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Maria,
about 23 hours old, was introduced to gardening shortly after arriving
home from Bryn Mawr Hospital. While she rested in her car seat, Dad
picked
some cucumbers, three varieties of snow peas, and the first ripe
tomatoes
of 1995.
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Seven week old
Maria on her first visit to the Winterthur gardens near Wilmington,
Delaware, on August 27, 1995. She and Dad are posing near
the reflecting pool.
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The
day before visiting Winterthur, Maria traveled to the Rodale Institute
near Maxatawny, Pennsylvania. We toured the gardens there, and Maria
and
Dad posed by a rather tall stand of corn near the visitor center.
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Mike and Maria
are posing near a banana tree growing in the Longwood
Gardens conservatory. We visited the "Welcome Spring" exhibit there on
February 3, 1996.
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Maria's
first visit to the world-famous Philadelphia Flower Show was in early
March, 1996, just before she was eight months old.
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On March 30,
1996, we went to Winterthur to walk through the gardens. Dad and Maria
are standing with the March Bank bulbs blooming behind them.
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Mom
is holding Maria in front of an heirloom azalea bush on the occasion of
Maria's 10-month birthday in May, 1996. The bush, in our back yard,
resembled specimens growing in the Azalea Garden next to the
Philadelphia Museum of Art and we believed it was as old as the house.
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In mid-May,
1996, Horticulturalist Maria posed in front of Dad's rare fernleaf
peonies in the backyard garden of our Haverford house.
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On
June 2, 1996, we visited the Scott Arboretum rose garden at Swarthmore
College. Here, Maria is sitting in her stroller near an example of the
rugosa rose Roseraie de L'Hay.
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Maria next to a
hibiscus blossom "the size of a dinner plate," well,
at least the size of her face. This was on a visit to Hershey Gardens
in
Hershey, Pennsylvania, during August, 1996.
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Here,
Maria poses next to a Chinese hibiscus blossom -- you don't need me to
tell you how big it is -- on a visit to the Longwood Gardens
conservatory
in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. This was on Dad's 38th birthday,
January 25, 1997.
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Another scene
from the 1997 "Welcome Spring" exhibit in the conservatory at Longwood
Gardens in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania.
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We made our
traditional visit to Winterthur in the early spring of 1997. It was a
little chilly, but Maria was bundled up as we walked around the Quarry
Garden area.
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 Maria and Mom dressed up for Easter Sunday, 1997 in our
Haverford backyard. You can see a few yellow "Tete-a-Tete" daffodils
next to them, with other bulbs growing in the background but not
blooming yet.
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In May, 1997, Maria was nearly two years old as she
clutched her favorite bubble blowing pipes while sitting in front of a
"Blue Peter" rhododendron in our backyard in Haverford, Pennsylvania.
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Maria, still
holding her bubble paraphernalia, walks past the heirloom azalea bush
in our Haverford backyard in May, 1997.
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Mom
and Maria went to Linvilla Orchards to pick up some pumpkins in
October, 1997. They had quite a choice, judging from this photo of
Maria.
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A flowering
plant, possibly coreopsis, made a nice background for a photo of Maria
as she visited the Rodale Institute near Maxatawny, Pennsylvania, in
late July, 1997.
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On
one of our last walks to Haverford College before moving away from
Pennsylvania, Maria walks in the grassy area near the duck pond. In
addition to the pond and some wooded areas, the general campus was
considered an arboretum.
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Maria, posing
in front of a holly bush near our Center St side porch, holding some of
her favorite "friends" -- Barney, Baby Bop, and BJ.
Photo was taken on a warm Sunday afternoon, November 30, 1998, to be
included with our Christmas cards this year.
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During the fall 1999 mid-quarter break, we traveled to
central Pennsylvania and one of our stops was Hershey Gardens, where
Maria posed in front of
a very tall ornamental grass on October 14, 1999.
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Maria visiting
the Rodale Institute near Maxatawny, Pennsylvania, on
October 17, 1999. To match her purple shirt, she posed in front of a
purple-flowered plant, probably Malva sylvestris 'Primley Blue'. No
surprise that her
favorite color is purple!
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On a weekend trip to Cincinnati, we visited the Krohn
Conservatory on February 19, 2000. Maria is posing in front of an
exhibit of spring flowers with a miniature orange tree behind her.
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On Easter
Sunday, April 23, 2000, Maria poses in her Easter dress with her Easter
basket on the front walk of our house. Behind her are some
examples of the species tulip Bakeri 'Lilac Wonder.'
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Here's proof of how big hibiscus flowers can get! Maria
poses by her hibiscus plant which Mr. Netzley gave her when we visited
his Terre Haute area nursery during 1999. Last year the plant produced
one large flower; this year, there were four, including this one. This
is NOT trick photography -- the plant is a single shoot, barely as tall
as Maria's waist, but each of the four flowers it produced successively
over a two-week period in
late August and early September, 2000 were wider across than her waist!
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Maria poses on
October 22, 2000, behind two of the first blossoms on
Dad's camellia bush. The plant is a cold hardy camellia, 'Winter's
Star,'
which began blooming about October 10. Hopefully it will survive in our
climate. Dad seems to love it as much as he loved his fernleaf peonies
in Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately, the plant didn't survive the winter. The
combination of too much southern sun in winter and the fact that it was
situated where ice tended to slide off the roof did it in.
Undaunted, Dad plans to get another specimen for our front yard in
Michigan -- northern exposure this time and amazingly, a better growing
zone even though we are 250 miles further north.
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