Sunday, April 14, 2013

My kind of shopping...

Happy Sunday and welcome to my gardening weekend! The weather has been perfect, though the air is loaded with pine pollen. Keep the allergy pills coming!


Some women love pretty shoes, and others crave stocking their closets with designer purses. Many love fine clothes, fancy fingernails, and beautifully styled hair. Maybe that was me when I was part of my other life in the corporate world. No more. Instead, give me a comfortable pair of tennis shoes, one practical purse that is big enough to house my camera or iPad and doesn't need to be "changed out" every day, tee shirts and jeans, garden dirt under my fingernails, and hair tied back under a baseball cap. Which is not to say that I don't "clean up" pretty well when I need to. But there is nothing like dressing the part for communing with nature out in the garden, hearing the birds sing, and watching the butterflies landing on the purple verbena as I plant them.

You can have the department stores if that is your thing. What makes my heart sing at this time of the year is browsing around in a beautiful garden center, and we did just that yesterday. Below are some pictures of the place that we go to, sometimes more than once a week. It is the kind of place where everyone knows you, the employees are very knowledgeable, and you get mostly local stuff that is sure to grow. I think that just about everything is started from seedlings right there. You should see it during the Christmas season when they have rows and rows of Poinsettias in all different colors!

The owner, Chris, and his staff are fine landscapers, and have done much of the work at our house, including putting in the beautiful fescue lawn. Chris started this business with one little used greenhouse when he was a kid, and built it up to what it is today. (Note: Because we live within a small farming community, we try to support the small local businesses whenever possible.)

Come take a tour with me (unless you prefer to go to Macy's!).

Come on in...


Beautiful fountains and birdbaths...



The shade-lovers' area...



Beautiful statuary and pots tucked in everywhere...



Gorgeous hanging pots...


Beautiful geraniums, from light pink...


...to deep pink...


...and red.


Beautiful blooming flowers everywhere...


And while I took the photos,
Mr. Perch was patiently waiting outside...


Oops, let's not forget what we really went there for...


...ten more bales of pine straw.
The fifty bales we already put down in the beds
were not enough!



By the way, the "welcome" basket shown in the first picture of this post was made by John, one of Chris' staff. Wow! Thanks John. 

On my next post I'll share some photos of what I did when we got home yesterday. Thanks for stopping by!

6 comments:

  1. Hi Sue,
    You are a gal after my heart, luv this time of year and alllll the beautiful flowers, especially the dogwood, camellias, and azaleas.
    Your photos are fab, thanks for sharing.
    Also luv your blog header and background.
    Barb in Texas

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    1. Hi Barb! Thanks so much for your lovely comments. I know what you mean about this time of year. Every day is a new adventure seeing what new developments there are in the garden. It's an ever-changing palette of color. I so appreciate that you visited with me. XO Sue

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  2. Garden centres here are gearing up, getting ready for us to descend upon them. The big push for planting is usually the long weekend in May, the Victoria Day weekend (for Queen Victoria's birthday), the 3rd Monday in the month. It's only then when we can be sure there will be no more frost and the ground is ready to be reveled in. You're making me jealous!!! :)

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    1. Our garden centers are crawling with people right now. Usually it starts in late February, but in this area spring was slow in coming too. They tell us to wait till mid-April to be sure that we are past any frosts, but even if we get them, the ground never really freezes. I will envy you in July when it gets so hot here we don't even want to be outside! That's why we try to smash it all in now. XO

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  3. I want to live in the shade lovers' area, not that I wouldn't visit other areas of the greenhouse just to be sociable. I would adopt a couple of animal garden statues and pretend that they were my real pets. At night I would sleep on a pallet made out of your beloved pine straw.

    The End.

    xoxo

    P.S. Kudos to Chris for turning his childhood dream into such a successful business. There is a greenhouse (an in-the-family-for-generations kind--http://www.mielesgreenhouse.com/index.html) less than ten minutes from us, and when my kids were young, my son (not my daughter!) used to love to come with me to select plants for teachers' gifts, etc., and he always managed to leave with his own special potted plant. Those times spent with him are among some of my favorite memories of when he was little.♥

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    Replies
    1. I love your comments above! I know what you mean about the childhood dream. Not everyone gets to do that, or has the courage to try. Hmmm...what would we do if we could do it all over again, with no restraints? There's such a world of opportunity out there now. XO

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