Travel to Seattle, Washington with Dave to enjoy the rich planting combinations of Bellevue Botanical Garden with Garden Director, Nancy Kartes. The garden boasts several key features including the massive Northwest Perennial Alliance borders and the Water-Wise Garden. Bellevue Botanical Garden is unique for the partnerships it has developed with local groups that help curate, plant, and care for the distinct areas of its landscape. Next, discover the Christmas Rose as Dave visits the winter woods of West Virginia to see thousands of Hellebores, traditionally called “Christmas Rose” because of their winter bloom time. Hellebores are long lasting perennials which bloom in white, green, pink, purple, black, or yellow. They grow best in partial shade, like under the canopy of forest trees or tall shrubs.
Travel to Seattle, Washington with Dave to enjoy the rich planting combinations of Bellevue Botanical Garden with Garden Director, Nancy Kartes. The garden boasts several key features including the massive Northwest Perennial Alliance borders and the Water-Wise Garden. Bellevue Botanical Garden is unique for the partnerships it has developed with local groups that help curate, plant, and care for the distinct areas of its landscape. Next, discover the Christmas Rose as Dave visits the winter woods of West Virginia to see thousands of Hellebores, traditionally called “Christmas Rose” because of their winter bloom time. Hellebores are long lasting perennials which bloom in white, green, pink, purple, black, or yellow. They grow best in partial shade, like under the canopy of forest trees or tall shrubs.
Medicinal plants of the Amazon at the Manu Learning Center in Peru. This garden was a project of Paula Skye Tallman and Matias Ojeda de Arco. Includes plants such as: Achiote(Annatto), Chanca Piedra, Sacha Bufeo, Una de Gato (Cat’s Claw), Hot lips plant, Quina quina, Cocona (Peach Tomato) and more.
Royal Garden Blues – Climax JB 1991 Our Climax Jazz Band has been invited on many jazz cruises. Travel agents would charter a cruise ship and would then sell tickets, usually at the larger jazz festivals. Quite often more than one jazz band would be hired to perform during the cruise. This cruise was for a trip along the Amazon River and the two participating bands were the Nightblooming Jazzmen from Los Angeles and our band from Toronto. On the Greek ms Stella Solaris you see a clip of our band jamming through “Royal Garden Blues” with some additional guests. On tenor saxophone was Brian Ogilvie who had been our reedplayer in the early eighties and had just joined the Jim Cullum Band. On clarinet was Pieter Meijers from the Nightblooming Jazzmen, who several years later became the leader of the High Sierra Jazz Band. A very special guest was drummer Huub Janssen from the Netherlands, who had taken a break from the Dutch Swing College Band to join us on this trip. Huub is probably one of Europe’s best drummers and it was a great pleasure to be driven by him. The regulars in our band were Len Gosling on trombone, Jack Vincken on banjo and Chris Daniels on the bass and myself on cornet. The music was rather hot and so were we. We had just past the Equator on the Amazon River and it was probably around 36 degrees C. , humid, with little wind, just minor inconveniences, but fortunately there was a continuous flow of deliveries of bottles of cold Heineken beer. My wife Ilse …
The three most essential elements of any barbecue party are the guests, the weather and the food. I can not make recommendations about your friends and family, you are on your own there, but I hope you will find my suggestions for the other two fronts practical.
An impromptu party in the garden is great and often the best parties are the ones that just happen off the cuff, but if you want something a little more formal or more impressive then you have to organize. The first step is to pick a date far enough in the future for most people to be unlikely to have a previous engagement, but not so far that they might forget about your barbecue party.
Depending on where you live of course, try to pick a date when it is not likely to be cool or wet. This is hard in places like the UK, but may be easier where you live. If the party goes on into the night it may get chilly anyway and you could hire a few gas patio heaters in advance just in case. You could also have a sunshade or sheltered seating area in case of blazing sunshine or a light shower.
These days many people are vegetarian and you will have to plan in advance for them and other dieters, if they make up a sizable number of your guests. You could send out RSVP invitations and ask your guests to make known any special dietary requirements. I am not really suggesting that you have to cater to everybody, but if you have a lot of Jews or Arabs coming you will need to provide an alternative to pork chops and of course there are other minorities too.
In fact, you may have to do some research on the religions of the people coming to your barbecue party, because often cooking utensils may not have touched pork of meat or shellfish. Most people of the guests with these dietary requirements will have been in this situation before and will understand if you go some way to providing an alternative.
For this reason, you will need to get your RSVP cards back at least a week before your barbecue party and do a bit of research on the telephone or the Internet. Then start making up the barbecue side dishes. These should include baked or and boiled jacket potatoes and potato salad, baked beans, egg quarters and coleslaw along with pickles, relish, onions, chutneys tomato and curry sauces (hot and not so hot), as most people will eat them. These can be prepared a few days in advance and kept in Tupperware containers in the fridge. Bread in the form of buns is also essential so that people can make sandwiches.
It is imperative for a polished act, to have your party area fully prepared before your guests turn up. it is a good idea to set the music system up in the garden shed or the garage to save it from any sudden shower. Provide plenty of tissues for wiping greasy fingers and plenty of receptacles for the debris. Finger bowls with lemon water would be a good idea for this purpose too.
Owen Jones, the writer of this piece, writes on many subjects, but is currently involved with the propane outdoor heater. If you are interested in patio heaters too, please click through to Residential Patio Heaters.
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