Speaking of delayed gratification...

My shipment of Veronica and Coreopsis is due to arrive tomorrow 10/01/13.  Maybe I can squeak in a few minutes of digging when I get home from work.

A-salt

Sometimes I think my fiance's aunt gets my sense of style better than even my own mother does, and Mom's usually pretty good at picking out things I like.

Aunt B. found a set of salt and pepper shakers at a flea market that just totally scream "me" - they look just like these shakers, which are apparently a 1940's vintage item.  Blue cobalt glass and Art Deco... two of my favorite things.

 

I'm beginning to amass a pretty large collection of S & P shakers.  It's funny because I don't intentionally seek them out.  I guess I'll have to have a dinner party where everyone gets their own set of shakers.

The problem with ordering from online nurseries...

The problem with ordering from online nurseries is the lack of immediate gratification, thereby creating the temptation and pick up plants at the local nursery while waiting for the online nursery to ship when they deem it to be " the proper time for your zone."

The problem, if you give in to the temptation, is that you potentially overspend your budget (what budget?), and you've now planted a locally purchased specimen in a spot that had already earmarked for a shipped plant.

I guess I can bide my time and occupy myself by tidying up by cutting down spent foliage and flower stalks.

note to self, bring camera with you everywhere

I climbed halfway up Sourland Mountain yesterday evening, and didn't have a camera with me to take a few shots of the beautiful wildflowers.  Blah.

Patience, grasshopper...

It's very difficult to prevent myself from going to the local Agway and purchase whatever deer-resistant perennials they've got left.  But, I've got a couple hundred dollars of nursery stock to come within the next month, and amazingly know exactly where I want to put each specimen.

This past weekend put in three each of catmint, foamflower, and pigsqueak I'd received during the week.  I'd originally intended the foamflower to go in under the sand cherry, but it was too difficult to dig there.  From prior experience, I'm sure there's heavy landscape fabric about 4" under the loamy stuff.  A project for another day, maybe.  I can always keep it mulched and put pots of stuff under there (Lord knows I've got enough pots out in the shed). 

I ended up putting the foamflowers in the shaded front walk bed between my bee balm and hostas.  The pigsqueak went in nearby behind the bee balm, along the curved Belgian block edge of the Japanese maple/rock garden. 

Speaking of hostas, the deer finally got to them a few weeks ago, and the bugs/slugs have eaten some big holes in them, but I'm just about ready to cut them back for fall now & let the primroses and lungworts underneath have their day again.  In comparison, the varigated lirope just on the other side of the walk looks FANTASTIC.

Catmint found a home in a spot between yarrow and echinacea on the highest point of the retaining wall beds - all I'd got in there previously was some anemones that come up in spring and then leave the area bare the rest of the year.

Bertha's Blues

Poor Bertha - her rear brakes are just about rusted out, and the fronts are not much better, but will hold out for a while according to the mechanic, whose diagnosis of the cause was "she sits around a lot, huh?"

Yeah, I guess driving a mile to the train station and a mile home isn't a lot of excercise for the old girl.  Guess I will have to do some weekend galavanting - on the cheap, since the repairs are not going to be.  Anyone want to go for some drives in the country with me?

Bertha goes into the shop tonight.  I'm glad the brakes decided to start making that horrible grinding noise AFTER I'd returned from my 1800 mile round trip.  64,000 miles on an 2005 Nissan Xterra & this will only be the second time I've needed new brake pads - not bad, I think.

She needs new wiper blades and an oil change, which I'd meant to get to before the trip but didn't.  Hopefully they can also find the source of that rattling sound under the hood - sounds like it could be a fan blade on a wire.

A big box containing 9 plants arrived today, I'd just pulled into the driveway when the UPS guy hopped out of the back of the brown truck.  I've got 3 Nepeta 'Purrsian Blue' (Catmint), 3 Tiarella 'Spring Symphony' (Foamflower), & 3 Bergenia cordifolia 'Winter Glow' (Pigsqueak) sitting in the kitchen on a jelly pan waiting until I can get them into the ground this weekend.

I spy with my little eye, something starting with G

Garden Girl logged nearly 1800 miles of driving in the past week.  What did I see the most of along the roadsides of the interstate routes from NJ to MI?  Goldenrod!  Joe Pye weed was a close second, and often both of them were growing together.