I'm Getting MANTSy!

Here is the online link to this week's The List: Top Home & Garden Events on page 23 of today's print edition in the Washington Examiner. It was a pretty hard to gather the list this week due to Item #4 - the MANTS (the Mid-Atlantic Nursery Trade Show) in Baltimore this Wed-Fri. Basically, the entire horticultural industry is there and no one is offering events and workshops back at the public gardens, nurseries, or anywhere.

I spent the day there today myself. I'm happy to report that the normally long and irritating registration lines weren't so bad this year. Witness the photo at left, and before you leap to the conclusion that it means attendance was down, I can assure the hall was just as crowded and aisles as jam-packed as usual. It was fun catching up with friends and acquaintances like Angela Treadwell Palmer of Plants Nouveau. She is pictured here with one of her new giant flower introductions. Okay, that one is made out of craft store materials, but she does offer some stunning (and real) plant selections that we feature in the 2008 plant preview story in our Jan/Feb '08 issue of Washington Gardener Magazine.

I would share more photos of all the cool and interesting things I saw at MANTS, but I confess to putting my camera away after the first two hours and never getting it back out again. I know, "Bad editor, bad, bad." (As I'd say to my cat, Chantilly.) My excuse is my arms were too overloaded with literature and samples. Plus, I had to leave at least one hand free for the generous candy bowls of bite-sized Snickers, Tootsie Rolls, and Jolly Ranchers! My sweet tooth bites me in the rear -- again.