Holidaze

Wow, the holiday weekend went by quickly! We had the best weather ever for the weekend! Well, it was at least the best we've had in a few years. Temps were in the 80's and 90's and the sky was crystal clear.
On Saturday, Tom and I went to Home Depot and bought three 20" pots for the patio. They look like they're terra cotta, but they're actually styrofoam. Amazing! We bought a few flowers as well, though we were not impressed with the condition of most of the plants. They were not being well cared for. After our Home Depot purchase, we headed to this nursery in town we like - Arcadia Greenhouse. They have a big greenhouse facility out in the boonies but they open a satellite operation in town with dozens of flats of flowers of all varieties. When we got there, they were swamped. Every time we walked down one of the aisles between the rows of flowers we had to stop and stand sideways so someone could walk past us. I felt like we were driving a Suburban on a road in an Italian village. Not that I've ever been in an Italian village, but I've seen movies and heard stories about how narrow the streets are and how crazy the Italians drive, so that's my metaphor! Anyway, it was crazy. We squeezed in where we could, picking out pony packs of pansies, petunias, dianthus, nemesia, bacopa, and stock and putting them into little nursery trays. Before we knew it, we had 4 trays of flowers for a grand total of $57. After we checked out, I overheard a woman saying that all the small black pony packs - pots equal to 4 cell pack plants in size - were 2 for $1. That was just an amazing price, so.... we hurried home with the plants we had, and then I went back and bought another $36 worth of flowers! I bought everything I could think of - vinca, geraniums, violas, phlox, more petunias, more pansies... at that price, I wanted to buy everything they had. I made myself stop at 72 plants. We had our work cut out for us. Later that day our oldest son and his family came to visit. We all went down to Sandpoint City Beach for a while so the kids could play in the water. Tommy and his family spent the night at our house and we all made plans to get together with Shana & Ryan the following day for a barbecue and to celebrate Shana's birthday (May 31).

Sunday was every bit as beautiful as Saturday. We again spent the day at the beach. The "boys" (Tom, Tommy, and Ryan), and granddaughter Sydney played a few games of "horse" - two out of three of which Tom won. Not bad for an old fart. After we got bored with the beach, we went to Shana & Ryan's and barbecued tri-tip and had birthday cake. We played dominos until later that night and then headed back to our house. Tommy and his family left Monday morning and Shana & Ryan trekked to Spokane to do some shopping.

Sunday morning I ran over to Home Depot again to get some more African Daisies. Sadly, they were sold out. I went over to WalMart to check out their flowers, but nothing struck my fancy. By the time I got home, Tom had filled the large pots with potting soil and one was waiting for me to fill with flowers. I set to the task with great enthusiasm. I love mixing the colors and leaf textures to make an aesthetically pleasing arrangement. Tom insists on a dracaena in the middle of the pot each year - something I'm not overly fond of, but I relent - so that went in first. On one side of the dracaena is a Martha Washington geranium. On the other is a gorgeous African Daisy in the darkest, most beautiful magenta you can imagine. The rest of the pot is filled with a mix of yellow snapdragons, white dianthus, pink, magenta, and white Sweet Williams, white and lavendar bacopa, lavendar petunias, lavendar nemesia, purple and yellow viola, some ivy, some vinca, and lots of lobelia. Oh, and some pink phlox is thrown in as filler throughout. They will be beautiful once they start filling in. So, we have three pots like that on the patio. We also planted about 7 other smaller pots with things like red and pink zonal geraniums, purple and lavendar petunias, butterscotch colored African Daisies, and other miscellaneous flowers. Once things begin to grow a bit I'll post photos. After all this planting, which took most of the day, I still have about 36 flowers to plant! Unfortunately, it's raining, has been raining, and is supposed to continue to rain for the next few days. I guess the rest of my pots will have to wait.

But it was a glorious holiday weekend!