Shopping at the garden center

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I went shopping for flowers this past weekend… It’s dangerous for me to go in a place with a new shipment of bedding plants and shrubs. The employees had just unloaded a huge load of flowers (I wish I had taken my camera with me, it was a gorgeous sight!). It’s a big box superstore, but it happens to have an excellent garden center with a few knowledgeable employees and a great selection of plants, and I had a lot of fun looking around.. and buying. I had three carts filled with stuff, and only stopped myself when I realized that I couldn’t possibly fit any more in my car.

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I bought 6 deep blue Lobelia, a pot of Lithodora perennial groundcover, 6 dwarf striped marigolds, 8 wave petunias in mixed colors, a large potted lavendar petunia, a hanging basket of fuchsia, 2 pots of lavendar verbena, 6 white begonias and 6 pink for the secret garden, 6 coral carnations and 6 burgundy, various impatiens plus two New Guinea impatiens (also for the secret garden), 6 French marigolds for mixed containers, 4 pots of gorgeous purple African Daisies (Osteospermum Margarita del Cabo) and another of the same in a light peachy color, 6 deep red vincas, a striped succulent called Moses in the Cradle, a big pot of perennial purple salvia, and several pots of a gorgeous Dahlia variety, and a few 6 packs of various annuals.

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African Daisies

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I know– I got way too much, and now they’re all sitting in my carport and all over my patio right now, waiting to be planted. I also already have 18 mixed coleus, 18 dwarf zinnias, and 18 dwarf harlequin striped marigolds that I’ve grown from seed indoors under lights and they need to be planted too. A lot of these plants will go into containers, many for spots in the Secret Garden, and others for various spots in my flower beds and in the rock wall beds I have. That’s what I’m going to be doing this week, when it finally stops storming and raining here. I think I may even go back and get some more, I love that gorgeous blue lobelia.. and the dahlias are so pretty.. and the purple daisies… and I could really use some more of those red-flowered evergreen dianthus clumps in the rock wall beds… I so love spring and summer. :) What are you growing this year? Have you purchased flowers yet? Comments are welcome.

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These dahlias are so unusual, and gorgeous! They are just as pretty on the underside also, with pinkish-purple and white striped petals.

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Click any photo to enlarge.