I was good. I practiced self-restraint. A few weeks ago, this was the extent of my plant collection. Yeah thats it. Just two basil plants, a house plant, and an aloe vera (the other aloe vera is a previous room mate's and she still hasn't come to pick it up yet!) However, the one basil somehow died, and then I kept walking by beautiful gardens in our neighborhood, or seeing picturesque places like this at Ms. Pat's house:
Amber hasn't been feeling all that great lately, both physically and emotionally, so I bought her flowers and left them as a surprise on her doorstep. I knew she wanted hydrangeas and I found them at Trader Joe's while I was grocery shopping for half of what the plant nursery was selling them for, so I bought her some. She is going to plant them in the garden plot to the right of her front door.
See? Aren't they perty? However, this set off my plant-lust.
Now in my defense I already owned all these by this point, and the majority were grown from seeds that I bought over a month ago. There are Bush Beans (which I thought were pole beans. Woops. Read the package next time, don't just look at the picture!!) The seedlings on the far left are Cucumbers, as well as Lemon Verbena, Rosemary, and Sweet Peas in with the Bush Beans.
And then on the other end of the porch the two planters on either side is Lettuce, and the pots in the middle are Lavender which I started from seeds for the first time. Dude they take FOREVER to grow from seeds!!!
See? Teeny baby Lavender!!!
And here's me herbs: Closest to furthest: Rosemary, the pot that's empty is actually Columbine that hasn't sprouted yet (okay so not all herbs) my Lemon Verbena and Basil. Yeah I move the plants around off the ledge and back onto it depending on how hard the wind is blowing.
Here's the Bush Beans and Sweet Peas. This one is okay, but in the other pots this size there were two bean plants and two sweet peas growing. I knew that wasn't going to go well for very long before they started crowding each other out. Well I thought I had enough pots to house everything, but I knew I needed more potting soil. So I started out for Walgreens this morning as I knew they had potting soil and I wasn't feeling good so I didn't want to go too far from home.
Well, there was a nursery about half the distance to my house than Walgreens, and I knew they would have potting soil. So I pulled over and checked. And wouldn't you know it they had herbs for half the price I had been getting them. And I found CURRY! I don't usually cook with Curry but it was really fragrant and unique, so I bought one. And then they had large, beautiful Lavender so I bought some of that, as well as two more Rosemary plants. My late grandfather was able to coax his Rosemary into huge beautiful plants that he then planted under his wife's kitchen window. I LOVE that idea. I don't want to plant the rosemary at my current residence but I'm hoping if I baby it and keep it in a pot until I have more permanent residence it will be established enough that I can do the same thing. Or just have huge potted Rosemary. I know in Tennessee it will grow out of doors and be a perennial but I think Kentucky is too cold, so I might just have to keep it potted.
So I brought all my goods (including 2 bags of potting soil - waaaay cheaper than at Walgreens as I'm sure you can imagine) and realized I now did not have enough pots. My room mate Amber (different from Hydrangea Amber) came home, saw all the foliage and said, 'Mary Mary, quite contrary, how your garden GROWS, and grows, and grows! Girl where did all this come from?' So I confessed and told her my predicament. 'I need accountability. I need to go to the big nursery and get more pots because the little one was out. But I'm afraid I'll get the itch again and will buy more plants!' 'Oh girl I'll go with you. I'll keep you accountable. I'll yell 'PUT IT DOWN! We ain't got no more room!!'"
Well as SOON as I parked and she got out of the car and saw all the beautiful blooms, she said, "oh crap. I'm getting the itch too! This is not good!" She has an Aloe Vera plant (its a popular gift in these parts, apparently!) that desperately needed repotting. And of course this nursery not only had regular terracotta pots but amazing pottery pots that were three times the price for fru-fru gardeners. So we spent 3x's the time I thought we would as she walked back and forth between the pretty pots and the terracotta pots. Finally I suggested she paint the terracotta pot and she caved. I also got a hanging planter for my indoor plant, and she liked that idea so started perusing the hanging pots. However they were $20. So I talked her into leaving and we left with pots and some miracle grow plant food.
Here is what the Aloe Vera planter looked like when she finished it. She painted it black and then spray-painted silver flacks onto it. As you can see, we have enough Aloe Vera to last us a while!!
Well we went back to the smaller nursery to get potting soil and she found a hanging Fuchsia for $17.00 so she bought that. And here is our lovely porch, way too much $$ and two hours later:
Now I need to STOP playing and get this study guide done for my Theology 1 Final on Tuesday!!! :-D However, like I said, whenever I garden there is something incredibly refreshing and RIGHT about it :-)
