Peter Korn in Canada

[Kristl Walek]

Our own Peter is the April NARGS touring speaker in North America---

Peter, I am happy to know you will be speaking to the Ottawa Valley Chapter on April 12th. I have not attended meetings for a couple of years---but intend to come to meet you!!!

It seems we may even be able to have a longer visit, either here at Gardens North, or in northern Ontario with Eva Gallagher (your hostess for this part of your trip). What fun!!!

I hope you have a safe and fun journey, and look forward to your talk.

Kristl

[Maggi Young]

We wish Peter every success on his Canadian trip.  You will be captivated by him, Kristl, he is an amusing speaker, a man full of ideas and enthusiasm.
He is also very handsome and eats chocolate.... what can I say 

I predict you will be amazed by what he shows you in his talks about his gardens....

[Kristl Walek]

I will start stockpiling the chocolate...

[shelagh]

A well travelled man, Peter. We're hoping he will be at home at the end of May as four of us are off to Gothenburg Botanic and hopefully Peter's garden as well, it looks really interesting on his website.  I mean surely he must go home sometime if only to do his washing  

[Peter Korn, Sweden]

I´m really looking foreward to the speaker tour and it will be nice to meet you Kristl. It will be a busy 4week trip. I´m just sorry I can´t bring my car and fill it with plants as I always do in Scotland.
Shelagh, I will be home before your visit. Probably with a lot of new idéas so I have to rebuild some parts of the garden.
We have had a perfect winter this year and I have spent every day in the garden. Only 2 weeks work at the botanics and a few talks has interrupted my digging. Some parts of the new rock garden is ready to plant (planted some Yucca last week).

[Susan Band]

Glad you are making a new garden especially for the Perth group trip
I at last got up to PItlochry to see your new crevice garden, its looking good. Julia is getting some Tibetans to plant it up at the end of March so it will certainly be a multinational effort.

[shelagh]

Thanks Peter, we are really looking forward to our trip.  Susan I do hope Julia will be posting some pictures as it sounds as if everyone would enjoy it.

[Peter Korn, Sweden]

Susan, the new rockgarden will be planted before your visit. I have thousands of pots and thousands of seeds to spread out. I hope there will be something left to sell. After this very mild winter everything has survived in the frames.
Kristl, do you think the Symplocarpus will be in flower when I visit you? It would be amazing to see it in the wild.

[Maggi Young]

Hi, Folks! I have received from Peter, via Bobby Ward, pix and this note about Peter's continued travels in North America.........
Peter says: I am  having a great time in the US. The tour started in North Carolina and I stayed at Bobby Ward's place in Raleigh.  24C, sunshine and white legs. He showed me some localities for native plants and some gardens. The forest was just covered with Trillium pusillum v. pusillum, thousands of Erythronium umblicatum and a lot of other interesting plants that were new for me or I had only read about before. Everybody is feeding me with delicious food and I'm having a very nice holiday.   

[Kristl Walek]

I am *so happy* to hear that Peter is getting a taste of sunshine, good weather, and flowers before he heads further north into my area to meet snow and nothing else.

We have the outing planned for him to see the mother load of Symplocarpus foetidus when he arrives, but now to figure out how to get rid of all the snow in the next 2 weeks....

I better buy more chocolate just in case....

[Maggi Young]

but now to figure out how to get rid of all the snow in the next 2 weeks....

Well, if you all start shovelling now............

[Kristl Walek]

Peter, I hope you are still in some warmish place before heading up into the cold after the weekend....we have been praying for spring, doing rain dances, etc, but alas, even though the robins were in the bare path this morning, pecking for worms in the still-frozen ground, it is now snowing again....April in Ontario!!!!

[alpines]

Peter,
I was fortunate to be able to speak to the Ottawa Valley Chapter a few years ago. You will be very well looked after. Their hospitality is wonderful. (Don't quite remember the chocolate, and I'm sure I would have remembered, but the pot luck was second to none). The people there are about as enthusiastic as it gets.......and excellent gourmets to boot.
Have a great time.
Alan

[Kristl Walek]

Alan,
Perhaps we did not know you could be bribed or conjoled or needed to be soothed with chocoloate (or in Peter's case) to take the sting out of not being able to see natives in bloom during his visit. Are the Magnolias blooming in Kentucky (or already finished?)

[alpines]

Hi Krsitl,
Everything is just a little bit late here. The redbuds haven't opened yet, and I haven't seen any magnolias either. The fact that the hepaticas only came into bloom last weekend tells the story. They would normally have been in flower two weeks earlier. It hasn't been an especially cold or harsh winter this year but we did have an excessive period last summer when we went without rain for weeks on end and temperatures in the 90s, so I imagine this could have had an effect on the late flowering. I've been in search of trilliums for nearly 4 weeks and only last weekend did I find one in bud and most of them are only just starting to unfurl their leaves. I remember my first trip to KY in 2000 and it was just about this time of year. At exactly the same location, the sessile trilliums were over. As I said in one of my earlier postings, I am now fortunate to be able to seek out plants every weekend, so I have a good idea of what blooms where and when.
I intend posting my findings here and on The Alpine Garden so keep watching.
Good to hear from you Kristl,
Best
Alan & Sherba

BTW.............bribery is too strong a word......'encouraged by chocolate' is probably more appropriate.