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My visit to Lurgan Greenhouse last Monday was quite the shopping extravaganza. I only purchased plants from the outside perennial section and some from the herb area next to it, a tiny fraction of the entire complex, but I still had my entire cart full, which meant the car was full on the way home.

With the other ‘more important’ yard work needing to be done, along with ‘living’ that also needed to be done, and of course the whole tooth drama that needed dealt with… well, I just didn’t get those plants into the ground.

I suppose here is when I ‘just casually’ mention I’ve been seeing someone for much of this month, nearly a month, twenty days? He came down this evening and we managed to get the bulk of the plants into the ground. It was really quite fun, for me at least. Hmm, perhaps fun isn’t precisely the word, but more of fulfilling, satisfying, gratifying even.

The experience helped to reinforce why I’ve been wanting this rose garden. It was so very nice to sit there on the bench, surrounded by roses about to burst into bloom, particularly nice because he was there.

I’m still waiting for the rose garden to burst into a chorus of colour and fragrance. This spring has been awful for gardening, with the weather being either very winter-like or being overly warm, and then of course we had a solid three weeks without any rain. I think, thus far, all of my roses, with the exception of the very newly planted bare roots that are still leafing out, have buds on them.

My Reine Victoria that did not bloom last year is so heavy with golfball sized buds that the canes are weeping. I am so very excited to see it finally burst into bloom, hopefully within the week!

I wrote recently of the rose drama and not getting two that I’d been wanting. On a trip to Lurgan Greenhouse on Monday evening I did spot the ‘Tamora’ that I’d been wanting so badly. It was loaded with buds, and oh so healthy… I just had to get it. It was potted, the first of that type, since I’d only done bare roots prior to this, either a 2 or maybe a 3 gallon pot, for $15.

I don’t particularly feel a lot of accomplishment, and as I wrote in the title, this one doesn’t count… it was a bud when I bought the plant, but none the less, it’s spectacular:

It has this very interesting, very strange, and almost intoxicating fragrance. The fragrance is described as ‘myrrh’ but, I don’t know… not really sure if that’s what I pick up on. I do think I like it though.

I really need to get out into the gardens and photograph everything for reference purposes. I’m very much regretting my lack of comprehensive photography last year. The transformation between the photos I do have from last year and the photos from this year is dramatic. The transformation over the last month is equally dramatic though. I will, soon, be setting up garden.indiboi or something similar to really track the progress.

I was so excited to be able to get five more David Austin roses this year. I waited for the sale, just like last year, and then ordered a collection of five roses. The price of the collection was $40, which was still a tiny bit more than I, the beginner rose gardener, was willing to pay — considering I can buy (albeit most likely diseased) roses from Walmart for $5 each, not that $8 a piece is bad, but… I just received a coupon for $10 off an order of $25 or more. This dropped the price down to $6 each, I was all for that.

I received my shipping notifiation and noticed it had only three roses listed. I didn’t worry, sometimes things are shipped separately. I received the roses, planted them, etc, and finally I was concerned enough today, nine days later, to call and ask about the missing two roses– the ones I wanted most, quite ironic really.

I was told they were sold out of those — even though they were not at the time of order. I was then told the price of the collection would therefore have been reduced to below $25 invalidating my coupon. It would have been below $25 by merely $1.03. Regardless, even without using the coupon I was stiffed, because I still paid $30. Okay, I realized I am getting all worked up over what amounts to just a few dollars, but it is the principle of the matter.

I called again, just now after writing those three paragraphs, and decided to see if I could at least get my $5 back, as a matter of principle; I’d have been paying $10 each for roses that they were selling for only $8 at full price.

The first lady I spoke with had the attitude of basically ‘the coupon was our money, we gave it to you, we can take it back.’ Anyone with a gram of sense would have bought something else to get that $10 off if they were short by a mere dollar. Fact of the matter was that I paid for five roses, only received three, and was being told ‘tough luck’ by the customer service rep. I didn’t realize at the time that I was still over paying, even if you didn’t consider the coupon.

The second lady I spoke with was considerably nicer and understood my plight. I told her I was a bit upset as a matter of principle, even though it’s only a few dollars. She countered with “Well, a few dollars is a few dollars,” and then said something to the effect of how those few dollars add up. She also said that she works hard for her money and is sure that I do too. According to her it didn’t matter that when the roses were reserved that I didn’t qualify for the coupon, because it was then reduced too low. I used the coupon when it was valid, even if by the time my order was shipped it would have not been valid. The ten dollar coupon was then not part of the equation, it was my money, they weren’t going to take it back.

While I would have been disappointed, but at least no longer upset about being ’screwed over’ if she had credited me back the $5 difference in the collection cost, she did something so much better. She calculated that I was owed $15.85, the combined cost of the two roses that were missing from the collection, because I paid the $39.95 (prior to the coupon) on basis that I’d be receiving all five, at $7.99 each plant.

With that ~$16 being sent back to my card as a credit, my faith in the company is now restored, I can now also buy a rose to fill the huge hold I’d already dug for one of the two that I didn’t receive. Quite frankly, I would not have ever ordered from them again because of this situation, if it wouldn’t have been fixed in some way.

I still mourn the demise of Airbourne Express, it is particularly painful with the rise of DHL to prominence. I ordered a few roses the other day, the company didn’t make any overt indication as to how it would be shipped other than the options to choose standard or express. Well, I’m certainly not in a hurry so why should I pay extra? Apparently their Standard delivery is DHL, I about cried, okay… not really, but I was rather ticked. It’s bad enough that they’re involved at all, slow as all hell, as they say. I come to find in even more horror that once the package arrived in Harrisburg, to the sort facility, it was handed off or rather “tendered” to the USPS! DHL is now too lazy to even deliver their own packages?! While I don’t have a problem with USPS in general, our particular mail carrier is a moron, we are forever receiving mail meant for other addresses on the street, and I’m sure those other people are getting ours. I would rather get the mail later in the day than have my mail scattered around the neighborhood before I ever receive it.

With that oh so convenient hand off to USPS my package now is untrackable, so it would seem, I might get it today, maybe even tomorrow, but it could sit in some mail warehouse until Monday… there’s just no way to tell. What’s the point? Why not just send it USPS in the first place if they’re delivering it anyway? It’s not like DHL refuses to deliver to such a “rural” area, haha, they’re the people you are forced to use when there aren’t any other options!

Most of the “fake flagstone” has been laid down, I’ll be continuing along where the ‘grass’ shows in the photo above. I do need to buy a bit more of that horrible plastic edging first, but so far it’s working out fairly well.

The green sticks are the stakes for the dahlias, but it will look like I’m growing those stakes for another month or two. By the middle of actual summer they should pretty much vanish amongst the foliage of the dahlias… at least that’s the plan.

The herb garden is doing amazingly well, the mint is doing a bit too well, but hasn’t yet invaded the space of the other plants, thankfully. I think I will be transplanting it soon to an area where its invasive nature will actually be appreciated. :) I just need to move all the tree branches I foolishly piled up in that particular area just yesterday, oops.

I think the key when looking at the photo is to imagine what it’ll look like, versus seeing what it actually looks like. The whole area needs to be mulched, I need to get the creeping thyme to go in/around the flagstone, and just do a lot more tidying type work.

It’s one of those horrible situations where so many things are contingent upon the rest. I need to move the whiskey barrel to the front yard, but I can’t do that until the rest of the stone is down so I can shovel the dirt out of it. I can’t put the rest of the stone down until the edging is purchased and put into place. At least I was able to transplant the Ivy that used to live in the whiskey barrel yesterday. ;) I actually do need to get on all of that soon, at least some of my new roses are on the way; they might be here tomorrow, if not then on Saturday. Once they get here I have pretty much one day to get them all into the ground, haha.

I can’t get the roses into the ground until the whiskey barrel is moved and three azaleas are also transplanted out of the way. One little problem is that I haven’t a clue where the azaleas will go, oooops!

I’m all about buying clearanced Orchids at Lowe’s. I don’t care that they’ve lost their pretty little flowers, the plant itself is more valuable. This is particularly reinforced by the fact my $10 Walmart-purchased Orchid is now in spike. How I justify a lot of things is by being able to still be interested in them a year after the initial “bam” of a buying frenzy. If I can keep a certain variety of plant alive for at least a year then I feel it’s safe to say that I can keep doing it.

With that in mind I didn’t really hesitate when I saw numerous Dendrobium Orchids clearanced at Lowe’s the other day. Dropping the price of a 6″ pot down to $13 from $25, and the 4″ pots being dropped down to a mere $7.

Matthew has mentioned buying an African Violet ( I think – but I’ve heard of this happening at Lowe’s) that wasn’t really a 6″ “big” type, but two of the much, much smaller ones carefully stuck together. Big scam. AVs don’t usually grow to be in very big pots unless they’re a special variety… otherwise your average African Violets will stay in those tiny little pots you buy them in forever. They like being root bound and if they’re not, well… they won’t flower because they’re just too “comfortable” in their roomy big pot to consider blooming to reproduce. All the energy that would go into blooming is transfered into growing the roots to fill whatever vast container they happen to be in.

The point of this though, is that the same thing happened with my recent Orchid purchases. These “cheapo” orchids are usually packed so tightly into their plastic coffins with the moss there is absolutely no hope of getting the roots air (Orchids are epiphytes afterall!) or keeping them from rotting away, taking the plant along with it to Orchid Heaven. So, in this delicate process of loosing the moss and all that fun, I noticed that the Orchid pretty much fell into two pieces… quite unusual. I quickly realized by looking at the roots (so crampacked full of moss it was ridiculous) that they were indeed two very separate plants. I found that highly odd for a plant in a 4″ pot, but then it happened again to the 6″ pot. Technically the 6″ pot had three, but one of them only had a tiny little piece, a baby… so now that one is “sphag & bag” fun.

I’d be quite pissed if I had paid full price… in the fact that this huge plant is not actually a huge plant, but several put together. As it stands, I’m kind of happy about it, sort of… I got four (maybe five if I can keep the tiny baby alive) for the price of… well… ONE. ;)