Carpinteria Flower Farms

Each year, the flower farms in Carpinteria open their doors to the public for one day. The article in the newspaper made it sound worthwhile, so I grabbed my camera and headed south.

The exterior of the greenhouses were unimpressive . . . grey, cheap plastic.

It was a different story when they opened the doors though; it was beautiful, colorful and alive.

We  visited 4 different nurseries, two orchids, one rose and one gerber daisy. All of them are completely computer controlled. If it gets too hot, the roof opens, too cold and the heaters come on, sensors control the water and any excess that drips out get recycled. It's pretty amazing.

And look at the flowers!

Look close at the top of the photo. See all the hand cutters hanging from the overhead pipe. Apparently, orchids get a disease that spreads through infected hand cutters. They learned (the hard way) that it's cheaper to buy thousands of hand-cutters than to loose an entire nursery of orchids.

Progress . . . Inside and Out

It was a good weekend . . . my "To Do" list is definitely a little shorter. The long days and warm temperatures really make the flowers bloom. Here are a couple of close ups of flowers in my garden.

Nothing like a beautiful Gerber Daisy. They are easy to grow and seem to live forever.

This is an Angel Trumpet Tree. Right now, it's around 5 feet tall, however, they can grow up to 15 feet tall.

Here's a couple of finished panels for my Fibervision challenge. Will it be finished by next weekend? I'm not sure. I still have to finish two panels and attach them all to the black canvas.

The fabric and embellishments in each panel is completely different, however, each has layers of paint, dye or marker. They have been rubbed, screened, scraped, sun-printed and bleached. There is quite a bit of hand stitching, lots of beads and some re-purposed items attached.

With any luck, I'll have a photo of the finished piece ready for the next post. Stay tuned!