Nursery Hopping

Because our oldest daughter has been bitten by the gardening bug just recently, her enthusiasm for plants and flowers is out of control. I sympathize. While mine is a bit tempered compared to last year and the year before, I have absolutely no willpower when I try to walk out of a nursery empty-handed. I just can't do it.


Kara drove to our house early this morning and we took off for Van Wert so we could scoop up some goodies at the Evergreen Garden Club's annual plant sale. Members share from their own gardens, and with most things costing between one to three dollars, even if it was common Stella d'Oro Daylilies or purple Coneflowers, bargains like that are hard to resist.

I went last year and got lots of wonderful things to help fill up our new garden at the back of our property. Two that I remember getting there are my Baptisia and Blenheim Royal Purple Iris. Oh, and the Borage that threatened to consume half of the garden by midsummer, and it's not a small garden. I actually ripped that out by the first of August. It just plain scared me.

Mom was at the sale, of course, since she is a member of the gardening club, and she was helping Kara with her choices. It was fun to watch as she went from the herbs to the shade plants to the sun plants to the ground covers, with that plant lust in her eyes. I recognized it all too well.

In the end, she spent just twenty dollars and got some lovely things like Pulmonaria, Baptisia, Siberian Iris, Violets, and several other things that I can't remember. I only bought two things: a Globe Thistle (Echinops ritro) and a Chinese Forget-me-Not (Cynoglossum amabile). I was trying to pace myself. There were other temptations in store and we were just getting started.

After we left the plant sale, we stopped in to visit my grandma. We chatted for a bit, then we all piled into Kara's car and went out to Laurie's Naturescapes. A trip to Laurie's, whether you buy anything or not, is a feast for the eyes. She not only has a good assortment of annuals, perennials, trees, shrubs, and hanging pots, but lots of home and garden decorator items as well. It takes a lot of time to go through the shop there and it's best to have a go-round several times, because once is just not enough. You're sure to miss something.

Grandma got a few things for herself and bought Kara a hanging pot of Strawflowers (Helichrysum bracteatum). She thought I might feel left out, so she let me pick one out, too. I chose a hanging pot of deep purple Verbena. I'll hang it from the Washington Hawthorn tree in front of the house.

We took Grandma back home and then we went to Walmart, because ... well ... it was on the way home. They had gotten a LOT of new things in, and I picked up some annuals there for my large planter that I use on my front porch. I also got a whisk broom, which I'd been wanting for some time. It will come in handy when I'm potting things up and need to clean up around the potting area, and also when applying mulch, I can use it to 'whisk' the wayward mulch off the brick or stone edging. I couldn't find the whisk broom so I had to ask an employee where they were. Kara didn't even know what a whisk broom was, and the employee and I got amused at that, although it probably made our older age that much more apparent.

We picked up some fries at McDonald's and a Cream Slush and milkshake at Sonic for our lunches. Kara and I have healthy eating habits in common, too.


We stopped at home so that I could drop off my purchases, because Kara's car was pretty full and we still had to visit The Greenhouse Effect near Antwerp. The nursery was busy and they had oodles of nice plants, including those wonderful Weeks® roses they are known for. They had a couple that I would love to have bought - 'Moonstone' and 'Strike It Rich' - but I still have several sitting at home, potted up and waiting to be planted, so I resisted. I got my 'Chihuly' and 'Hot Cocoa' roses there last year, and they were just wonderful. I got some Coleus and Helichrysum, as well as a large hanging basket with Bacopa. Kara bought a hanging basket with deep blue Lobelia and a couple of other things.

She took me to Paulding, where I needed to pick up my car, and we stopped at Alco, where she resisted (I think she had already spent the limit she had set for herself), but I did not. I was rather surprised to see the nice assortment of annuals and perennials there, and I got a few more things to fill out my planter boxes. We parted ways at this point, and remarked that we had lots of work to do when got home, planting our purchases from the day.

A gardener's work is never done. A shopper's neither.