Holiday splurge

We went to Mendocino at the holidays and I was able to visit Digging Dog Nursery and go on another plant buying bender, enabled by my parents who gave me a $100 gift certificate to spend there! Of course by the time I had selected everything it cost twice that... it's amazing how much a tiny pot of sad-looking weedy stuff goes for... *mutter*

The people at Digging Dog are nice, and have a fondness for follies (we were interested to find that they are building some pyramids) and ornamental grasses, (which we declined to be interested in.) They did manage to get me to buy just the sort of self-involved, microscopically subtle, austere-looking plants that I despise through the cunning use of floral language in their catalog, which was annoying. However, I grabbed a few obnoxious plant cliches while nobody was looking, so - hah! Take that, modern gardening!

So here's what we hauled home - Matt's parents gave us loads of plants dug from their gardens too, so the car is pretty muddy now:

1 Kniphofia "Wayside Flame" (red hot poker)
1 Achillea "Walter Funke" (yarrow)
1 Buddleja
3 Crocosmia "Lucifer"
2 Euphorbia myrsinites
2 Euphorbia rigida
1 Thymus minor
1 Thymus "Latavin Lucy"
(both to be featured in a Matt-driven path project soon)
3 Eryngium planum "Sapphire Blue"
1 Aster "Bill's Big Blue" (It's a bit obnoxious already - I sort of regret this one. Maybe I should have got 3 based on Ikea display principles?)
1 Cordyline Australis "Red Sensation"
1 Salvia "Anthony Parker"
1 Sedum spectabile "Neon"
1 Yucca flaccida "Garland Gold"
1 Coprosma x Kirkii "Variegata"
3 Rosmarinus officinalis "Santa Barbara"
1 Phlomis (what the hell is this? Why did I buy it? Argh!)
1 Penstemon x Mexicali "Pike's Peak Purple" (Again, no idea how this ended up in the car)















From Matt's Mum and Skip:
Several Peruvian lillies (?)
1 clump of unidentified thing
Loads of iris, unidentified (will probably have to live at the barn where it's damper)
2 roses (ditto)
Watsonia clump (not sure on color)
(and tons of lamb's ears that we must have forgotten to bring home - such a bummer, as I really wanted them!)

Seeds from Matt's dad:
Echium "Pride of Madera"
Malcolmia
Yellow daisy of some sort
And something else I can't remember right now...

So anyway we had to get them all in the ground the minute we arrived home after our 4 hour drive (*mutter*) as they looked as carsick as I felt. Matt decided on a new bed, front and center (above), to showcase the kniphofia, euphorbias, yucca and cordyline, (which are my new favorites) and put anything unidentified on the outside edge by the sidewalk so we can monitor them in case they turn out to be (horrors) uncoordinated malcontents (left.)

Sage showed up and dammit, I had already planted the salvia (oh that would have been funny, right? Right??) but he got stuck in anyway, and he brought wine. Excellent. Mmmm!

Got to do some watering tomorrow...