Blogoversary!

Happy blogoversary to me, happy blogoversary to me,
Happy blogoversary to meeeeee,
Happy blogoversary to me!

A big thank you to the readers of this blog! The wisdom, ideas and tips you have shared with me over these two years have been invaluable!

Blogoversary!

One year ago today I started this blog! Its birthday is at an appropriate time of year for a gardening blog, I think, since spring is just around the corner and it coincides with the annual Chicago Flower & Garden Show (about which I will have more very soon, and from which the above picture was taken; see Mr. McGregor's Daughter for a re-cap).

I thought back on some of my favorite gardening/blogging moments from the past year, and a number of events, and the posts they inspired, stand out. Of course, the Garden Blogger's Spring Fling was a highlight, which included lots of time in beautiful gardens and outdoor spaces, from the Chicago Botanic Garden to Rick Bayless's home garden a community vegetable garden. Most importantly, it was a wonderful opportunity to make friends with fellow garden bloggers. I am sad to say that I will have to miss this year's meet-up in Buffalo; I will be there in spirit!

One of my proudest gardening accomplishments this past year was creating my rain garden, which I am happy I could share with the blogoverse. It already performed admirably by absorbing the ridiculous amounts of fall rain we had, and never once overflowed or sat festering for even a couple hours! I can't wait to see how it does this year, and I'm already thinking of plants to add.

The soggy, weird weather also led me to conduct a little experiment for avoiding/getting rid of powdery mildew. I got some great suggestions from readers including Garden Girl. The results were a little inconclusive between my dormant oil mixture and milk mixture since they both seemed to work equally well. I intend to try them both again this year.

Personally, I had fun choosing my MVP for 2009, the Most Valuable Plant. Great blue lobelia was the surprise winner, and if it weren't for needing a blog post idea I probably wouldn't have thought to evaluate my plants in this way. I look forward to doing it again this year!

Lastly, I enjoyed having the opportunity to share book reviews. I am an ardent bibliophile and I really like writing book reviews, so it's been great having a forum for that too! See here, here, and here for the last three (OK, I think they're the only three).

Most of all I'd like to say a big THANK YOU to all of you who read this blog! It's been a wonderful writing outlet and I'm so thankful to be a part of such a supportive and fun community!!