual to still have snow in early April in Iowa! The warm spell woke many plants from their winter slumber and most froze when normal April weather returned. Mother Nature has it all figured out, though, and by late May the garden had recovered nicely.

We switched things up a little and moved our annual Spring in the Country Open House from late April to the middle of May...hoping for better weather than we've had in past years. I'm beginning to think we should have our spring open house in July! Needless to say, the day was cold and windy, yet we had a small group of dedicated gardeners stick out the crummy weather for our demonstrations and presentations. We'll try again next spring!

Other than a problem with some wildlife, which you can read about elsewhere in this newsletter, most of the summer was fairly uneventful... The weeds are always a constant nuisance and moving sprinklers and watering was a daily task during the hot, dry stretches in July and August.

If you stopped out this fall, you probably heard about (or actually saw) our latest expansion project. Pat Fencl is a well known Master Gardener and nursery owner in the Independence area. She retired after this past season and we purchased her business. Part of the purchase is a 28' x 44' double poly inflated hoop house. We spent many hours this fall dismantling and moving the hoop house. This will allow us to over winter and propagate from our remaining tropical water plants. This means we will be able to offer you larger water plants in the spring!

The increased greenhouse space also means we will be able to expand our selection. I've already got a whole raft of new hostas and perennials lined up for spring. Jim is planning to offer a great assortment of coleus and tomato varieties, and who knows what other fun things we will come up with! Always gotta keep life and the garden interesting!

As always, we can't thank you enough for your support. Our business hours often get interrupted by life and farm work and more often than not, we are further behind by the end of the day than when we woke up. We can't say enough how we appreciate your business!

See you in the spring!

Sincerely,
Josh & Sue

We update the Garden Journal periodically with news and happenings going on at In The Country. Browse through the 2005 entries and check out the 2005 Garden Gallery for lots of pictures. Those you see here are just a tiny sample! Be sure to drop by the gardening forum for a little chat and sign up for our “E-News” to receive online updates.

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