Guess who came to visit today?
And guess what he brought with him?



I lost track of how long I sat turning pages. Oh wow, what a great book. I can't wait until I get my very own copy so I can read it. The photos are amazing, sections with information that I can't wait to read.
This book has it all, even photos of some yet unnamed seedlings that will be coming on the market in the future.

And of course I served him coffee in my collector 'All Things Plants' mug.

What a great way to start my day.

Hey... I think I know that guy. He looks vaguely familiar. If I offer a cup of coffee will he come to my house bearing gifts? No need for that, really. I'll be glad enough to get a signing combined with a tour of the daylilies blooming, as I think has been offered.

You are going to love this book Tim.

What a happy man with book and coffee in hand!!
If it had been U-know-who, he would have had scotch or vodka in that mug...

Will the book be available to us by the time of the clinic?

Congratulations Kevin! Exciting Can't wait for my book to arrive . Just checked amazon they say it will be released on May 28.

YEA!!! It is on my wishlist at AZ.

I look a little out of it in that picture! I was happy though to see a REAL BOOK. It is a very sturdy binding. A couple of the photos I thought were too dark but most look very good. It's 206 pages so it should be a good read. I tried to add a few juicy bits and personal tales so it wouldn't just be a plant book but with some human interest.

I'm hoping that, since the first copy arrived early, that the book will also be ready earlier than the formal date of May 28th. Regardless you will be able to see a copy during the clinic. You might be surprised to see some of your work in there too!

Kevin

Woo Hoo - how exciting to have the actual book in your hands Kevin! I'm really looking forward to getting my copy too!

So far I've only seen one tiny error (a one letter change in the title of a web site but not the address) so I'm happy. Hope that all of you enjoy it. My only regrets is that I couldn't put in 3 X as many photos. Hopefully my text will help in filling in those mental gaps.

When I submitted the outline to the publisher they were a little scared about the chapter on the people involved in Sempervivum but they loved that part of it when it was written. These plants didn't create themselves nor create rock gardens or art forms.

Kevin

Kevin, you do perform Magic

Kevin, if you wanted some juicy bits in your book then you could have written a chapter on the whole Wolfgang drama. I'll bet that would have been a good read. But we wouldn't want to give the public the wrong impression.

Tim,

Sorry to say NO Wolfgang in the book. I do have stories on some of the NICE Germans and photos of their nurseries and gardens.

Compared to how I was treated in the hosta world, the incident with Wolfgang is like a drop of water! I am out at least $350K there! I finally got credit for the ones that I created that were stolen.

Kevin

Hey... I don't need to read about it... I lived it. Although I admit that I, unlike others, did get a certain entertainment value out of it. And your hosta problems I figure would be in your host book under a chapter entitled "Hosta Hostilities".

I actually met the man who is the subject of the book "The Orchid Thief" and he was living very high on the hog. Maybe doing a similar book on the hosta thief would net me a best seller!! I guess the story ended better for me in that I was able to at least get back the credit for having created the hostas that were stolen from me.

Luckily I have nice stories for the semp book. I just wish that everyone had been able to meet all the people that I have described. Even the people that I have become correspondents with such as Erwin are some of my favorite people.

OK out to remove the frost blankets from the seed pots!

Kevin

Kevin When did you plant your seeds? I was planning to wait til Mar 1 or thereabouts but this weather is crazy. The snow is melting today and we are supposed to get rain tomorrow so that will take care of the last of it.
Do you cover your pots outdoors to keep birds out? I have had little birds just trash seedling pots.

I have to wait for one more pay check (end of the month) before I can order your book for my web site
.
The Orchid Thief was a very strange dude from the accounts I have read.. The movie with Merle Streep was pretty odd too...two endings? wooo hooo. The hosta thief....might be tricky....some people who didn't know the truth thought he was the Hosta God for a long time..." :.The names and places have been changed to protect the innocent"
Hey
Beverly you know he performs magic. you have seen those seedling beds

I sprinkled semp. seed last fall our in the raised beds and today noticed that almost all of them are germinating. Not so with the heuffelii seeds. They must germinate later?

Jo Ann,

I normally wait until the end of February or early March but this year I started early as I had 260 pots to plant and figured this would also sort of space out the seedling transplanting a bit. I planted one fifth a seed each of 4 weekends so the oldest are ~5 weeks in the pots. The heuffs and the others seem to all be germinating. They generally just sit in the pots for a couple weeks before you see much of anything. You would laugh at how densely the seedlings are coming up. I'll need to start beds on the roof!

Lynn is right. You can just plant them outdoors. I dd that in MA, I would plant the seed behind a big clump of daylilies or Siberian irises in the fall and they would come up in spring. Very easy. They were planted by these big clumps so that the seed was protected from disturbance. I was away at school so I had to do something that didn't require my attention. It is easier to deal with at the time but I like the pots as it's so much easier to transfer the seedlings to the seedling beds.

Kevin