Plants

We are not really plant people. I have gone through a couple of plant phases in my life where, with careful coaching, I have had some thriving potted plants, and I have had some minor successes with outdoor plantings. It simply is not my passion. Skip has a similar background. He lived in Florida for a few years and then he lived in Virginia (tobacco country, as he called it). Both locations have strengths when it comes to gardens, and he had nice landscaping.

At heart, we are probably condo people.

We moved to our home four years ago, and the landscaping was essentially complete. However, the back yard needs quite a bit of work. The current shrubs are approximately 15-17 years old, and the beds need some elaboration. A month or so ago, we met very briefly with a landscape designer (this sounds much fancier (and expensive) than it actually was), and we got some suggestions on what needs to happen with our challenging back yard (it has a very steep slope). Armed with a sketch and some ideas for plantings, we are beginning to get prepared.

This morning I went to the spring plant sale at our local Botanical Gardens. This is a large local event; in fact, the sale area was so congested that I couldn't really fire off any snaps with my iPhone. Here are some pics from their site:




This is a fund raiser, and quite a bit of money is raised at both the fall and spring sales, the latter being the larger event obviously. Mainly, I wanted to scout out plant possibilities. However, I did pick up a sago palm for the deck (ferns have not survived the morning sun) and some herbs. A couple of nice volunteers helped me check out and go the car. Both were master gardeners and were chatting me up about plants. I admitted, gesturing to the boxes, that I didn't like the plants' odds, coming home with me.

Wish them (and me) luck.