The First Sunflower

I know I should at least wait until the flower is open , but sorry, I just can't. These sunflowers are one of my very favorite things in the garden. You will be seeing more of them. Another of my pop- up- everywhere- from- seeds plants, the sunflowers came originally from some Budgie seed that I planted a long time ago. They are not just a single stem flower, you can see a second bud in the picture. It's more of a sunflower bush. This one is planted right in front of the house and with the reflected light off the white siding it gets full sun and a half.

We are having other firsts as well. I picked my first summer squash, first zucchini and first parsley. Dinner last night was a delicious reminder of why we grow garden vegetables.

The other first this morning was the close encounter Ed had with a coyote in the side yard. As he was coming out of the house and up the stone ramp from the basement , he saw the coyote between the compost bin and the shed. Their eyes met and after a time the coyote turned and he and Ed went their separate ways. I'm not quite so brave, I 'm sure seeing the coyote that close would have brought one of my shrieks and both of us would have beat a hasty retreat.

Time for More Plants

We had some errands to do, and with gas prices being what they are, we made a circle and stopped at some nurseries to look at their plants. It's early of course, but we were driving right by, weren't we?

We walked around the first place and looked. My sales resistance was good. I just picked up some lavender plants since my are all either dead or doing Camille.

The man at the second place had promised me lemon verbenas plants when I stopped there last year late in the buying season. "I had them", he said. "I'll have them next year. Don't come so late in the season." We looked around, asked where the herbs were, but alas no lemon verbena. This time we left empty handed.

The last stop of the day was in Franklin, NY. This nursery has been a favorite of mine for years. The stand is up by the road and the green houses are down the hill. The stand looked lovely with pansies, primroses and other cool loving plants.

"Can we look in the greenhouses?" we asked. "Of course", she replied. "Can we buy the plants now?" we asked. "If you take care of them you can, you know it's too soon to leave them outside!" We assured we would carry our plants in and out until the weather was better, and down the hill we went. She cares because they grow plants here, they don't just unload them off of a truck, and she wants them to live.

These greenhouses are special. The plants are healthy, well cared for and gorgeous. We came home with the plants in the picture: parsley, curled and Italian, tricolor sage, golden sage, a single sweet 100s tomato plant, and red and green basil.

I stopped to look in the pansy greenhouse. The sun was shining and the fan was blowing across the pansies. The fragrance was every bit as wonderful as the colorful display of those happy faces. I took a deep breath, and then turned and left. Here, pansies are rabbit and deer candy. The animals seem to find them irresistible. We promised to take care of her plants, so I couldn't expose them to certain and untimely death.