When you plan your garden each year what varieties of blooms do you use to makes your garden a winning combination? Do you mix annuals in with perennials or do you stick to only growing veggies? However your garden grows, chances are you have something by Proven Winners adding to your gardening experience.

I’m a big fan of Proven Winners which is a leading provider for most of the garden centers in my area. It has been exciting for me to watch how much this company has changed in the past few years. It has been exciting to see them go from only local growers having their plants to the larger nurseries carrying a large assortment of their products.  I first was introduced to Proven Winners (PW) a few years back when I worked in a local Mom & Pop garden center. One of my fondest memories while working in a garden center was the garden tour events we attended toward the end of the season that were held at Proven Winner gardens. Their annuals have always been a quality product  that kept my landscape and containers blooming all season long.

You can imagine my delight when Danielle Ernest, Public Relations & Brand Development Coordinator at Proven Winners agreed to be the guest host on #gardenchat.   Not to mention the excitement of ringing in the New Year with a topic of ‘Sharing What is New for 2011 ‘ which showcased the top 5 annuals for this years gardening season.   It was truly an hour of inspiring sharing these beautiful blooms. Below is the ‘Ad’ I made up to use to promote the event.

To view the transcript from Danielle Ernest sharing Proven Winners for 2011 please click on the image above.

The image above are cell phone photos from this week via my greenhouse.  IF you follow my blog you know I am in zone 5 where we have below freezing tempatures below freezing for at least 5 months out of the year.  I would say at least 60% of my greenhouse if filled with Proven Winners that I winter over.  Just look at that ‘Snow Princess’ on the right in the image above.  I have had to cut it back 3 times now since I added it to my greenhouse.  The scent form that and the Cerveza ‘n Lime in the middle photo behind the petunia is just like heaven on a very cold Ohio winter day when it is hard to remember what green outside was like!

Outdoor Living Extravaganza

Click on this Image to view the full flyer.

I mentioned Proven Winner garden shows earlier in this post and now I want to include you in on a fabulous show that will be taking place across the country.  I can’t wait to attend this event in early spring.  If it is anything like the Spring Media Day I attended at Four Star Greenhouse in Michigan it will be worth the drive to a city closest to me.

Outdoor Living Extravaganza

A retreat and seminar with Proven Winners

$80 per person 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Registration includes the seminar, a catered lunch, snacks throughout the day, raffle prizes, and a gift bag filled with fun and useful gardening items.  To Register, go to provenwinners.com or call 877-865-5818

Leave it to PW to kick-off the 2011 gardening season by hosting informative and entertaining gardening events throughout the United States and Canada in spring 2011. Be sure to register as soon as possible because these retreats sell out quickly.

Coming to a city near you!
• Atlanta, Georgia–March 4th
• Seattle, Washington–March 18th
• Milwaukee, Wisconsin–April 8th
• Toronto, Ontario–April 15th

From the Official PW Flyer :

Each of these Friday spring sessions will begin with registration at 8:30 a.m., followed by nationally recognized speakers that will inform and entertain those in attendance. Participants will enjoy a catered lunch, snacks throughout the day, raffle prizes galore—and everyone attending should plan to take home a gift bag filled with fun and useful gardening items.
Here’s one participant comment from last year: “My husband and I were among the fortunate gardeners who attended the Outdoor Living Extravaganza in Chicago yesterday. Thank you, thank you, thank you for an inspiring, fun, and informational day. We’ve been serious gardeners for over 40 years and have never experienced a garden seminar that could even come close to the experience you provided. We hope this will become an annual event.”
A link to more information is available at www.provenwinners.com . The cost to attend the event is $80 per person, and registration is now available online or by calling the main office at 1-877-865-5818. Seating is limited, so those interested will be best served by reserving a space early.

Meet personalities like P.Allen Smith at these events!

IF you register by 2/15 – add BGgarden in the promo code for a FREE reusable Proven Winners bag at the event. Great to be used   at our local farmers market or favorite garden center.  I use my everytime I go grocery shopping so I don’t have to bring home more plastic bags – and this bag is heavy duty so it won’t break like shopping bags.

I hope to see you at the Outdoor Living Extravaganza   .

I would love to hear from you if you have a favorite Proven Winner annual.  Please leave a comment on this blog entry because it is fun to connect with you!

Welcome to the first of podcasts on BGgarden.com .  In this episode I interview Annie Haven of Authentic Haven Brand / Manure Tea who shares her new found love for growing seeds thanks to the inspiration of #gardenchat.  I’m a huge fan of Annie’s manure bags and I enjoy sharing with everyone that she is a huge part of BGgarden being able to go green.  I use to be a big fan of fertilizers always quoting  that ’20-20-20′ was my favorite to fertilize EVERYTHING with.  2010 I went green / natural in my home, garden, and greenhouse and owe much of my success to manuretea.com

I’m honored to have Annie has my first guest on the BGgarden.com Podcast.  In this  Annie and I share some thoughts and great memories as we recap the year after the 1st  #supersowsunday event.  In this podcast Annie shares some tips and ideas on how to start your own veggie and bloom  garden from seed.

Growing Natural with Annie Haven [ 19:38 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Just when I thought there couldn’t possibly  be another thing I could  love about Chris Mclaughlin, one of my favorite garden writers : I read her favorite quote on facebook which states: “I can’t wait to turn 50. That day I become a respectable heirloom.” ~ me

OH MY WORD…how cute is that?! I am honored to have Christine McLaughlin as our guest host on #gardenchat this Monday on Twitter.    I’ve had many laughs with the West Coast Author who shares on Twitter at : @Suburban_Farmer     I first remember chatting with Chris about her bunnies and all the wonderful compost she is able to use in her garden thanks to these adorable little critters she raises.   We were having some health issues with that little bunny pictured on the left of this text and Christine was so kind to forward my family of 4H’ers some information about the care of rabbits.  Even though Chris grows in the suburban garden and I’m out in the country, we have so much in common.     Ms. McLaughlin was a wonderful help my first year of growing green in my garden and greenhouse.   I think I’ve read her “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Composting” (Alpha, May 2010)  book at least a dozen times growing completely natural this past year. 

A few weeks ago Chris’ book :  “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Heirloom Vegetables” (Alpha, December 2010) was made available on Amazon.com    I’ve  received numerous comments and emails on the network from fans who are excited to have Chris McLaughlin as the guest host on the #gardenchat this week.   I hope you will join in the chat this week to learn more about Heirlooms.    Click on the #gardenchat logo on the right side bar or on this LINK to view more information about this event.

I’m super excited to have launched my first podcast here on the BGgarden.com .  Please check out my interview with Annie Haven of Manure Tea.com as she share some facts about growing natural and her dream garden that we are going to watch grow via tweets on #gardenchat .  More… on the link below.

A few of my favorite things are herbs and annuals I can grow or winter over in the greenhouse.   I take pride in the herbs that are produced in the winter.  Growing fresh parsley and keeping blooms that would normally only be grown in the summer here in zone 5 makes me feel like I’m ‘cheating’ nature in some way.  Kind of a powerful feeling I must say! The Winter bouquet I picked to share above may look small but to me it is like a large bouquet of red roses on Valentines day!

In the Photos above: The last of the lime harvest from the 2 year old lime shrub.  The peach bloom is from the Fancy-leaved pelargonium which in the summer I prefer to snip the flowers to enjoy the color the leaves provide.  In the winter I love to use the blooms indoors in bouquets like the one I share in the images on this blog entry.   The green in the bouquet is that of the cuttings from the Italian parsley I grew from seeds.   These grow wonderful in the greenhouse till the hot days of early spring arrive.

I share more about growing year-round at Growing4Seasons where I’m a contributor.  Stop over and see what it is like to ‘beat nature’ and grow what you want when you want!  – Bren

At some point or another I’m sure every blogger has asked themselves ‘where in the world is my traffic?’ Come on now, I know I have seen many tweets and facebook status stating they don’t care about the numbers and questioning do those isp clicks really matter? I guess just like anything else in this life, one can look at this questions as just another situation that ‘ is all in the eye of the beholder’. Today was one of those days I’m questioning ‘traffic’ and wondering WHERE THE HECK is everyone?

My nephews future bride helped me set up a flickr account 4 years ago.  It was a great way for us to share our photography with one another being so many miles away from each other and both totally into photography.    I’ve had a ‘love – hate’ relationship with the Flickr network most of the four years we’ve been together. I guess my biggest hang up was not understanding the world of sharing completely and being afraid someone was going to steal my privacy.   As time went on I learned about watermarking and that putting things out there really wasn’t that bad if you are looking to share your love for photography and invite overs to have conversations that you could learn from.

After being away from the photo sharing network for a few long months, I started thinking about  Flickr again.  My summer schedule left me too busy networking on Twitter , Facebook ,working on the photography business that I was doing the networking for to begin with and trying to keep up with my many gardens.   In late summer I had the privilege of meeting an amazing southern gardener who at the time I had no idea he was the owner / designer of that months  featured garden in one of my favorite garden magazines.  Can you imagine my surprise when I got home to flip open my summer edition of Southern Living to find Mr. Scott’s featured garden?!  It was fun talking with him on my way into Dallas Texas on that shuttle to the GWA event.   Mr. Scott was  this kind southern gardeners name and the one thing he wanted to learn while at this garden writer event was how to use Flickr.

Let Flickr Do the ‘work’

Easy to upload and install user friendly photo organizer that is free may leave you questioning the possibilities. This services provided by flickr  will give you an open gate to photography networking not to mention the gardens you will be able to share.  Users can have virtually as many photos as they want to share right at their finger tips.  Being totally into doing my own HTML / Flash photo albums that are totally mine with no strings attached is something I take pride in on my BGgarden.com albums.  HOWEVER, when it comes to pulling in the traffic those albums will sit for days if I don’t do some extra work sharing them on the networks.  With Flickr, the images they make an album with are networked almost immediately.   Below I share  a slide show that took me roughly 10 minutes to upload and type a few ‘tags’ and titles into.  With results like that …. why not let Flickr do the work for you?

Traffic Anyone?

With all the talk of outside networking with using a Flickr account and the time it took me to type this blog I’ve had 8 new ISP numbers click on my blog. It could be the links provided on the new uploads over at the photo share site but I do want to note that  none of those visitors left  a comment during this time.  I guess that is a totally different subject to be addressed in another blog entry.    My hopes with committing to use the photos sharing account once again is that it will allow me to met others who love to garden and share photos.  I’m looking for some feedback about my images the subjects in them.  I have to wonder if many I just don’t invite enough feedback because I see they are coming to the site with the hidden stat tool.

I hope I have inspired you to think about traffic and what it means to you.    I want to send a special thank you out to my Twitter friend Dawn Fine who has a RSS feed on her twitter account that will share my blog posts as they are entered.  I’m honored to have met Dawn online and look forward to someday possibly meeting her as she travels this great country of ours sharing from her full time R.V. adventures.   Please do me a favor and create some traffic over at her site today to show some blogger love! Dawns Bloggy Blog

The collection above is from my shares over at Facebook on the BGgarden Page where I share daily and the conversation is always a buzz!

I’m inviting you …. please tell me what you think about traffic on blogs.

Nothing beats opening a jar of canned roma’s from the summer canning projects and mixing it with some of my favorite herbs from the winter greenhouse.   Tonight’s dish was whipped up with some garden fresh love.

Simple and fresh ingredients  will make any dish a gourmet addition to the menu.

CLICK IMAGE above for RECIPE

This is one of my favorite recipes that we enjoy as a meal in the summer or winter.  The fun thing about growing year-round is anyone can enjoy a ‘fresh’ additive to any recipe.  What could taste better then that?

I would love to hear from you….suggestions for any recipe  welcome on the comment section below.