Tuesday, July 14, 2015

I may need an intervention

I really need to just stay away from places that sell plants.  Emma and I had a spare half-hour before I dropped her off at her dad's for the evening, so we went to look at the local nursery.  To look.  Just to look.

I should have known better.  They were having a mid-summer sale and several plants followed us home. 

This is a Sungold tomato, a cherry variety.  I justified this because I don't have any cherry tomato plants, plus, look at that beautiful color!  The brightest one is ready to pick, but it won't count as my first tomato because I didn't grow it.

Sungold tomatoes.

Then we saw the flowering shade annuals, and Emma picked a plant.  This is a begonia.  I justify this because the Bacopa I planted in the hanging basket on the front porch isn't flowering- I think it's too shady there.  So the Bacopa will move to the brighter back yard, and the begonia will take its place in the front.  I should be able to overwinter this inside, so we can have it again next year. 

Begonia

Then, since Emma got to pick a flower we decided that I should too.  The tomato doesn't count as a flower. The tomato is a food plant.  Completely different in our spur of the moment justification scheme.

These are calendulas.  I justify these because they were on sale at 2 for the price of 1, they are pretty, and the bees like them.

Calendula

Then we saw this hosta.  I've never paid much attention to hostas before, except as very pretty fillers in a shady garden.

Fragrant hosta plant

Don't get me wrong, I love all the variations in size and leaf pattern and would happily put in a garden of predominantly hostas, but they're mainly grown for their leaves, right?

WRONG.

Fragrant hosta

This is one of the dozens of flowers that have bloomed on this plant, and it is FRAGRANT.

I never knew hostas came in fragrant varieties, those with Hosta plantaginea in their ancestry.  It's beautiful.  It's two inches wide and three inches long, and smells like honeysuckle and cocoa butter.

You may have noticed that I very much enjoy fragrant plants.

1 comment:

Rachel said...

well, i can't comment on the rest of it all but
1. i was surprised to see no cherry tomatoes in your garden(s) but i kept that criticism to myself! You simply can't go wrong with sungolds...they are my favorite of all tomatoes. you can slow roast them halved with a bit of olive oil, pressed garlic, and thyme...then freeze them and use them in winter as a pasta topping. amazing.

2. um yeah on the hostas. where have you been? ;)