Flea Market Gardening friends tell of their FMG experience and interviews website owner, Sue Langley. as the group celebrates their 2nd year March 6th, 2013.

THIS MORNING I HAD the pleasure to visit a beach house where I saw a beautiful wind chime made of a colander, glass beads, and silver spoons (inspired by Sue Gerdes’ photo); an hour later, I was relaxing to the vignette of green grapes, scarlet flowers, and a worn white chair that whispered “French farmhouse—please sit come for a spell!”; photo by Linda Gladman. And if all this were not enough to make my day more calm, beautiful, and magical … I suddenly found myself revisiting one of the first photographs I saw that inspired where I am today: the beautiful white door arbor, red flowers cascading down the center, in front of a background cloud of white cleome, by Jeanne Sammons.

This amazing garden world I inhabit changes throughout the day and inspires me no end, but it also inspires some 28,000 friends and visitors from around the world at the time of this writing. It’s a virtual wonderland, classroom, and community gathering place all in one called Flea Market Gardening. This March 6th, 2013, the Flea Market Gardening group is 2 years old! To celebrate, I thought you might want to know more about the writer, photographer, and organizer who has nurtured Flea Market Gardening, both the website and Facebook page, since the earliest days: her name is Sue Langley.

When Sue originally moved to the high California mountains with her husband, Larry Langley, and corgi, Maggie, she began blogging about her gardening projects, hoping it would help others with similar situations, especially with deer, snow, and every gardener’s nemesis: weeds. Today Sue says she can hardly remember what she used to do before Flea Market Gardening. As she says, “I’m so happy with how we’ve grown and all the good friends and creative gardeners I’ve met.”

This year in her own garden, Sue is working on installing a deer fence so she can grow vegetables. She is continuing to collect old watering cans and fun new containers, one of which is an old tool box.

Intrigued by circles in garden design, Sue recently created a circular sitting area and says she is starting a circle of herbs this spring. Here is a look at her wonderful meadow project.

Sue balances time at Flea Market Gardening with giving monthly gardening workshops at a local garden center where she says one of the most common questions she hears is: “How can I cover a slope quickly with drought resistant plants”   Sue also speaks at local garden clubs and most recently gave a talk on how she replaced a weedy field with beautiful wildflowers native to her state. Here’s a look at her birdbath and the beginnings of a lavender field.

How does Sue work as a garden speaker, organize the Flea Market Gardening on the web, and find time to garden at home? She says, “I never put pressure on myself, because all these, especially FMG are meant to be fun. I know I’ll be gardening a lot more once spring comes … Everything gets done in good time.”

Also, behind the scenes at Flea Market Gardening are wonderful artists and contributors like Marie Niemann of Utah (who photographed the penny orb she made, above) and Jeanne Sammons from Iowa (who created the tipsy pots here), both of whom have become Sue Langley’s friends as well as moderators on FMG Facebook.  Most important of all, it is the community of creative gardeners, artists, and crafters who visit Flea Market Gardening everyday with stories and photos of inspirational garden projects who make this inspirational place work.  We are all so glad you are growing with us!