I have bought into 3 co-ops this year, plus the daylily sale at the Daylily show in Albany. I think that I may have an addictive personality. I say this tongue in cheek, however there is a grain of seriousness. I over buy and then have trouble getting it all in the ground. Does anyone else do this?
I need a 12 step program
I had a hard time admitting it, until I met a lady who freely told me that her yard was the one with all the unplanted plants out front. Seems she has the same addictive behaviour I do, and had come to terms with it. I want them all, but I have to try to think of the wellfare of the plants, because it does take some work to get them into the ground here, with all this clay.
Maybe after a few years (we've only been at this home one year and it was a blank canvas) I will settle down to just occasional bouts of plant fever. Right now it is a cronic illness. (But I love it!)
Don't feel all alone, there are lots of us.
i do it and still have a few outside that need planting. it is chronic and nothing to do about it when it comes to plants. i too have daylily fever right now. hehe hubby hopes it goes away soon. hhehe
I'm a sucker for anything that's a buck or two when a nursery is getting rid of stuff at the end of a season. I end up with plants that I don't really have a good spot for. I have Lyland cypress that I plant because they were a buck a piece but I don't have room to let them get big. X-mas trees for the future I think. LOL.
Talk about an addiction! I'm sneaking plants by my hubby after grocery shopping 'cause he says "Not another plant!". I can't pass up those end-of the season buys either. But really, the season is just getting started if you speak of summer/fall planting. I did find some healthy looking summer bloomers at Home Depot; white coneflowers, purple salvia East Friesland and new gold lantana. I've got these newly purchased plants sitting outside by my facet waiting for that perfect spot too.
I'm still trying to "make dirt" on the hilly side of a pond's clay-for-saken edge. Hopefully these new babies will get in the ground by mid-August.
Have to add the blue garden phlox too that I got yesterday when I just went in to buy a package of screws! My pocketbook needs a rest. Plants aren't sold in the dead of winter are they? LOL
This message was edited Jul 26, 2006 2:12 AM
Yes Turtle, I do it too. Luckily, I have a great trash can and dumpster that I check for distressed plants..so I don't pay for all of them and very little for the distressed ones that I do pay for. The Irony is that I bring them home and bring them back up to speed, but some of the plants that I have purchased for full price that are still in pots languish due to not being planted. While I still do have the "nursery" out back, I am very proud that this year has been a great one for getting lots of stuff into the ground... (I had to hire help thought) Still have more to go in the ground... My husband and I have discussed what in the worlds I will do with myself when there is not one more bit of place in which to plant more plants and I guess I will have to go into business then and get them into others folks gardens! :)
Susan
Susan, buy more land. LOL
Brenda
HA! There is a cemetery up the street and I'm going to adopt it once my garden is full! :) It'll be hard to have a hose all the way up the street.. can you picture it?
We're in my husband childhood home and are not going anywhere! :)
Susan
at least the cemetary will look nice. hmm is there a fire hydrant near the cemetary you could use?? hehe
:)!! Yes, I'm good at sneaking watering anyway.. so that might be the ticket!
Hello fellow gardeners! I just moved to Marietta from Claymont, DE. I had to give up my garden I built and tended for 22 years! It was so much harder to leave the garden then the house! Sniff, sniff. The other day when I was grocery shopping at Super Walmart, I bought a bunch of annuals just to own a flower again! I couldn't stand not owning one single flower. It is such a bad time of year to plant anything, and our new yard dosen't have any blooming anything in it. I couldn't control myself, and impulse purchased plants and had no idea where I was going to put any of them. I used to buy so many flowers in the spring that I watched some of them die because I couldn't get them in the ground in time. I have a personal rule I follow now for the plants and for me (guilt wise). If I can't plant it today when I get home, or tomorrow morning at the very latest, I can't have it. If I wait until the next morning, rain or shine I do it before I do anything else. Between the craft store addiction and the garden store addiction, I don't spend too much money on anything else!
tpangelinan - welcome to Georgia. I like your philosophy of "today or tomorrow". I won't even go into a plant place this time of year as I KNOW I cannot work in this heat.
Welcome!!
Okay... it really has to be a small world, but was it the super wal-mart on 41 next to Sams club this past weekend? I was supposed to be school shopping but of course I looked around the garden area. There was a woman checking out at that register with annuals and I wondered if she realized half the season was over!!!!! Was that you??!!!
Welcome to the neighborhood!!!!!!!!
:)
Susan
Welcome tpangelinan, I'm a Florida transplant, welcome to Ga!...and a reformed craft addict with a new hobby...gardening :) I wish I could trade craft stuff for seeds and plants - LOL!! DH rarely lets me bring a plant home, he's all analytical like, and reasonable, you know? (grin)
He gave me a planting budget the other day for new plants, and I still haven't spent a dime because I can't make up my mind...and he OFFERED! Yikes, what's happening to me? I agonize over plant sites and seed sites, choosing, unchoosing, trying to figure out what the growing season has left and how to s-t-r-e-t-c-h the allowance he gave me and I'm paralyzed. Seeds and waiting till spring to see them? plants, and knowing they have maybe 12 weeks to grow? A mix, immediate gratification and future tantalization together?...arggghhhh. Needless to say the housework took a downturn after that offer... :D
I'm about ready to seed the back yard with alfalfa and throw my hands in the air. Although I did see an AWESOME post in the Container gardening forum that has me all a-ga-ga with plant related things to do with crafts AND pots while I wait for planting season in the spring.
(eep, he caught me writing this...LOL)
Oh well,
-Sunny
Well, yeah, the season is half over, but it is only half over. We are blessed, or the converse, with a looonng growing season. Just remember how those plants will look in October and November if you can keep them going now. In my case last winter some things never stopped blooming. I just have to grit my teeth and bear it when I look at garden photos from the north east, north west, or Europe 'cause I know that I will never have those plants blooming at the same time in my garden. But when the snow starts flying up north I will still be able to walk out and pick a bouquet of coneflowers, butterfly ginger, cammellias, quince, and the list goes on. My goal is to have something in bloom every month that I can cut for an arrangement. I will grant you that the arrangement may not always be lush and full but generally I can do it.
An aside here, does anyone know where the Allium 'Hair' originated? It looks just like the back alley weeds that I used to cut when I was making arrangements for the retiree's luncheons at a Birmingham church, with no budget what so ever. My mother and I always laughed at the ladies reaction to it. They were just fascinated and couldn't believe that it was a weed.
Beth
tpangelinan, welcome to God's country! (That's what a lady said to me when I moved to GA 20 years ago, and she was right.) I so understand where you are coming from, when we moved to this new home a year ago, there was only a couple of foundation plantings and a pitiful rose patch, and all I could see was a blank canvas. To heck with the house, I bought the yard! Only problem was, it was July and hot as Hades. I learned the hard way that you don't try to plant azaleas ( I know, I know) in August in GA. On the other hand, the little crape myrtle seedlings I planted last September are over 3' tall now and will surely bloom next Summer. I have found that fall is a great time in GA to plant shrubs and many perennials, as our mild winters give them time to develop strong root systems before the spring growth. Truth is, I haven't stopped planting since I moved here, except in the dead of winter when it was just yucky outside and the days when it was 95+. You would probably find our coldest days just ideal for working outside!
I do insurance inspections, so I see a lot of homes in the area. It is rare that I come home without at least ONE idea of plant groupings, color combinations or a plant I have never thought of planting. Of course, this just serves to fuel the never-ending plant fever with which I am afflicted!
Turtle 35206 - those are some funky looking Alliums! (I took a gander on the 'net and found some cool pics). I think they're awesome, DH looked at me and went 'oooookay' and gave me the 'you're not wanting THOSE are you?' look..hehe. (pssst, where can I find 'em?)
I finally bit the bullet and went crazy at Lowe's today - rock roses, impatiens, mums, targeta marigolds (all .88 cents), and then some long term plants, buddleia in two colors, a 'spinning butterfly' plant (have to research it)some russian sage and a speedwell plant (I had to, it's called Sunny Blue Border...lol). Plus DH added to his succulent collection, and I found a wounded eucalyptus and an aloe vera for pretty cheap. So now I am at the "move the pots around the area" stage where I try to figure out what to plant where. The car was stuffed, but it still looks soooo empty in the spaces that we cleared. But I'm happy, and I still have part of my budget for spring. I'm realllly liking the russian sage, I may have to get some more of that. Does anyone else around here grow it?
And thanks guardians and turtle for your encouragement, so that I didn't have to pine for spring before I splurged on some new plants. Now to get those babies in the GROUND!
-Sunny
Russian sage does well for me in zone 8 and did well in Birningham in zone 7. It likes light. You were probably already clued in by the small silvery leaves, right. I planted some at the edge of a tree canopy and it really grew toward the greater amount of light.
I could see a planting of russian sage with other things growing up through it. Maybe a leafless bulb like red spider lilies. I love Veronica 'Crater Lake". it is a low ground cover with the loveliest deep royal blue blooms.
You still have time to put in bulbs. Those are my gardener's pets. I love plants in general, but bulbs are special.
I paid one of my son's friends to do some digging for me this weekend. He dug one spade depth down and turned the sod over. Now I will go back and put down a layer of news paper anchored with egg rocks. In two weeks, when I can afford it, I will start the layers of peat, compost, and top soil. By spring, the grass should be well and truly dead and I will have a deep soil bed ready to plant in. I could have done it myself, but not at one go. There is a difference between being 57 and being 19.
Turtle,
I have everyone I know saving newspaper for me. I have some pretty pitiful areas in my back yard, where nothing but rocks grow. I have high hopes that lasagna gardening will turn this red clay into planting beds. Yeah, I.m saving up for the compost and stuff, too. Money AND energy to do the job Dreaming of all the pretties that will be growing where the clay is now. And, like you, I find I am crazy about anything that grows from a bulb!!
When is the next 12 step meeting? I am going crazy, I had surgery 2 weeks ago and am on plant restriction. So.....now I have time to look through the catalogs and surf the net but I can't plant! It's killing me! Thank goodness I had 10 iris delivered late the day after surgery, my husband is going to help me pot them up today so that they will thrive until I'm allowed to work in the yard.
yikes! he's back from the store......he's been teasing me about this website, too.....