$100 on Annuals?! Yikes!
Apr. 15th, 2005 07:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
Once, several moons ago, I was really into gardening. But as hobbies go. . . that one wore out. (I do have a few nice vestiges of it. My Don Juan roses are in full bloom, as are my wildly overgrown Cramrosi Superieur antique china tea rose and the small cabbage rose Clotilde Soupert (I love antique roses. Ignore the hell out of them and they just keep blooming.)
However, dead hobby aside, I do keep the front beds planted. My daffodils have bloomed and gone. So today, on my day off, I bought flowers for my front planters and beds. Yowza! I don't know whether plant prices have gone up or whether they were always that expensive, but I ended up walking out with $100 in plants. (And it really isn't all that many of them and they were all VERY pedestrian plants). A flat of coleus, a flat of vinca, Mexican heather, an ivy geranium, and an allamanda . (If I lived in the tropics that allamanda would be an evergreen. Around here you can plant it in early spring and it will bloom until December. I replace it every year rather than try to pamper it through winter.) I still need a mandevilla which I always plant to grow up into the evergreen akebia I have growing over the front door. Tomorrow, I have to plant the stuff, and I have a scary amount of grass that has grown up beneath the crepemyrtle out front that I'll need to clear away before planting the Mexican heather.
However, dead hobby aside, I do keep the front beds planted. My daffodils have bloomed and gone. So today, on my day off, I bought flowers for my front planters and beds. Yowza! I don't know whether plant prices have gone up or whether they were always that expensive, but I ended up walking out with $100 in plants. (And it really isn't all that many of them and they were all VERY pedestrian plants). A flat of coleus, a flat of vinca, Mexican heather, an ivy geranium, and an allamanda . (If I lived in the tropics that allamanda would be an evergreen. Around here you can plant it in early spring and it will bloom until December. I replace it every year rather than try to pamper it through winter.) I still need a mandevilla which I always plant to grow up into the evergreen akebia I have growing over the front door. Tomorrow, I have to plant the stuff, and I have a scary amount of grass that has grown up beneath the crepemyrtle out front that I'll need to clear away before planting the Mexican heather.
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Date: 2005-04-16 01:01 am (UTC)Also, I adore Mexican Heather. I put it in pots and it's wonderful.
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Date: 2005-04-16 03:52 am (UTC)For potted plants, I really rec the allamanda. I've kept that in a pot out front for the last three summers. They constanty bloom until the first hard freeze and are relatively drought tolerant so you don't feel forced to water it every five minutes even in the dry parts of summer.
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Date: 2005-04-16 11:16 am (UTC)I used to have quite a big collection of antique roses but my Father wanted his backyard back to grow vegetables so I gave them away to friends. I was always fond of Frau Karl Druschki and La Reine Victoria.
You're right about antique roses, ignore them and they keep coming back and have the most beautiful colors and scents.
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Date: 2005-04-17 01:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-16 11:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-17 01:37 am (UTC)And, nope, I don't prune the crepemyrtles. I trimmed up a few low branches, but other than that, I'm still trying to make it grow up and be taller. Plus... it's laziness. Way too much trouble to prune.
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Date: 2005-04-17 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-04-17 02:21 am (UTC)