Hi Monica, it was a pleasure to meet you in person, and to get a personally autographed copy of your book as well. Your photos are wonderful, I missed some of those things and am happy to see them here. George looks so happy to see you get home. :-)
Frances

Great photos, Monica! Get some rest ... sounds like a fab time with great gardeners (my thoughts were with you).

Great photos Monica! George is missing you already. He was Whiny Dog last night.

I'm so glad you made it to SF. It was a pleasure having you stay with the Lawn Man and me. It was great having you visit, even if we weren't home much.

I'm glad we got to the Arboretum yesterday. I enjoyed the prairie immensely. I'd never walked around in it before, and it was fun discovering all the wildflowers, even if I didn't know what they all were. I'll bet Fiona and James are happy to have you back home!

Hello Monica...Fantastic photos...I am reliving the whole weekend through them~~It was a delight to meet you...I came home exhausted from a wonderful time. There wasn't enough time to see all that I wanted to see. Is George Linda's pup? Gail

It was so nice to meet you, Monica. You got some really nice pics of Chicago and the gardens, and I'm glad you included the people pics too.

NIce shots of Chicago. Sounds like you had a great time with some fellow bloggers.

Monica — it was a delight to meet you. You were such a cheerful presence! I think we snapped the same pine cones. Alas, I have no idea what it is — do you? It will be so much more enjoyable reading all the blogs now that I can put people with them.

Sounds like a fantastic time, Monica! How great to meet fellow bloggers and visit all those places. Love all the photos.

I'm glad I got to put a face with the quirky sense of humor. (Quirky is the best.) I'm so impressed with your shot of those weird yellow flowers from the Botanic Garden. My camera was freaked out by their yellowness.
The Schulenburg Prairie is even more awesome in autumn when the grass is tall & the Gentians are in bloom.

Whee - what a bunch of great pictures! Perhaps this is a sign of Too Many Gardens over the weekend, but my favorite is the reflections off the skyscrapers onto the facade of the Art Institute. (The puppy is a close second.) Thank you so much for the help with blogger organizing and herding!

What fantastic pictures! I'm so glad you got to see the Schulenburg Prairie and Morton Arboretum; it's another of our best horticultural institutions!

Terrific photos Monica! No explanations necessary, at least for those who made it. I really enjoyed talking to you and hope to see you next year!

Monica, your pictures need no narrative. They arebeautiful and self explanatory. What a dekight to meet you and have a chance to get a good visit in. I really enjoyed that the most I think-getting to meet all the blogging friends. Thank you again for the wonderful dragonfly tin and notes. I have it sitting out on display.

Monica: You are truly the Garden Faerie given all the magic you performed helping us get from one place to another. Love your look at the gardens and architecture and bloggers as well. I never tire of seeing those drifts of salvia. Keep musing and no, it is not at all unusual to check blooms with a flashlight.

What wonderful pictures of the Windy City, Monica. It looks like you all had a great time. It would be so cool to be able to go and meet everyone in person that have become friends through blogging. George is very handsome!

Great pictures! Looks like the event was very well-attended, and such lovely gardens.

The ornamental details from Rick Bayless' garden are so striking!

It's pretty cool to see what things everyone photographed (like the river of Salvia!) and what each individual blogger took for their own special memory of the CSF - thanks for sharing, Monica. Looks like you had a great time in my old hometown!

Annie at the Transplantable Rose

Monica, I was so thrilled to finally get to meet you this weekend! Thank you for the book (now, why didn't I think to have you autograph it!) and the notes. I enjoyed dinner and the walk to the Lurie;I'm just sorry I didn't say a proper good-bye. Sunday's events were a little tentative, and by noon Beckie and I decided that driving anywhere but home sounded too daunting.

Thank you for sharing all these photos with us; it looks like you really made the most of your time, visiting lots of other places than those on the schedule. Beckie and I have already decided we need to make a trip back to the Botanic Garden to see everything we missed. If you are heading to Chicago again some time, let me know, and perhaps we can meet up again.

Besides seeing our gardens, the best part of coming home, is seeing the pets again:)

Monica -- It was so nice to meet you and visit last weekend. You captured several areas I never saw at the Chicago Botanic Garden, so it was like being there all over again looking at your post. I especially love your texture shots of the plants. That Wisteria braid at Rick Bayless' garden was so cool, wasn't it? I was drawn to it too, and got a shot of that one as well.

I enjoyed your photos. To cover that much ground, you must have been moving at a pretty fast pace thru your tours.

Very unusual blooms in the photo below the poppies.
Marnie

Herrliche Bilder Monica. Sieht nach einem gelungenen Trip aus.
Gruß, Sabine

Hi Monica....glad you had a great time. Chicago is a wonderful city and your photographs do it justice. I love the bed of poppies, such a great idea.....
It must have been fun meeting up with everyone, no doubt there were lots of laughs....

Posted your tea last Friday so it should be to you sometime next week......

George is a lovely old guy......

Monica,

Glad you made it. Your pics are awesome. Like LCS I liked the one of the sun being reflected on the Art Institute the most.

Wasn't that black iris the most beautiful thing? The darkness of flower and the bright background threw my camera's sensor for a loop like it did in your and blew out the background.

Wonderful photos from Chicago, thanks for sharing it with those of us that didn't get to go. I'm glad you had a nice time. :)

Hi Monica, It was such fun meeting you. I will now be a regular reader of your blog. I think your photos here spoke for themselves. Simply a beautiful place and wonderful people. It is nice to see George. I bet he was thrilled to have you home.

Monica it was so nice to meet you. Ani and I appreciated your help pointing us in the right direction when we needed it.

From your pictures I can tell you are an early riser. Brilliant idea for some good city shots.

Wow - it looks like you had a fantastic time and saw some wonderful gardens, you lucky thing!:)

Hi, Monica! It was great to meet you last weekend! I really like your photos and it's nice to see some with actual people in them :) I see that I need to visit the Art Institute's garden sometime. It was mostly weeds last time I saw it but clearly they've spruced things up a bit. It was fun walking around with you and Ani and visiting that venerable Chicago institution, Old Navy :p I still haven't gone back for those shorts but I will soon!

Flippin 'ec!

Can't think of anything else to say. Even the photos are overwhelming.

One question though - is that hysop or lavender.

Esther

Monica! What a time you had! Look at all those bloggers that you met..Wow!
All the photos that you share are spectacular! Thanks for sharing..now rest up! Enjoy your weekend!

Lots of smiley happy faces, gardens and flowers :) What more could a girl want ? Looks as if you all had a great time.

wow, almost makes me want to go to the windy city myself....
skywatching

So glad you had a great time! What fun to meet so many other bloggers in person. I bet you all did not even talk about blogging-just gardens. I can just imagine with all those wonderful gardens you saw. It looks like Chicago was in full bloom for sure. Kudos to the organizers and hi George!

Wow, you got some terrific pictures! (Looks like many of the same kinds of shots I would have taken :) Your post is almost as good as being there! Did Hank from Lake County Point of View make it? I had wanted to meet him in person, as well as Christopher from Outside Clyde, Mr. BrownThumb, you, and everyone actually! *sigh* Maybe next year in Buffalo...

Wow...you got to meet all those bloggers? What fun and it must have taken you quite a while to upload all the great photos...welcome back!!!
Michelle From Rambling Woods

Looks as if you were all having fun, and wow, you covered a lot of ground (so to speak), no wonder you were tired. Many great pictures here; I especially liked the twining woody vine stems.

Oh, what a wonderful Spring Fling you had! So inspiring!
We hope you brought home some presents for the cats! ; )

Wunderschoene Eindruecke! Kann mir vorstellen, dass man noch viel mehr Zeit in jedem einzelnen Garten verbringen koennte.
LG, Bek

Just stopping by and thought I would say hello! I loved seeing your smiling face on Linda's post! Have a great week! gail

Monica, you've got some fabulous photos here! I was so glad to meet you and spend some time with you. Not sure if you got my response to your message about visiting the Toledo Botanical Gardens, but yes, absolutely! Let's do it! It would be great to see you and spend time with you again! :-)

Just browsing through all the photos was a wonderful 'trip!' Wish I could have made it, but it became quite clear it would have been impossible. YOU had a wonderful time, and I'm so glad! :-)

Have to lie down now after looking at all those pics and reading all the comments. It's great to see what a wonderful time you all had. And being the person that you are you must have had your fellow bloggers often in stitches.

BTW I didn't tell anybody but I will tell you, (just keep it under your hat, will you) that those salvias used to create a blue river are considered very passee here in The Netherlands (only very old and decrepit people use them in their gardens). If it's Piet's design then he has been a very naughty boy. ;-) He's right though, whether a plant is in fashion or not is beside the point, if good, simply use it.