Poll and campain wrap up

This photo is called "Garden party" and photografer is Les Chatfield. You find more of his works as well as his flickr profile here.

It's time for two wrap ups.

The Campain for adopting a nursery.

Noone has adopted this week. I'll return to the campain on tuseday.

The left margin poll.

The steamtrains won a crushing victory. Even when I count the votes from Indoor Gardener and Parkettodlaren together only one have said 'no' to the question if going by steamtrain adds to the fun visiting a nursery. Of course, steamtrains and gardens combined have a lot of advantages. A real train is good to have on a garden sight seeing (and suddenly I dream about having a small castle and a park to make it possible to have a full scale steamtrain...)

To decorate the garden with trains can be made on high levels. When I surfed Creative Commons to find a pic for this post I discovered that New York Botanical gardens has a small model railroad among their plants. Little trains puff their way around model houses from the big city. I wouldn't mind having one in my greenhouse - if I had a greenhouse, that is.

Outdoors I would opt for a garden railway. It's train big enough to be straddled. But don't you think I would use it only for fun. I'm dreaming about planning the rail to make it possible to transport compost material and soil when I'm digging (as well as garden furniture, toys and other stuff). This may not make the work easier, but way more fun.

Since I'm an indoor gardener those dreams may well stay dreams. It's hard fitting a modell train around pots in a window - even in the smallest scale. I wonder if hubby would agree to my plans if we ever buy a house? Of course, he is the one who wants to clear three meters (3 1/3 yards) of our bookshelves to make space for a modell railroad.

Results in the poll.

Indoor Gardener
No 0 vote
Doesn't matter 0 vote
Steamtrains and gardening, what an excellent combination! 3 votes
Makes it easier to bring the spouse 1 vote

Parkettodlaren
No 1 vote
Doesn't matter 1 vote
Steamtrains and gardening, what an excellent combination! 6 votes
Makes it easier to bring the spouse 1 vote

I've a new poll in the margin. "Does your religion have an impact on how you garden?" This is a question good for many thoughts, and for once I'll keep mine to myself until the poll is over.

Nursery campain wrap up 1

Funbo Plantskola

This is the first nursery campain wrap up.

Bloomingwriter (Jodi DeLong) in Canada holds a record I suspect will be hard to beat. She has adopted twentyfive nurseries. You can read about them in two blog posts here and here. All nurseries are companies outside "bigbox bullies" with helpful and competent staff. I don't know about you, but reading these posts makes me yearn for a trip around Canada. Visiting plant nurseries is an excellent way to get to know a country, and a seed envelope (oh, I admit it; a lot of seed envelopes) is an lightweight and nice souvernir*. She has even found a nursery with train memorabilia...

On the swedish side we find my own post on Funbo Plantskola, a small family company with a big love for gardening, sqeezed in between road 282 towards Almunge and Lennakatten preserved railway. A small wink to Joppe with the blog Joppes Gröna Rum (blog in swedish) who's found a small café with ties to gardening in Öhr, Småland (swedish region). As a former perpetual student at Uppsala University I fall for cafés, and will link to the reportage "outside the campain" once it's written.

Finding good nurseries is a feat. Mostly you find them by hearing about them from other garden entusiasts. Note that Bloomingwriter has spent years digging up the nurseries she writes about. If you're out of hearsay the phone catalogue is a good tool - remember that many nurseries still don't have a homepage (on the other hand the phone catalogue may be online). In the long run you can use blogs to find good places. Do some sunday excursions and adopt the worthy according to these rules. (I'm hoping I'll have a nice logo and a central homepage for this campain up next week.)

*Do check the laws on importing plants and seed from another country. A rule of thumb for residents in EU is that you can brings seeds but not plants from outside EU's borders.

And don't forget the poll in the margin ;-)