'hole digging' therapy

I spent several hours today digging holes and planting things that have been sitting around in pots, desperately wanting to be put in the ground. Some were 'rescues' as they were headed toward certain death in the dumpster at Publix, and others I actually paid money for.

The Publix foster children were hydrangeas that had gone limp, or been clipped off to have their blooms go into a big wedding order M. did over the weekend (kinda cut the wholesale order a wee bit close, huh?) and some bulbs that were well past their prime for quality sales. I've been delighted with hyacinths re-blooming after having been greenhouse forced for commercial sales, but tulips and daffodils don't perform nearly as well after having normal growing pattern altered.

I had some astilbe I bought at a plant sale a week or so ago, and was anxious to get planted. I'm really pleased with the are beginning to flower, and looking forward to seeing how they will do, in a densely shaded spot behind the house. The blooms look creamy white, but I thought I was/meant to be buying pink: we shall see. The first time I saw it blooming in NC, tall spikey stalks topped with creamy and blushing pink blooms, I thought: that's for me, and have wanted to plant some for years. So I am hoping it will do well, grow, multiply and make more!

And finally (after leaving them in a plastic trash bag for nearly a month, I ashamedly admit, when I dug them up in Quitman several weeks ago) got the agapanthus in the ground. I had no idea how to plant, but think they are so hardy they won't care, and will do well despite abusive parenting. I put them out in the side yard, near some artemisia that I neglected for months before finally planting earlier in the year, after having left it sitting in pots over the coldest winter in memory.

I still have not done the digging to get tomatoes planted, but other things growing in the garden are looking good. The miracle 'Jack-in-the-beanstalk' beans are just beginning to curl tendrils up around the wire, starting to do pull-ups headed toward the clouds, and allium are thinking about blooming. I hope the English peas will produce enough for me to pick, and carrots have finally started showing frilly, lace-y tops, so maybe we will have bunny food too.

While I was dragging the hose to water the hydrangeas, I laughed out loud: when I thought of how kids start pre-school, and every week the teacher will focus on things that start with a particular letter of the alphabet. So this week, I guess I am severly regressing, as it appears everything begins with the letter 'A'. I also noted that nearly everything blooming thing I've put out in recent weeks is: blue! After constantly telling customers at work we don't hardly never ever get in anything in cut flowers that is blue...