Garden Tour

The Garden Tour was a success!!! We had about 100 visitors pass through the gardens. I worked next door at my neighbor's house. It was a hot day, but we had a good breeze. I was worn out at the end of the day.

We had an Azalea Trail maid at each house. They are such sweet girls. The Mobile Azalea Trail began as a project by Mr. Sam Lackland and the Mobile Junior Chamber of Commerce, now known as the Mobile Jaycees, in 1929 to encourage citizens of Mobile to plant azaleas that would line local street. The Azalea Trail ran through many areas of the city and was marked by a pink line that ran through the middle of the street. The Trail Maid Court began as a group of 10 girls who would gather over a three day period to help greet visitors to the opening of the Trail every year. The popularity of the Azalea Trail Court grew so popular during the 1950's that girls from around the Southeast were bidding to be a member of the court. A decision was made to only allow girls from Mobile County to participate in the court and the America's Junior Miss was formed as scholarship program for girls around the country. The court as grown from its original 10 that only gathered for three days to 50 girls that represent the city of Mobile year round. When you are chosen as a Trail Maid you must have your antebellum dress made. The Mobile Jaycee's order all of the fabric that is involved with the main structure of the dress so that all colors are uniform. It is the Trail Maids responsibility to commission a dressmaker and come up with a design for your dress. Every Trail Maid dress is completely different. The dressmaking process takes an average of 3 months for the dress to be completed. Maya, our Trail Maid had over 700 yards of ribbon on her dress. Each dress is unique to the girl. There are 10 yellow, 10 peach, 10 lavender, 10 blue and 1 pink. The pink is the Queen. The Queen was originally assigned to be blue until she was made queen. So this year there are only 9 blue. They make appearances all around the country. They went to Washington for the Inaugural Parade this year. A friend of mine took photos of all the gardens. When I get some of her photos, I will share them with you. I know she got some great shots of the other Azalea Trail Maids.

Here is the tablescape I made for our snacks, etc.

The neighbors ordered those light posts 2 weeks ago for the tour. They came Friday at 4pm!!! Good timing. They were out there putting them up Friday night and eraly Saturday morning.

I know that everyone that came to our garden was very impressed. I hope they liked all the others as well.

I will be sharing more pictures soon.