This year’s Garden Party started off on an interesting note.  I sent out one invitation for a Saturday Garden Party and my initial responses were “Regret that I can’t make it.”  So I assumed it would be a more intimate gathering.  But then I had to change the day to Sunday as I had a few kid related commitments I had forgotten about.  Sunday seemed to work out much better for all the ladies, and as the RSVP date got closer, pretty much everyone who was invited said they could come!

But a few things happened that were putting a damper on my party preparations.  The darn rabbits were eating all my flowers – just decimating them. Gladiola stalks chomped to the base.  Stalks of roses with tons of buds mowed down, and huge dahlia stalks with buds cut at the base and just thrown aside.  These rabbits were ruining my patch of flowers!

And then a couple days that week we had 90-degree temperatures. What flowers I did have blooming all fried in the heat.  On top of that, on the Friday before the party, I disrupted a yellow jacket beehive and had to call a bee exterminator.  This was all going against my well-layed plans to have a beautiful garden full of flowers for the party 🙁

I honestly wasn’t sure if I would have any flowers left in the garden. Can anything else go wrong I wondered? And wouldn’t you know it, it rained all day Saturday! Hitesh asked me, “Are you sure the rain is going to subside by tomorrow?”  “YES,” I said, “I checked the weather forecast 10 times, and it’s going to be a nice day.” But Hitesh asked me to have a backup plan.  My back up plan was to have the ladies hang out inside. Luckily, a few days earlier I drove to Half Moon Bay Nursery and picked up a bunch of flowers for everyone to take home.  I had these displayed all over the kitchen, so it would feel like we were in the garden even though we were inside 🙂 Hitesh even commented on how it looked like a florist shop inside.  That was the idea!

Flowers from the nursery for all the ladies

An indoor garden display

I was determined to salvage what flowers and plants I had left in the garden. I went and bought some chicken wire netting and netted the entire area that was being eaten by the rabbits.  In addition to this, I even bought some coyote urine powder and spread that all over this area.  I called George at Bay Area BeeBusters to come and take care of the yellow jacket bee problem. I trimmed all the flowers and plants that were fried. I even had time to buy some fresh new plants and plant them in the garden.

The one area that was thriving and didn’t need any work was my vegetable patch up on the hill. The flowers, plants, and herbs here were all looking great! That was going to be the “Star of the show” at this year’s Garden Party.

On the Saturday before the party Rani jazzed up the flowers to be given away with decorative moss. This freed me up to set out all the dishes for the lunch gathering.

Hitesh, Anjali and my Dad hung “Garden Party” signs outside so the ladies didn’t miss our home 🙂

The preparations were coming together nicely.  By Saturday night, our kitchen, family room and the rest of our home were ready for the garden party.

We had a few little things left to do on Sunday morning. I wanted to make a little bouquet of herbs, do a last-minute sweep of the garden, and have Rani pretty up our courtyard with some jeweled decorative pillows and candles.  We could sleep peacefully and wait for Sunday morning. 🙂

Next post, Garden Party and Ladies Lunch 2016