Books and Helpful Employee

 Bibliophiles Aren't Ready to Accept the Bookshelf Wealth Trend—Here's Why (msn.com)

My books are a part of my life, not mere decorations. They are part of my furniture, however. I need books to be on display just like I want pictures of my children. Books are a way of life for me. I saw a space where you could buy books in certain colors so books would be in your color scheme. How bizarre. 

Today, we cruised by Lowe's to see if baskets of flowers were out yet.  No, not really. But, I spotted a basket of pink petunias that I wanted. We were having to wait behind a trailer trying to load a patio door. We watched as a male employee and two male customers, and a female customer tried to get the door into a too-small trailer door. The female customer finally figured it out. 

We were looking at flowers, not just waiting for them to move. Finally, they finished. Before the male employee could escape inside, I asked him for help. I pointed to one hanging basket of pink petunias. Then, asked him if he could find a better one, so he enlisted the help of a young male employee. Both concluded that I had picked out the best. 

He took my Lowe's card in, came back for driver's license, took Tommy's, came back for Tommy's cc instead of mine, then returned with plant and receipt. He did not show one bit of concern for all the running and answering my questions. When he put the basket into the backseat, he did not just place it in the car and shut the door. He was muttering that he would put it in between to hold it up, then that he would 'hook it' somewhere. He was concerned it would fall over. Wonderful! 

The whole time I kept thanking him for helping and apologizing for his trouble. He had many patches all over his vest, so not just an employee in the aisles. 

So, I am still wondering where the multitude of flowers are for Mother's Day. 

Last night, I slept two hours in my chair, sitting up with laptop in my lap. I have no idea how I fell asleep! When I awoke, I watched a video because I was not in the least bit sleepy. Then, I went to bed before the sun came up. However, I had a rare night of tossing and turning in the bed. When I finally woke at 1:30 pm, I could barely walk. My left knee was so sore, probably from the poor sleep and sleeping with knee is a position that was not good. However, I felt rested. 

I would have gotten out at Lowe's, but I barely made it down the ramp to the car. That was why I enlisted help from an employee. Ordinarily, I would have made it to the flowers about 10 feet away.

A customer had told me the flowers were $12 or $12.98, forgot which. Well, the receipt said $7.60. I may go back tomorrow for a white basket and Stella d' Oro. Pink tulips, white tulips, and yellow lilies will work.  Maybe there are other flowers there on sale. Maybe I can secure a cart to ride. 

I just now put on yellow squash and white onions for dinner. We may have the leftover ham and chicken. Maybe I will cook a hamburger. Plus, there is kale and potato salad, both a definite part of dinner. All this talking is making me hungrier than ever. 

After he had eaten his dinner, he asked if the squash was done enough to eat. I told him as long as the squash and onions were soft enough for him to eat, they were done. So, he had a bowl of squash. Mine was delicious. 

Since my knee was so sore, I did not want to go to the church yard sale today. The thrift store near here is closed due to a fire. My goodness. The sign says they will be open soon. I hope they don't get rid of smoky items. Maybe they will have a great fire sale reduction. Amway's LOC removes smoke stains and smoky smell. 

Do you like books as part of your heart and soul? Or, do you just like decorating with books? 

Wave Petunias, Vidalias, Meyer Lemon Tree

Wave Petunias

Wave Petunias are the only flowers I ever purchase. I like the pink ones best, but this is the only picture showing how they grow in a basket. I have one hanging basket just for the Wave Petunias. 

I see that there are Wave Petunia seeds at Park Seeds, so I may try to plant seeds this year or maybe next. 

Saturday, I will put the Wave Petunia I got today in the basket. If I am lucky, the seeds that drop will give me petunias for the next year. 

Friday was a day I hoped to get some yard stuff done. The guy who was coming to mow my yard is not coming since he said he would so many times and has not! I could barely get out of the bed on Friday, so maybe this will happen on Saturday.

Since I bought eggs on Thursday night and boiled half of them, I plan to make some proper tuna salad with eggs instead of my half-made stuff. I am excited. I had to have celery to make  tuna salad properly (way I prefer it). Celery is expensive!

Vidalia onions are in the stores, so I have to wash the dehydrator trays, buy onions, chop, and dehydrate. I am so excited. The last onions I had were given to me and were bitter white onions, perfect for cooking with meat, using for most things, just not raw.  But, they are not Vidalias. I just used the last I dehydrated last year, so I am happy to have more this year. I put them in jelly jars, 8 ounce Ball jars. At the minimum, I need 4 jars. More will be good. 

I know that Meyer lemon trees must be brought inside if grown in my area. I also know that they can live in their own little house of plastic outdoors. Well, is that right? lol

I saw a Meyer Lemon about 18 inches tall and wondered how old it is and how long will it be before it produces lemons. 

Friday
I have done nothing today beyond eat and sleep with chills and pain. 

Your Turn

Have you ever planted petunia seeds? Wave Petunia seeds? Have you ever grown a lemon tree? How old is the 18 inch lemon tree? How old must it be to bear lemons? I know what I read on the internet, but I want first-hand knowledge/experience/opinions. 

The Bane of My Existence

Privet

Right now, I am suffering! This privet causes half the people I know much misery, pain, and cost. I have spent countless hours with itchy eyes, so horrid I could not see. I have spent too much money trying to defeat the symptoms which are disabling. My eyes, sinuses, nostrils (itching), and breathing is affected. In the last few years I have managed to destroy and beat back this problem in the some parts of the yard. I still battle baby privets. This may be the last year I put up with this beauty. Pollen from the privet causes asthma and eczema. I have symptoms of both! 

 

Two years ago, I sat in a chair and bent over to pull baby privets. I pulled one hundred 3" babies in an area that was about 18" x 18"! That must be redone week after week. Of course, I don't. Mowing only delays the problem and makes the roots deeper and stronger.

 

The hens love to stay under the tips that are bending toward the ground. So, I am a sucker for what they like. Plus, eight cardinals love the bush. Maybe it is the berries they like?

 



 

shady area

 

The privet originates far to the left of this picture above. As the branches reach the hickory tree, they bend. I like the area it forms underneath. It makes me too miserable to sit there even though others do sit in the chairs. Actually, even an open window exposes me to the pollen.

 

You can learn more about privet. 

 

Pretty and more pleasant

self seeded or regrew

Wave Petunias

 

Early in the spring, I noticed green in this hanging basket. It had such a thick stem that it appeared the plant was re growing after the winter. I knew the Wave Petunia would reseed. Last year, I bought some distressed Wave Petunias and they flourished after a little care. Now, I have another stressed petunia that I will plant here with the leftover ones you see here. It appears on each of the pink and white made it through the winter and the other reseeded.

 

I am sure I could have a better picture, but I was standing on a pile of rocks.

 

Your turn

Does anyone have these privets in your yard? Are you allergic? Do your or your children have asthma, problems with lungs, or eczema? Do you suspect your problems are caused or exacerbated by this invasive pest?

Trembling Enchantment of Green



"He who loves a garden still his Eden keep" A. Bronson Alcott


Don't get me wrong. I never wear green. Nothing in my house is green--no walls or furnishings. Green of nature enthralls me every year as though I had never seen it before. As I grow older (almost 63 now), it seems I appreciate it more....not sure why. The life I see in green is something Thoreau would appreciate. Nothing else seems to hold the peace and promise of green trees, foliage of yard plants, and the grass. Maybe it's just me. My St. Augustine grass has a depth to its green that is lacking in other grasses that I have observed. By no means have I experienced all the greens and grasses of the earth.

As I drove the back way from Huntsville, south to my home, avoiding the interstate, about 6:30 pm last Saturday, I was struck by the majesty of the land around me. There were few houses, a little mountain foothills  range, and absolute quiet. People must be at home eating, tending the last bit of their garden, or getting ready to go out on Saturday night, I thought. This road normally has many cars. Not so when I drove the 30+ miles home this evening.

Since I had the radio off, the drive seemed especially serene. From now on the radio will be off so the noise won't interfere with the green experience. I could not see green for the cacophony of my favorite music (60s and easy listening).

I passed the old barn right beside the road with the little stand for selling produce. No one has sold produce there for the last 25 years. The old man died. His widow insisted on raising and selling gourds. Maybe that is produce. Her son raised gourds just for her and filled a 6' x 6' x 4' high lattice bin, made just for her and her gourds. The bin has a nice roof and overhang for shoppers and gourds to stay dry and shaded.

One summer day, I saw her, bent and walking slowly. She wore a faded, printed cotton house dress, topped by a faded apron. She had a bonnet on her head and old knee socks scrunched around her legs. For years there was never anyone at the stand. The one sighting of her and a later conversation with a very young, respectful relative were the only means of communication except for the locked money box in which to deposit money to pay for gourds. Laughing gently, the relative said the old woman had the only key and checked it regularly.

Now, there are only very old gourds in the bin. It does not look like they raise gourds any longer. The young relative had pointed them out to me, up on the hill near the woods. Did she die? I wonder. Everything was too quiet and green to stop and inquire.

Even the dogs seemed to honor the peace of the green afternoon, soon to be dusk. All their masters must have mowed the lawns because every lawn was freshly cut. The scene was not marred by a jarring note. Mowers were gone. No cars were in sight in the yards and few were on the road. Nature, even subdued by a lawnmower, seemed to be in charge. For one moment, I wondered if it were this quiet a hundred years ago. Home awaits me.

Late Spring has given us over a week of rain which seems to have added another dimension to the green world. As I stood in the backyard today, hanging clothes on the line, I was struck by the fact that I could see only green as I gazed round me. Only the clothes, the chicks and part of the back of my house broke the green spell. The sky was blue with clouds. The 6 foot back fence was obscured by scuppernong vines and wisteria. Even the trunks of the trees were gone, hidden by privets that reached up toward the branches of the hickory nut trees and bowed to the ground, touching the grass. The low-growing limbs of the tree hid my car and the house next door.

The diffuse, trembling green of Nature seemed at her best. Green must be female, tantalizing us each day to play with her, to interact. Green has many agendas and roles--nurturing, playing, birthing, tending, feeding, burying, cleaning, listening, hiding. Green is there to discover as I increasingly have the last few days.

It all seemed too perfect, punctuated by two bright petunia plants, rescued from brown doom at Lowe's. I nurtured them back to their green and pink state. The old-fashioned roses on the back fence have faded, and I won't cut the vines until I see hips. Maybe I will have hips.

For a moment, I felt as if I were in a secret garden, seeing nothing and hearing only the birds and chicks. Sometimes, it is hard to tell them apart just by listening.

I had no horizon, only walls of green on four sides and a blue ceiling. The house is there, but from where I stood, I could not really see it. The blaze of the sun, though blinding, kept me focused on the green. Weeds grown up over my rock garden hid even the heat of the rocks so nothing emanated. It was all green, just green.

This feeling comes over me every year. Today pulled all the green I feel from the depths of me. I never told anyone before.

"He who loves a garden still his Eden keeps."  (sign in my yard)
A. Bronson Alcott

(Written on June 22, 2009, ten days after I had no TV)


(Note: June 22, 2011: I still have no TV. I can tell the chicks (now hens) from the birds chirping in the trees. Neighbors cut lots of green privets and put up a fence which the wisteria is starting to cover again. I will be 65 in two months. Today is the same green month and day as when I wrote this. )

Your turn
Does the green of nature touch you deeply? Does green, lush foilage renew you as it does me?

Small economy: Stressed plants

Midnight flowers



Today, May 25, 2001, at Lowe's I shopped for stressed flowers, hoping something in the markdowns would suit me. Lo and behold! I found three white wave petunias and five marigolds marked a dime apiece because they were stressed. They were/are in three-inch pots. That's 80 cents for all the yellow and white flowers in the wagon.

The Pink Wave Petunias were calling my name. They looked stressed but were not marked down. Another $3.98 gone to the Pink Wave Petunias in the wagon. 

They all looked much better at midnight when it was cooler and a storm was coming. I still have not watered them, but moved them from the wagon to under the porch. I was afraid the wind would batter them further and they would be floating in water in the wagon in the morning.

My credit on a Lowe's card for a return covered most of the flowers today, so I didn't feel I was overspending. Shhh...I have to justify this purchase somehow.

Look at this!

Remember the Wave Petunia that reseeded where I dumped the dirt from the pot? Today, I went out and was shocked to see another plant outside the perimeter of the large rocks.



See the lone petunia at the bottom of the picture? That sprang up over night. I will definitely have to  dig it up and put into a pot. Otherwise, the weed eater will devour it.

Okay, so it takes so little to thrill me...lol. Sure, I don't have all the lovely plants early. I cannot/will not pay the price. If I were rich, I would be the rich old lady, dripping in diamonds, shopping for dime plants....LOL, no diamonds in my plans at all.

Okay, today is May 26, 2011, and the stressed flowers are perky. They look even better than they did at midnight night. Just a few short hours out of the sun, AND with no extra water, not even the rain, they have all perked right up. I am amazed and would encourage others to try this route. For ten cents, one can afford to take a chance.

Today, I returned to shop stressed flowers and buy hardware. However, the electric cart gave out halfway to the garden center. Someone pushed the cart the rest of the way to the markdown/stressed plants. I found another Pink Wave Petunia for a dime. I did not take a picture of it. Then, I left (kid still pushing) because I was not going to ask anyone to push me around the store to shop. If Lowe's would keep the carts plugged in, this would not happen.

Okay, so a dime purchase made me happy. Are you chuckling? I am.
Signed, your happy, parsimonious gardener.  

Your turn

Do you purposefully look for marked down plants? Found any lately? Mine always survive unless I further stress them with neglect. Do yours survive?  What is your best or favorite find in cheap plants?