Saturday, April 2, 2016

volunteering my time...

...at Callaway Gardens yesterday and again today. Their annual plant sale is this weekend. I have been doing this for several years, as a result of  a fellow gardening getting me involved. I was certainly not dragooned, or forced into doing it, but yesterday felt like a jail sentence. It was a blustery, rainy, thunder-stormy day with practically no customers that made it seem like it would neeevvvver end.Just interminable and dull and tedious and dragging, and going on forrreeeevvvver.
One of those days when you look at the time so often you start to wonder if your  clock/watch has turned into a cartoon, and the hands are going backward?

It was a sort of chicken-and-egg day: are there no customers because of the weather (which was really threatening and soupy) or does the paucity of vendors with plants cause the patrons to stay away? It's hard to say which of a multitude of things would have caused it to be such a dull, slow-moving event. All those people who were diligent with their phones, observing the weather patterns and making pronouncements said today would be sunny and clear, so hopefully it will be a good weekend for the growers who hauled many plants great distances in hopes of a profitable weekend.

If it had not been for the excessive  number of volunteers milling around with nothing to do except poke around in the plants, there would have been hardly anyone buying. I'm sure sales were really lean, and the majority of what walked out the door was purchased by people like me. Us who were totally ineffective in our practice of self control and could not resist, even though the consequences result in having to come home and dig.

Though I practiced saying 'No', and did not take the funds to bring home more than I could carry, I accidently bought a big bucket that has several small flowering almond trees in it. My plan is to re-pot, and keep them watered, let them grow for a couple of years and then decide: where? Or I could just re-sell. There was a new vendor who was selling lots of herbs and medicinal plants. And scented geraniums, which I find very interesting, attractive, delicious and tempting. But I bought a couple of salvia/sage and an Artemisia instead. The sage plants have bright blue blooms and will go out in the area where there is perennial salvia that is blooming right this minute with bright red flowers, enticing bees and butterflies to stop by. Plus a couple of tiny little milkweed starts, to go with the others that were specifically planted to attract monarch butterflies - the host plant and only place where they lay eggs for the caterpillars to feed on before they spin a cocoon.

Even though I practiced  my 'No', I spent all  my cash. And made the mistake of going to the checkout and asking if they would take plastic. Which of course they were delighted to do, and smiled brightly at me while ringing up my excess purchases. But I will get them planted and hope they will grow and bloom.

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