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On the way to Yosemite National Park

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Pages we like Hotel Charlotte  Groveland Yosemite HWY 120

Hanging baskets with colorful million bells line the way into the hotel

As of this writing the giant sunflowers are now 3.5 feet tall.

Maybe you know our friends Tony and Linda, they were in charge of the Sierra Garden Club selections for the garden tour for this year and some how we were chosen. It went like this: Tony "Do you want to be on the garden tour" Me " Yeah, Right." and the deal was done. I found us a funny choice since we didn't have a garden.

But we didn't let that stop us after dragging our feet and laughing about it for 4 months, Carolyn finally pointed out that we do need to do something and that these things take time. You don't just plant a garden overnight. So...we are now about two months before the tour and Carolyn arrived one morning with her volkswagon bus and hauled out a lawn mower, tools and just started digging stuff up, then tossing seeds and moving things I already had. Well, this threw my mom into a bit of a tizzy given that the gardens were hers to tend. Carolyn contends that they weren't being tended to at all and so she didn't step on any toes and actually left everything that was already in place alone. Me, I didn't really care either way, someone was doing something! Yippee, that is all mattered to me.

Carolyn's big sunflower idea was to plant our culvert  She figured we were done with our season of rains and went right to dropping in hundreds of gigantic sunflower seeds.

Soon we had little seedlings. And then BOOM! We got hit with a late season storm and all the seedlings were wiped out. Bummer. Carolyn was not to be disappointed and replanted the whole thing. Guess what, two weeks later another huge storm hit. This time the seedlings were strong enough to hold off the stress of the culvert flow.

We have now gotten into the habit of picking up odd plants here and there every time we leave the hotel. Even the expensive and most stunning in their perfection: Gerbera Daisies, a favorite of which I have sadly killed many! We were one of few on the tour that had actual blooming flowers in the gardens. As we are in the mountains, full of hungry deer, flowers do not last long.

Just days before the Sierra Garden Tour was the Sierra Herb festival at Mountain Sage where we were able to pick up a quick 14 well matured flowering sunflower plants to fill in everywhere. It is really too bad these photos don't do justice to all the colors we have going on.

We moved some ladders, chipped through the crust, tossed in some herbs, watered and presented our garden the next day. We heard lots of "I didn't know this was back here...." which pretty much until that day, wasn't really back there. And a few... "Hey, can I park back here?" No, please don't, reserved for hotel guests. It was great fun and now I am hooked on gardening again and today spent a few hours pulling some tired plants, moving some dusty miller and planting in more of the million bells. This is my very favorite hanging, spreading, flowering plant.

Sadly, the angle of the cameras just do not do justice to the colors and variety in the garden. It is really lovely, especially since almost nobody else grows flowers because the deer eat them....

Hotel Charlotte
On the way to Yosemite National Park
Cozy Lodging, Good Food & Spirits
Serving dinner from 5:30 daily in Summer, else Thurs-Sunday
Lunch: Daily in Summer, else Friday, Saturday & Sundays from 11:30
18736 Main Street (Highway 120) PO Box 787
 Groveland, California  95321
Reservations: (209) 962-6455,  Fax: (209) 962-6254
Email: HotelCharlotte@aol.com

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