Went shopping this weekend. Bought plants.

It takes a certain amount of courage to buy perennials at this time of year, especially when they are marked 50 percent off because they look dead.

You have to believe that they will have time to collect themselves before the winter sets in, and will emerge with renewed strength next spring.

I sat with a catalog in the warm sun, and made a list of the plants I wanted for a bed I am re-designing and another that I am rethinking.

I went to Bru-Mar nurseries in Annapolis, looking for some bargains, and I found a few. Well, more than a few. And some weren't even on sale.

I found the Echinacea "Mac 'n Cheese" that I had been searching for all summer, and a Nepeta "Blue Dragon"

I found an orange agastache, a coreopsis "Jethro Tull" and a gaillardia "Frenzy," which wasn't what I wanted but was close enough.

I got a couple of cinnamon ferns and a couple of very pale yellow and apricot columbines for my shade garden, but I am waiting for the heuchera I want, "Stoplight," to go on sale.

I also found a new rudbeckia variety I am going to try..."Goldstrum" succumbed to the mildew this year after a three-year battle.

Now, to get them into the ground.

She who dies with the most plants, wins.