After returning from about a week away from the garden, I looked around last week and noticed two things:
- Overall, I’m pretty happy with how the garden is looking this year. I tend to think my garden is always in shambles, but a bit of time away made my heart grow a little fonder for my little piece of dirt.
- There are a lot of holes in my garden this year.
Blame it on the weather or blame it on the gardener, but a lot of things are not working out as I had planned this year. Last year, the garden was happily overrun by
zinnias, all direct sown.
This year, some of the zinnias I started in trays in hopes of earlier blooms are hanging in (although nowhere near blooming) and it appears that absolutely none of the seeds I planted even germinated. I’m so disappointed about that.
On Saturday I stopped by a nearby nursery and hit up the sale benches to buy some annuals to stick in the holes. I would have bought some perennials too, but the selection was really picked over. I felt like I bought a lot (16 plants), but they barely scratched the surface. Then Monday, I swung by the local hardware store that had a bench of really shabby looking annuals on a bench in front with sign that nearly glowed (in my gardener’s eyes, at least).
FREE PLANTS.
Of course I didn’t want to be greedy, so I took a tray of 4-inch annuals, mostly ostospermums, a pathetic calibrachoa and a little lantana.
I have no idea if I can bring them back to any kind of vigor. I started by giving them all a really good soak in some
Moo Poo tea, and once they have a chance to get rehydrated, I’ll probably cut them back, plant them, baby them a little and see what they can do.
It actually feels a little like a personal mission now, to bring these plants back to what they should have been. I’ll keep you posted on their progress.
