For The Snow Days

Or the rainy days as the case may be.



Here are two sites that will let you explore much of what Asheville, NC has to offer before you arrive.

Asheville Now

and

Explore Asheville

Grab The Badge

After a request was made, duh, we need a badge for folks to put on their blogs for Asheville 2012 The Fling if they so desire. The grab the badge function is now in the right sidebar.

You can copy the code in the box below the image to paste into your own blog's sidebar functions. This will give you the image as a link to the Flings website without the code box.

Holla if this doesn't work.

Anticipation

The time has come to announce the dates of the fifth annual Garden Bloggers Fling to be held in Asheville, North Carolina in the year 2012. Nestled in the beautiful mountains of western North Carolina the climate zones can range from a 5a or lower high atop the tallest 6000 foot peaks to a 6b in the lower sheltered valleys, all within a very short driving distance.

This is a land of four seasons. Being in the south, the seasons come slow and linger like a good southern drawl. They aren't all bunched up and in a hurry like they may be further north. When oh when should the garden bloggers come to see the garden charms of our fair mountain metropolis? Each season has so much to offer.

The definitive itinerary is still in the works. All the various garden owners and venues need to agree to our plans. Transportation needs to be arranged. Timing and prices need calculating. Adjustments are bound to be needed.

There will be three days of planned garden tours with an evening reception planned for the day before and a breakfast social in a local garden planned for the day after. Then we will send those who remain out to explore things on their own that just couldn't be fit into the schedule. Two days will be spent in Asheville and on the third day we will head into the woods to see the wild cultivated garden high on the low spot of a North Carolina mountain top.

Lunch will be provided on our three touring days and one group dinner planned. This will leave you up to three evenings to stroll downtown and have dinner in the eclectic and renowned culinary scene of Asheville.

So when is it you want to know? You need to mark your calendar.

Asheville 2012 The Fling will happen on Friday, Saturday and Sunday,
May the 18th, 19th and 20th, 2012.

The Hotel

The hotel of record where the buses will pick us up in the morning for our days activities is the Four Points Sheraton. It is located at 22 Woodfin St. in the left atrium of downtown Asheville, NC. It is walking distance to all that downtown Asheville has to offer. Here is a map. Feel free to go for a stroll and familiarize yourself with downtown.

We have reserved 50 rooms at the hotel for four nights, Thursday, May 17th to Sunday, May 20th under the assumption about half of you may want to share a room to cut costs and based on attendance numbers from the past two flings. More rooms at the group rate are available depending on when they are booked prior to the fling and the hotel's overall booking percentage. The sooner we know the better chance of getting more rooms at the group rate.

We have our own booking page at The Four Points. It also has links to much more information about the hotel.

Ignore the dates on our booking page. Shoulder dates were added to our requested nights and planned touring days for those who may want to come early or stay late and still enjoy the garden bloggers group rate.

That is downtown Asheville, NC, the famous "Cesspool of Sin" right outside the lobby of the Four Points Sheraton. Pleasure awaits.

If any important questions arise about the hotel accommodations this page will be updated.

Where garden bloggers meet

Garden bloggers at 2010 Buffalo Fling

After four successful years of Garden Bloggers Fling -- the annual meet-up of garden bloggers organized by volunteer hosts in cities across the U.S. -- the event has grown large enough to benefit from a central website and an advisory committee. Why? To provide general information about the Fling (its genesis and purpose, a schedule of future Flings, sponsor information, etc.), to provide a centralized record of each Fling, and to help each year's organizers build on the previous year's successes.

To that end, the former and future planners have, over the course of a few email discussions, formed a small advisory committee: Pam Penick (Austin), Diana Kirby (Austin), and Elizabeth Licata (Buffalo). We're setting up this blog for general Fling information and also for any future planners to use, if they wish (rather than having to create their own site each year -- reinventing the wheel, as it were). We hope you'll subscribe or add it to your feed reader in order to keep up with the latest news.

We'll also be communicating with the garden blogging community on the Facebook page for Garden Bloggers Fling. Soon we'll be posting a survey to find out what you like about any Flings you've attended and/or what you'd like to see at future events.

We love the unique local energy brought to each of the previous Flings and don’t want to impose any bureaucratic structure or rules to what has been a wonderful, organic experience from year to year. However, it’s also an enormous amount of work to host the Fling, and our goal is simply to share some economies of scale, provide some planning and management advice, and gather input from participants about what makes a Fling fabulous.

We hope you'll join us in making the Fling even better each year!

Pam Penick - Digging

Diana Kirby - Sharing Nature's Garden

Elizabeth Licata - Gardening While Intoxicated and Garden Rant