Someone Please Cut Me Off!

It’s a fact:  I should no longer be permitted to attend any plant sale, anywhere, for a long, long time.

Clearly, I can’t be trusted.

I’m normally pretty darn good about budgeting, saving and spending.  My question is this:  WHAT HAPPENED???

True confessions:  the first clue that I was in over my  head was when I spent pretty much every penny that I had set aside to buy a bicycle…and spent it on plants. Troubling, yes, but sadly I did not  even stop there.

After hitting the Brooklyn Botanic Garden plant sale (where the man who rang me up asked  me:   a]  if I was married and b] whether I though my husband would divorce me after this!!), I  proceeded to go, just 5 days later, to the Community Garden Plant sale (where I knew I could get a good deal).  Finally, last week I stopped at a hardware store to innocently buy another watering can…and left with…yes, PLANTS.  Sigh.

When I confessed this to a friend of mine she stared in disbelief and said “how the heck did this happen?”  Good question.  My only defense is that I have literally been standing in a 3rd story kitchen for the past five years staring out at the empty backyard below and dreaming about what I would do with it if it were mine to plant.  Now that I finally have a place, I guess I went a *little* overboard.

To my credit, I did pretty well at sticking to the general plan of getting mainly low-maintenance perennial plants…but there were plenty of other unnecessary purchases.  (SIX tomato plants???  Really?  And they are going to go…where, exactly?)

I’ve been working all week to mix potting mediums for containers and get things in the ground and fortunately I just finished up before the rains started.  Is it worth not having a bike?  I don’t know yet, but I do know that I’m really happy with everything I got and I think it’s going to look amazing when things start filling out.  It’s an absolute wonderland to me right now, and I’m having a great time…(even if I did spend 3 times what I told myself I could spend – yikes.)

In my joyful state of denial and abandon, I willingly ignored warnings from people like my friend Bev who told me “don’t try to create it all at once…do a little at a time” and also had the great suggestion to buy a (as in one ONE) plant (in bloom) per-month…”this way you won’t spend too much and there will always be something blooming in your garden.”  Brilliant!  Great idea.

When I stopped at the Chelsea Garden Center for some potting mix and told the woman working there that it was my first spring at this new apartment / garden  she stopped in her tracks and gave me a knowing, concerned look and delivered this practically whispered, dramatic warning:  “Give yourself a budget.  Now.  And stick to it or before you know it you’ll be spending every penny on plants.”   I smiled, thanked her, agreed it was good advice, assured her I was indeed sticking to a budget, and chuckled to myself thinking “geez – she made it sound like I’m buying drugs or something!”

Ha.

It’s hard not to be frustrated with myself at this complete lack of self control which might very well result in me not having a bike…or having to take the money saved for something else in order to get one.  Still, I’m so happy with my plants and my garden and every moment is so thrilling that it’s hard to be upset!  I’m REALLY hoping that this was the Big Kahuna of plant purchases and that from here on out it will be a small purchases here or there, some bulbs, some divisions traded with other gardeners, etc…there really isn’t room for much else at this point!

So here are just a few plant photos and “the list” in all its glory (and my disgrace):

close up the shade-lovers

herbs

“mystery” tree peony

another shot of the shady plants

strawberries

honeysuckle and Persian Shield

miscellaneous pretty things…

lettuces, rainbow chard, some of the basil

herbs, peppers, and pink Mandevilla, which I’m hoping will climb that iron trellis.

the temporary tomato collection…the big things are all on wheels should they need an even sunnier spot, but so far they are doing well here.  I need to get more cages on pronto and will eventually have to move some of the smaller tomato pots elsewhere so that they’ll all have enough room.  What was I thinking?

Perennials

Lavender Creeping Phlox
Tree Peony – fuschia (mystery peony)
Pulmonaria – Bethlehem Sage
Lamium – ‘White Nancy’
Honeysuckle
Campanula – blue bells, sarastro
Campanula – white clips
Ajuga
Hardy Geranium – lavender
Lilac
Trumpet Vine (didn’t make it)
Irises
Epemedium (mystery variety!)
Mertensia, VA Bluebells
Primrose (mystery variety!)

various sedums and hens/chicks

Tomatoes: 
yellow pear
Roma  – 2
Mortgage Lifter – 1
Goliath Patio – 1
Beefsteak – 1

Other Veggies

Peppers:  bell, cayenne, serrano, cherry bomb

Lettuces

Rainbow Chard

Sugar Snap Peas

Herbs
lemon verbena
purple sage
parsley, curly
parsley, flat leaf
oregano, italian
oregano, golden
tarragon
rosemary
chives
marjoram
marjoram, golden

Strawberries
Alpine & Everbearing

Annual “Extras”

Persian Shield

Thunbergia
Morning Glory
Mandevilla

various sedums, hens/chicks

impatiens, marigolds, lobelia, violets