Five days ago it snowed and dropped to 14° overnight. Today it was almost 80°. Must be springtime in North Carolina!
Today was a fun day. We started at the city dump, disposing of the old loveseat and corner cabinet. The last of the crap furniture! What a relief.
Then we had lunch at Nosh, and then drove out to Plant Delights for their open house. They're the ones I wrote about recently, with the funny plant descriptions. Here's the best one I saw today:
Verbena tenuisecta 'Decked Out'
This amazing verbena appeared as a seedling near our back deck; hence, the name. V. 'Decked Out' has sailed through our miserable winters in great shape and rewards us with a constant show of rich, fluorescent purple flowers all summer. The non-aggressive habit makes it perfect for fun "plant marriages." Oh sorry, I forgot the courts ruled that those weren't legal, but they can still cohabitate in all states except South Carolina. Pot size: 24 fl. oz
They have open house four times a year, and just mail order the rest of the time. We try to go to a couple each year, and I think this is the first time we'd been to the winter open house. (Not that it feels like winter! At 9 pm we have the front door standing open.) Their garden looked really different because most of the plants were dormant. Normally it's a series of paths winding through the lush tall growth. Today, with all the grasses cut down to the ground and all the trees bare, you could see from one end to the other.
We bought 6 plants this afternoon:
- a dwarf buddleia with white flowers, which will go in a new bed near the back door.
- another phlomis to replace the one which seems to have died one that one really cold night, or go next to it if it comes back.
- a pineapple lily. No idea how it will do, but it looked so pretty.
- a "spanish snapdragon."
- a gorgeous dark red euphorbia.
- a fuzzy foliage plant for part shade, which we can't remember the name of.
Things I wanted to buy, but restrained myself:
- a hardy orchid.
- an alstromeria.
- more euphorbias.
- a two-colored fern that I had never seen before.
- a tall shrub with orange flowers called Orange Peel Cestrum.
- a salmon colored crinum lily. Incredibly beautiful, but $30 for one plant? Not today.
(the most expensive plant we saw was a peony for a jaw-dropping $150!)
After we got back we relaxed for awhile, then spent a little time out in the yard. No heavy work, just removing the straw from the tender plants. It looks like the gerber daisies didn't make it. Can't say as I'm surprised. They're only hardy to 22° and it got down to 9° that one night. In brighter news, the artichokes all survived! Yay! The hardy amaryllis don't have new growth yet, but the bulbs feel nice and firm.
Tomorrow we're going to plant seeds: beets, spinach, and sugar snaps. And the onion sets. We're so far behind! The seeds should have been planted weeks ago. But then they probably would have died last Monday night. So maybe it's a good thing that we're behind.
Now we're finally watching last week's ANTM. Thank god the 9/11 truther didn't make it in! I don't think I would have watched this season if she had been on it.
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