Gagasgarden Texas Homegrown Collection

January 17, 2011September 17, 2013 Gaga

A garden is a gathering place. So let’s talk about the wonderful treasure’s Gaga’s Garden has collected. A treasure of the rarest find is from Greenville, Texas. http://www.ci.greenville.tx.us Her name is Karen.

She and her family moved here from San Antonio when her son Brandon was in kindergarten and her daughter Carrie was just a few years older. While she raised her children on this wonderful street, we grew gardens, made memories and I had grandchildren and conducted 100’s of wine & rose tours on so many hot Texas summer nights.

Karen was born & raised in Greenville, Texas, just east of here maybe an hour or so. While we’re discussing Greenville let me just say, is there anybody left in Greenville? Because I say they’re all over here in Dallas. Hear me out. I will make my case. Karen is a plant aficionado, a  shop ’til you drop kind of girl who likes china, as in dishes. It’s not possible to guess how many sets of dishes she owns. I’ve lost count. Karen plans her Thanksgiving dinner around the time Garden Ridge opens.

Karen cries at mall openings. We are kindred spirits. This means when I call her at 8:30 AM, on Saturday she’s dressed, drinking coffee and I say let’s go to the nurseries plant shopping, we don our incognito outfits and are ready in 10 minutes and get in the biggest vehicle we have, and go. That’s so we can buy as many plants as we can fit in the vehicle and are gone like a flash.  The plant shopping, nursery hopping incognito outfit is a jogging suit, a ball cap pulled low over our really messed up hair and sun glasses. You would think we are unrecognizable right? You would be wrong! Everywhere we go Karen starts saying “Hi” and then explains that’s someone she grew up with in Greenville! And even though we are disguised, they instantly recognize her.

If she had started laughing I would understand. Karen has the kind of laugh that if you hear her laugh the entire room laughs with her. But she is just strolling by in her ball cap and jogging outfit with lots of plants to hide behind and still I have to be introduced.

I still credit everything I know about wine to the wine class I went to with Karen that she won at a silent auction with the third grade teachers when she was teaching. The sommelier says in the wine cellar in a dignified voice “there are two kinds of wine,” and Karen pipes in, in a very fun party girl voice “yeah, opened and unopened!”

Then the famous “Karen laugh” and everyone starts laughing and having a great time. It was a definite different kind of evening after that. The wine instructor was going to say there are two kinds of wines, those you like and those you don’t like.

Karen is also a rose garden student. She preferred to design a rose garden with peach, coral, peach blends and coral roses. She does not care for red roses. She loves lots of flowers and a showy bed. We chose floribundas for her small back yard do-it-yourself easy care rose garden. We also chose some roses for the front yard as you walked up the path to her front door. Karen moved in the neighbor hood when her son was 5 years old and in kindergarten and now he is in high school and her beautiful daughter is in college at Texas A&M. We share thousands of memories centered around both of our rose gardens and of course rose & wine tours so many Texas summer evenings.