Gardening with a credit card: done and done!
I decided to take some of my own advice this weekend, and went looking for bargains at the lawn and garden retailers in my neck of the woods.
And did I luck out!
At Homestead Gardens in Davidsonville, I found good-sized Knock-out roses, in white and yellow, on sale for half price at only $16 each. (All their roses are on sale half off.)
I know what I have said about roses. And it is still true that they are a lot of trouble for me. But one Knock-out seems to be doing very well under my front windows and so I will replace shrubs I lost in the snowstorms with two more and see that happens.
And I bought echinecea "Harvest Moon" and "Sundown," also on sale for 50 percent off. And I picked up a gorgeous sedum "Limelight" for $5.
While the roses took some trimming and dead-heading, the Echinecea were perfect specimens: Full, heathy and blooming. So was the sedum.
I also purchased some fresh Italian parsley and basil seedlings. About this time of year, mine are root-bound, yellowed and struggling. And the basil has gone woody and is flowering. These new ones, with some fresh potting soil, should get me to the first frost.
Went up the highway to Davidsonville Nursery where they are having a buy two, get one free sale and all the pottery is 30 percent off.
I got two creeping Jennys, which I have been looking for for a while. Healthy and robust! And, ok, another garden phlox, "Nora Leigh," which will no doubt become infected with mildew the minute I plant it.
I am telling myself the phlox was the free one.
I also got a couple of pretty glazed pots for 30 percent off. I will simply put those away for next season.
Further up the street, at Riva Gardens, there was also a buy two, get one free sale for gallon-sized perennials.
The pickings were slim, but I found three things that I thought I would try, including a new gallardia, which I admit, was ragged, and a geum, that looked terrifically healthy.
I don't have much luck with gallardia for some reason. But I keep coming back to it, just as I do the garden phlox.
Now, of course, the trick is to get them planted and nurse them through the heat and drought of the next couple of months.
