Most people know I am an avid gardener and that I paint the flowers that grow in my yard, but most people don’t know how this fascination came to be.

I consider these three things from my childhood as being the reason I love gardening so much.

My grandmother was an avid gardener who loved azaleas and rhododendrons, and went to great lengths to grow them in San Antonio, Texas. A location where they did not thrive. She loved them so much, that she grew them in gigantic container beds to make sure the soil would stay acidic enough for them to flourish. No matter how much she loved them, she also encouraged my love to pick flowers and arrange bouquets. I remember picking almost every bloom off of her favorite azalea bush one year, I was probably six or seven, and making bouquets that were gigantic in my memory. This is one of my fondest memories, and I have come to believe this is why I love arranging flowers.
When I was 15 years old, my dad and I built a stacked stone wall for my mom. She also loves gardening and she wanted to have a rock garden near the road. I loved helping with that wall and then seeing it every time I returned home. I still love working on projects in the garden, and always have some new improvement going on in my garden. I love planting and growing things and then years later I still enjoy the memories of the work it took to create too.
I grew up traveling around the western United States and Canada with my grandparents almost every summer and often a visit to a big garden was on the itinerary. Before turning 18, I had visited several the botanical gardens. Highlights I remember most are Butchart gardens in British Columbia, the rose gardens at the Missouri botanical Garden.

Visiting grand and unique gardens holds a special place in my heart and this is why the Keukenhof garden is an excursion in my Art Treasures of the Netherlands tour that is coming up in the April of 2023.

This is a springtime garden with some 7-million spring flowering bulbs that bloom in an eight week extravaganza.

I’ve always wanted to visit this garden, to see the large plantings of daffodils and tulips. To admire the well-designed landscape that celebrates spring and all the wonderful flowers that bloom during this vibrant time of the year.

We will spend the afternoon there, and I cannot wait.

The day we visit to Keukenhof Gardens will also include visiting the? Museum, then after a fun lunch, we will spend the afternoon admiring all the springtime flowers.

It will be such a pleasure to see to walk and sketch among all the colorful flowers.