Dramatic Garden Update

Today, I am home sick (with what turns out to be a Bad Case of Sniffles, but yesterday it involved high fever and aches and whatnot, and the hacking cough persists today, and yesterday at work people were looking at me like, hmm, maybe I'll sit across the room from you to not get coughed on! And then I came home.) So naturally, in the springtime, which is really probably months from now, a girl's fancy turns to... buying plants.

We've been getting garden catalogs for a few weeks now, and I recently got some Hot Birthday Cash (not to be confused with the Hot Birthday Amazon Gift Card, which is a whole 'nother thing) that I decided could be spent on plants. Usually I buy them at the nursery, tote them home, dig up the yard, and plant immediately, which is satisfying but also leads to a teensy bit of impulse buying of expensive plants. Which is fine, and it feels great to pick out the lush, gorgeous whatever that you simply must have and then take it home and put it in your garden, but it maybe shouldn't be one's primary mode of plant acquisition. For one thing, it adds up quickly. So I googled around enough to determine that the catalog currently offering a ridiculously good half-off-stuff deal is a legitimate business with a good plant reputation, and then I bought the following:

5 hydrangias, three pink and two purple
7 daylillies (from the mixed bargain bag, so whatever colors, which is fine with me)
2 butterfly/hummingbird gardens, which are eight plants each - a butterfly bush, something called "Keys of Heaven" which looks to be bushy with small red blossoms, some Mixed Monarda, which are a variety of bee balm that look to come in pink, reddish, white, and purple, some pink asters, something called White Obedient Plant which is a type of snapdragon, and Amber Wheels Gallardia, which are pretty yellow daisies.

For $82, that ain't bad. A person could easily spend $40 on a single hydrangia, not that I've ever done that multiple times, or anything. (Actually I stuck to the slightly cheaper varieties, but the fancy ones are tempting.) I'm sure these will be small plants and not full-sized blooming pretties, but still, it's a good start, and our yard has some spots that really need to be planted. I'm now even more excited for spring.