Just a teensy weensy bit of shopping...

Did I shop while I visited the display garden at a local garden centre over the past weekend? Yes, yes, I did. Not until the end, though! Can I possibly blame my friend for my weakness? I can try. She did tell me that the special items tend to go quickly and might not be there when I am ready to garden. Oh, and being Easter weekend and all, there was a great sale on Easter items! I would have been foolish to pass it by. I tell myself with stern conviction.

So of course I was very practical. I bought an Easter serving tray and bowls that were on sale for half price. Who could blame me at $12.50? It would have been foolish to walk by. Um, really.

And then: Three very adorable plants

I got this lovely hosta, ‘Touch of Class’. While we were there, I was describing to my friend a beautiful hosta that I had seen once and thought gorgeous. I think this is it. The centre is a soft lime green with blue and green margins that look like they were painted on by a water colourist. My great aunt was a water colourist, and one time she painted all the wild flowers of her home province in one painting. This hosta looks like something she would have painted.

Next was a lovely and finely drawn Adiantum pedatum ‘American Maidenhair Fern’.

I am smitten with this plant. I had one in my first garden and loved its shy beauty. If I were a fairy, I think I would make a long skirt of layers of maidenhair fern lace. It adds such texture to a garden and makes other plants around it shine. The kind of plant you want on your team.

Finally, I bought this Heuchera 'Plum Royale'. Quite frankly, it dazzled me as soon as I entered the garden centre. There was a guy leaving with a trolley that had the bottom shelf of it filled with these. I found myself saying “wooooo” as they wheeled by me. The silvery sheen laid over the plum colour is like an evening dress with silvery tissue over a plum satin. Every girl should have one once in her life.

So now I have to keep them all alive until it gets warmer. If the garden is going to be in upheaval this summer for any amount of time, (as I suspect it may well be) then I think I may put them in the ground right in their pots until things settle down and I can find them a permanent spot. I hope that will work.

But really, I must hold off on buying plants until the ground is ready for them. I must. Really.

Except for annuals. For the pots. I can’t ignore my pots. Now that would just be rude.

"There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments." -Janet Kilburn Phillips