An Early Visit to our SE Regional Meeting Tour Gardens

By Jeff Harvey in News and Regional Meetings
Jeff got a call from Mrs. Frye. She needed a favor. She asked, “Can you go to the airport and pick up a few boxes?” Jeff was quite experienced with picking up boxes of plants from the airport as he has done that in the past for his own plant orders. We are quite lucky to have in Nashville an airport that does that kind of shipping. It was perfect timing since we already planned on a visit to Mrs. Frye and Mrs. Jones’ gardens the next week. Mrs. Frye wanted her garden to be extra special for the SE Region meeting so she had contacted Bob Fincham and he had made arrangements with Larry Stanley to send some plants. How exciting! Jeff thought he was picking up three boxes. He drives a Hyundai Elantra. It’s not all that big, but it has fit three boxes from out west before. Just on a whim, Jeff called the airport to see if the boxes had come in early. No, but there were seven boxes coming. Should be in at midnight Monday. Seven boxes! That meant taking the van for the pickup. Glad he did since the seven boxes were huge and they just barely fit in the van! It was a long night Tuesday, thinking about the unopened boxes, since we had to wait till we got to Chattanooga Wednesday morning to peek inside. It was like Christmas morning when we got there. The suspense was killing all of us. Jeff carefully opened the boxes and removed all the packing. If you have ever received anything from Stanley’s in the mail, you know how carefully he packs the plants. Not a drop of dirt out of place or a broken branch. They were in perfect shape. Jimmy Stewart was near by and raced over to help. Think he was the most excited of all of us and was like a little kid ripping open the boxes. We all stood back and looked over all the boxes and the ‘gifts’! What fun. Then we toured the garden looking for places to put them all. What a morning! Now that I got you excited, no doubt you’re wondering, what plants did she get? I’m not telling. You’ll find out when you visit Mrs. Frye’s garden at the Southeast Region Conference, in September! Then we went to Mrs. Jones’ garden. We had not met her before and were excited to see her garden. It is on the ridge of Signal Mountain, overlooking parts of Chattanooga. There are three main paths that run along the ridge and they go on and on. Mrs. Jones took us to the end and back on the upper and the middle path. Over the years, she has bought many of the neighboring houses and lots. Some of the houses she has removed; some she has kept. She also collects art, and you just don’t know what you might see next. The fauna is very interesting and there are great views, too. We stopped to visit on a great patio that used to be a pool. We could have stayed for hours but we had to get home to our dogs. I hope that you are planning on attending the regional meeting. It is a great place to meet other conifer lovers and learn something new. See you in September!
Jeff got a call from Mrs. Frye. She needed a favor. She asked, “Can you go to the airport and pick up a few boxes?” Jeff was quite experienced with picking up boxes of plants from the airport as he has done that in the past for his own plant orders. We are quite lucky to have in Nashville an airport that does that kind of shipping. It was perfect timing since we already planned on a visit to Mrs. Frye and Mrs. Jones’ gardens the next week. Mrs. Frye wanted her garden to be extra special for the SE Region meeting so she had contacted Bob Fincham and he had made arrangements with Larry Stanley to send some plants. How exciting! Jeff thought he was picking up three boxes. He drives a Hyundai Elantra. It’s not all that big, but it has fit three boxes from out west before. Just on a whim, Jeff called the airport to see if the boxes had come in early. No, but there were seven boxes coming. Should be in at midnight Monday. Seven boxes! That meant taking the van for the pickup. Glad he did since the seven boxes were huge and they just barely fit in the van! It was a long night Tuesday, thinking about the unopened boxes, since we had to wait till we got to Chattanooga Wednesday morning to peek inside. It was like Christmas morning when we got there. The suspense was killing all of us. Jeff carefully opened the boxes and removed all the packing. If you have ever received anything from Stanley’s in the mail, you know how carefully he packs the plants. Not a drop of dirt out of place or a broken branch. They were in perfect shape. Jimmy Stewart was near by and raced over to help. Think he was the most excited of all of us and was like a little kid ripping open the boxes. We all stood back and looked over all the boxes and the ‘gifts’! What fun. Then we toured the garden looking for places to put them all. What a morning! Now that I got you excited, no doubt you’re wondering, what plants did she get? I’m not telling. You’ll find out when you visit Mrs. Frye’s garden at the Southeast Region Conference, in September! Then we went to Mrs. Jones’ garden. We had not met her before and were excited to see her garden. It is on the ridge of Signal Mountain, overlooking parts of Chattanooga. There are three main paths that run along the ridge and they go on and on. Mrs. Jones took us to the end and back on the upper and the middle path. Over the years, she has bought many of the neighboring houses and lots. Some of the houses she has removed; some she has kept. She also collects art, and you just don’t know what you might see next. The fauna is very interesting and there are great views, too. We stopped to visit on a great patio that used to be a pool. We could have stayed for hours but we had to get home to our dogs. I hope that you are planning on attending the regional meeting. It is a great place to meet other conifer lovers and learn something new. See you in September!

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