Central Midwest Gardening: October 2011 - National yardwork month in most states, 1 by shortleaf

shortleaf wrote:
Hi Crit! The only bulb company that I am familiar with that has been good to me is Brecks. They put out this $25 free coupon that I jumped on and got 6 Lily Tree bulbs. The first three came in a Spring shipment and they grew and are 1 to 2 feet tall. Overall, I am pleased. I can't really complain because I paid a few cents less than 6 dollars for it all. I used 2 $25 free coupons from them, each order came to $2.94. They were driving hard to the hoop to sell me more stuff but I didn't falter, I stayed strong, I was, "sorry, that's all I can afford", after you say that a couple times they back off, they're just happy about getting rid of stuff I think, even if they have to give it away..lol
So Crit, inquiring minds want to know! How is you're hand? My mind inquires pretty regularly, so I'm speaking for myself there! But, I digress, back to the coupon, it was totally free, not buy $100 get $50 worth of plants!

I got a big ol' load of black dyed mulch. When I told my friend here that, I thought she was going to have a cow, I covered my cheeks in case she swung at my face! Hehe! Not really, but she was none too pleased, hopefully she'll thank me later. I know she wanted Cocoa shell mulch, but this place didn't have it, I really wanted black, it just goes so well with my tropical themed bed there, lava rocks, 'basjoo' Banana Trees, 'Luna Red' Hibiscus, seashells and everything. Altho, I have this feeling in a few years I'm gonna wish it wasn't there, I mean dye in the environment, what was I thinking?! They gave me real big scoops out of their Bobcat, it seriously filled my trailer up! I've had 4 scoops in it before, that wasn't this much, I was thinking, "boy, they must really want to get rid of this stuff". I mean the heaping part in the bucket was about as big as what was in the bucket itself! I was frantically trying to make room between buckets by pushing the pile down to the corners, some still spilled over but not much.

Have you ever seen a big (old) area rug used as weed-block?! This rug was around 15 years old and it was filthy. I took it up off the living room floor the other day, and boy was it ever filthy and stinky! I asked my friend because it's hers, but she agreed, "throw it away", so, it became weed block! It was a nice rug back in the day, the price was on the back still, $50. But, actually, I'm not big on having area rugs all over a house, there is no shortage of area rugs to use as weed-block, believe me! My friend agrees, she's letting go of quite a few rugs that have been around forever and really have no use. You can see it in the photo, I haven't yet covered it all the way up. I won't get too descriptive but cats had been hacking up hairballs on it and going to the bathroom on it for many, many, years!
Will