FROM THE CHAPTER PRESIDENT
Francesca Corra, APLD
Happy Spring Everyone! What a spring it is in California after this incredibly wet winter! Plants are absolutely bursting at the seams in their delirium to flower. The coming of sunny days allows us to finally get back into our gardens.
It is time to get your hands into that soil and plant your warm weather vegetable garden! I’m extremely ambitious this year after attending a great vegetable gardening workshop last weekend; I have never had enough sun in my garden to be very successful with most vegetables, so always feel a bit lacking in that area. I was inspired and came away with a flat of newly planted seeds from this workshop, which will grow into leeks, red chard, bunching onions, basil, and spinach.
You will see in this newsletter that we have many designers with a lot of expertise to share. I have been looking forward to this issue!
Spring is also the time we visit others’ gardens. Bring on the garden tours! How serendipitous that the theme of the fourth annual Garden Tour in the Greater Los Angeles district is “S.E.E.” - Succulents, Edibles and Ethical garden practices. There will be, among other fabulous sights to behold, some beautiful edible gardens. Please get your tickets if you have not already! For those APLD members who are reading this from afar, come visit! There are APLD members in Los Angeles with rooms in their homes to put you up.
Spring also brings a new lineup of sponsors for 2019. We have many loyal, returning sponsors as well as a few new ones. As designers, we are in a position to specify materials and source for plants. Please give our sponsors priority when making those choices. Give them your support in return for theirs. This year we have a new Platinum sponsor, Bay Scenery Inc. We welcome them aboard and hope this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship!
Tickets are on sale for the APLD International Design Conference which is being held in Seattle this year, July 25 to 29. This is an easy flight up the coast for us, so get your tickets because I know for a fact that the Seattle folks have a super conference planned for us this year!
We all have our strengths and weaknesses, but we all have something to share. Please consider getting involved with an APLD board. It can be as simple as reaching out to your local district leadership to help out at a single event. Maybe help set up or clean up to avoid traffic, or think about how you or someone you nominate could get involved at the district or chapter leadership level.
I leave you with this thought...
“Gardening is cheaper than therapy, and you get tomatoes” –Unknown
Ciao!
Francesca