"Daddy-O, how much do you think she'll pay us to make her potted plants look better by sitting next to them?"
"Princess, we did not negotiate our contract prior to the job. Maybe we should unionize."
This year, I swore to myself I would NOT spend every weekend at the garden nursery buying plants and planting them. Because that's basically how I spent last summer when I wasn't fiddling with stupid Lyme disease. I was going to just go once or twice to replace lost plants and buy what I needed to freshen up the pots and be done with it.
Saturday, I went to the nursery. Mr. Wild Dingo was all, "Get 4 replacement catmints, and two plants to replace two dead osteospermums." So basically all I had to do was buy 6 plants and nothing more and he would do all the work to plant them.
I came home with 16 plants, a new pot (the small green one), and some miniature pot accessories. Sigh. I can't help it. It's an addiction! Look at these two. You can almost see the disappointment in their faces from me falling off the wagon. Or maybe they're disappointed because I have no control over the ridiculous weather here where it's too hot to walk until 7 p.m. so they're mad at me too.
"Daddy-O. Mom is totally delusional. She thinks she's some highfalutin gardener. Any pup can dig in a garden! Am I right?"
"Princess, I'm just doin' my job. I have no opinion on mom's gardening habits. But I can tell you right now, this is a whole lot better than livin' on the city streets of Taiwan. I'm just sayin', life is good here!"
I think the problem I have with my pots are that those black aeonium succulents LOVED it under the porch all winter and grew from 1" tall to where they are now. They fell over. I had to cut and re-pot them again so they'd stand up. I also had a white lambs ear last year that was in bad shape because it got too much water in the ground and by the time I moved it to a dry pot it was struggling. That white lambs ear likes it BONE dry. Not to mention, once the leaves get any dirt on them, it's impossible to remove which makes it hard to pot because you generally get a lot of dirt all over your plants when you plant them. Well, at least I do. I plant like I cook: MESSY! I had to be super careful not to get dirt on it, then I used the leaf blower to blow off the dirt it did have on it before I watered. I still have dirt on the leaves. No big deal except dirt on a white plant looks bad and eventually rots the leaves of this plant. Still, I thought I'd give it ONE more try this year because I love it so much and it looks nice against black aeoniums. I had so much trouble finding colorful accent plants for this that would do well in shade and like it dry. Most flowering plants need regular water.The white lambs ear should do well here but I add some flowering succulents (portulaca) for pops of color along with cute little wooden flowers and bird house to for more color. I love succulents but they can difficult to work with if you like a lot of color. I'm already planning other succulent fill should the portulacas don't work out.
Then I had to find homes for 6 new rosette succulents given to me by a friend, so i bought a pot and found some more cool sedums that are two-three color reds/greens and mound and trail. I put more portulacas in there as well and since it's in the sunnier section those should flower a lot more.
As I scope out areas where plants are struggling on our property, I'm brainstorming new ideas for different plants in those spots. I have a mile-long list of new plants. It's bad enough I have Lyme disease. Now I have a Garden Addiction. I don't think they make a pill for that.
If you're wondering: In the purple pot I have a weeping camilia which I abused last year due to being so sick I barely took care of it, but it's coming back nicely. I also have a hosta (plantain lily) in back, pink stripped supertunias, two sweet potato vines (not flowering, they get really bushy and trail), a purple Lobelia on the sunny side, and a plant I call "Cousin It" which is just Fiber Optic grass. I had the grass in the succulent pot, but that grass tends to LOVE being moist so i moved it over to the moist pot. I love that grass. It's really fun and would do well in a middle of a pot with nothing else, just growing straight up and then flowing 360 degrees in all direction. It has these cool little doo-dads on the end that are like shiny fiber optics.
These are some more supertunias (super bells or caliibrachoa) that are super easy to grow. I usually shy away from annuals because of all the work, but pots seem to be a great way to use annuals rather than in the ground. Plus since we're in zone 9, some Superbell varieties can make it through the winter. These I did not purchase, but we're part of this year's gardening work by contractors who help us once per year do some of the bigger jobs. That's a coleous in the back, which I love but am always sad to say goodbye when their season is over.
I saw these yellow stripped superbells 2 weeks ago and really wanted them. I went back to the nursery and bought them with no idea where I'd plant them. I stuck them in the bamboo. Bamboo loves it wet so these bells will do great with the bamboo. It gets tons of sun here, at least 8 hours. See? I can always find a spot for bells!
Meanwhile, we purchased an Algae product to clean our fountain pond but upon reading the information on the product, it says it's known to cause cancer and is harmful to animals (but not fish). Since birds, bees, beneficial insects and our own dogs drink out of the pond, not to mention, I use pond water to hand water some of the beds, I have to take it back to the store. How much you want to bet I can't just take it back without buying 87 more plants? So many plants. So little time.
WOWZERs - just so beautiful. Mom wants to know how you keep the Dynamic Duo from eating all your plants? That would be Misty doing the eating, not Mr. L.
Woos - Lightning and Misty