When Mike Dirr tells you your garden "was a joy".....well, that's a good thing

That would be the Asian Collections at the US National Arboretum. And when he follows it up, in the context of a discussion about universally diminishing resources with the comment that, "you can tell the people who work here know what they're doing and care", well....whoopee

I picked a bad day to leave my camera at home! Ten fire engines at 7:00 then a visit from the author of the Manual of Woody Landscape Plants and the godfather of the same. Oh well.

I try to not carry my camera once a week. I don't always succeed. I think I see the world differently when there's no possibility of photographing it.  Things are a lot easier than they were 25 years ago so that carrying a camera isn't the terrible responsibility it used to be but it's still a burden. Back then it took from an hour to all day to take a decent close-up of a flower. Now I bet I can do it in 25 seconds. And that includes taking out the camera case, opening it, turning the camera on, changing a couple of settings, framing the shot, and taking the picture. My pictures are, I say once again, snapshots. The exposure is acceptable, the image is usually sharp, and the composition is generally pretty good. I can take credit only for the composition. I owe the rest to technology.

Oh yeah, the fire engines were a response to a smoke detector tripping inn the new greenhouse complex. Amanda and I heard the alarm when we arrived just before 7:00. Because she's conscientious, we checked it out and smelled a little smoke. There was no fire. We contacted Security who checked the alarm and called it in. Very quickly there were ~10 units on site. Most left quickly when no active fire was discovered. They cleared the area and we were back in withing the half hour. I never found out the source of the smoke but it smelled like bearing in a motor or a pump.