Garden Stores

Drop me off in a department store or a clothing store or an accessory store and I will be bored within minutes.  Take me to a garden store/center, and I will be drooling.  I want all of it!

I happened to have a gift card for Lowe's, so after running other errands, Sam and I stopped in at Lowe's to buy a few plants.  It is true that I try to start most of my garden plants from seed in my greenhouse, but life is not perfect, you know?  I'd never found any shallot seeds.  The Brussels sprouts, rosemary, basil, and eggplant seeds didn't take.  My onions got destroyed by grubs.  So unfortunately, I had to buy some replacement plants, and I found a few at Lowe's.  Oh, and flowers.  I have not gotten to the point where I start flowers from seed.  So we got some things.

Later in the day, I went to a local nursery to try to find what the big box store didn't provide.  And that's where I fell in love.  Beautiful plants, so much nicer than the big box ones!  I found the shallots and the Brussels sprouts.  I also bought some red cabbage, purple kale, and celery plants.  More flowers.  More basil.  More onion sets.  And  a $40 tray of eight ajuga plants to try to spread the ajuga further up that difficult hill.

Excited, I came home to begin planting.  A few days ago, when I discovered the grubs in my garden beds, I picked them out and treated the soil with diatomaceous earth and neem oil.  I thought a few days would be enough time to eradicate the little buggers. 

Apparently not.  I picked out at least another hundred of them this afternoon.  Treated the beds with more DE.  I will delay the planting of my tender little tomato plants until I feel more confident that I have gotten rid of the beasts.

I thought that having a greenhouse would speed up the gardening process.  I guess not.  I am way behind.  But the garden centers, who know how to do it professionally, have it down.  Everything there is lush and ahead of schedule.  And if those pesky little grubs destroy more of my plantings, I will be revisiting the local nursery.  What the heck, it's only money, right?  But it's money that can buy me love.