Temptation Traumas

Ok ... I have to wrap up this month to unfold all of my guilty pleasures I have indulged.
Code for "what else have I bought to add to the garden" ?
This purchase was also nudged by Garden PA, so some of the blame can land on his shoulders, right ?
And ... why is it Costco that instigates these episodes ?
On with the details .. it is only one package .. but it has a 16 count of some pretty eye catching bulbs.

Yes .. it is on Sophie's "cat tree" so ignore the paw print blanket ... and ... perhaps some fur
Landini is a very dark unscented (thankfully less interest to lily beetles ?) lily that will truly set off a contrast to lighter lilies .. what can I say ? I couldn't help myself and Garden PA made me do it.
Here comes the great part aside from the lily itself ... the price for 16 of these beauties was $14.95
When I looked else where .. say Vesey .. you only got 3 bulbs for the same price ! Crazy right ?
So .. SCORE on that deal !
Once again .. the beauty

As for the last mail order .. from Canning .. I invested in bulking up a few of my standard plants .
Adiantum pedatum aka Maiden Hair fern .. just such a lovely delicate looking fern that offsets all the other plants next to them. Not my picture though .. just to give you an idea.

A new anemone .. "Curtain Call Deep Rose" intrigued me because I was such a fan of Pamina.
Hopefully these will be more hardy and over winter better than Pamina did for me.

Epimedium has been a bit of a weakness for me .. I meant to order more last year and delayed too long .. so I lost out on the specific one I love "Niveum" .. this year I ordered three.
Again .. not my picture .. of course I can't find mine at the moment .. but there you go, an idea of it.
Those tiny white bells win me over every time !

Something new has bitten me .. although I have lusted after one for a long time.
Witch hazel aka Hamamelis virginiana ... it can be a shrub or trained as a small tree.
I am all in for the tree version even though what I am buying is literally going to be a "stick"
I can deal with that .. I want to watch it grow like I did my Chinese Fringe tree which is a beauty.
So ? what does witch hazel look like ? I hope one day just like this !
Plus .. the blooming in the Fall is such a bonus ... for me and the birds ?

I'm not totally encased in plant buying, just so you know I am not a fanatic .. well ... I am, but .. there is more to me.
I have been struggling with whether to disclose personal information but I also wonder if it may help other gardeners who struggle with similar disadvantages.
I have been dealing with severe health issues for many years .. auto-immune conditions that can be deadly for me .. let alone the exhaustion and weakness that can make your life pretty miserable.

I seem to be a rolling ball of moss that keeps collecting them still.
This Autumn, rhuematoid and osteo arthritis, along with Raynaud's were diagnosed.
It hit me pretty hard .. it is difficult not to become depressed when dealing with multiple conditions like these ..

BUT ... my plan (I started last January, 2019,  before I knew about this) was to top up with pro-biotics, vitamin D, and omega oils, plus Yin /Hatha yoga.
I am laying it on the line, for who ever else is suffering out there, that this regime I have been doing for over 14 months (with many ups and downs included) has made an unbelievable change in my life.
You too CAN CHANGE your body with your own plan that you create for yourself ..
The caveat is that you have to have patience, and perseverance to let it actually work.

This is what helped me when I thought I was past being able to change.
Your plan could be completely different .. what ever it takes to help you feel better .. just do it !
And now  .. for a look at my new yoga mat (I don't only buy plants !)

 Of course it has to have a plant theme though .. lotus leaves !

Have you done this ?

I was so enamored by those delicious yellow tulips that were sprouted in a huge glass vase. 
These soft yellow tulips were so pretty I wanted to save them .. but I have never done anything like this before and I was wondering if anyone has, and what advice they could give me ?
Bouquet of water bound tulips, many weeks ago.

I have done that singular "hyacinth in a small water vase" ..
But I had never bothered to save the bulb.
So this is what I did .. I let the tulips "mature" as much as possible, then snipped the "seed head". Leaving the leaves to die back and feed the bulbs as much as possible.

I cleaned them up, and put them in a brown paper lunch bag .. WITH a label of course.
Knowing how I am .. that memory would have flown out the window quite quickly.

Its just that they were so beautiful I couldn't bear the idea of throwing them out.

The filtered light through them was gorgeous.

So what do you think my chances are for them staying "good" until this Fall to plant in the garden ?
Normally when I saved tender bulbs (lifting them in the fall) I would sprinkle them with garden sulphur .. to be on the safe side .. but I don't have any on hand right now .. maybe later ?

Meanwhile ... I am so glad I got the little desk LED grow light thing.
I think it really adds positive light to help combat SAD .. especially right now .. snow fall warnings yet again.

It doesn't really express well in this picture .. the light is far more attractive and warm.
My yoga frog inspires me .. so much so, that I sent one to my friend in Northern Ireland because we both have our struggles and rely on yoga to help us through.

How could you not smile when looking at this mini yoga master ?

That Touch of White

It is that time of year when gardeners are becoming obsessed with any connection to plants and gardening .. so much so, that this non indoor gardener has crumbled and invested in an LED desk grow light.

It is waiting for me at our Lee Valley store ... and yes, I think I will be hunting down an African Violet to go beneath it.
I have been a serial killer of African violets, but this time may be different due to the loving and caring grow light .. right ?
Other brain storming I have had .. well , lack of impulse control is more like it.
On-line plant purchases .. it always starts out rather innocent but then ? it becomes almost manic.
Excuse # 1 .. I loved my white tiger lily "Sweet Surrender" from the past two years .. it seemed LONELY.

Gorgeous right ? .. but lonely .. serial planter of one(s) ? .. so now I have 6 more coming.

Excuse # 2 .. Another lonely lily problem .. Roselily Corrolla

It is in dire straights for the company of more .. three more are coming to the rescue.
Yes ... I suffer from lily beetle angst .. but I am ready to battle for the sake of these beautiful lilies.
Thus the picture of another white lily from the garden, surrounded with greenery that screams the need of white lilies.

The art of white accent pieces, makes a "spent" astilbe and assorted greenery look amazing to me.
To illustrate that I am not totally lily mad .. I have had other white plants in the garden.

There is no denying what impact white has in a garden.

I have invested in "Swans in Flight" Siberian iris.
I just happened to run across it while "consuming" (the only way to describe what I do to catalogs) the inventory for Gardens Plus.

Who can resist such a pop of pristine white to accent the other plants in the garden ?
The ironic bonus is exactly that .. a bonus from Botanus (lily order) .. they give you a hosta root.
The hosta name is "So Sweet", which has (wait for it) sparkling, white flowers.

Ok .. enough of the white .. it is literally WHITE outside here as it is, but this did seem to be the "cure" for a bit of garden obsession or should I say plant obsession.
By the time all my ordering shows up at the door .. I will be overwhelmed and groaning about how I went over board .. meanwhile a gal can dream .. right ?
Why make this year different from any other, in any case

Feathery to Absolute Freezing

These pictures were a couple of weeks ago but even after all the weather alerts it is some what the same today with a pinch more snow.

Last weekend we had 6 inches of rain fall in less than 24 hours .. it went up to 11 degrees.. it was madness, we have never seen weather like that before.
Then it froze, and went to -20 with a wind chill of -27 Friday morning , talk about a chilling affect !

This snow was so feathery it looked unreal at times.

It looked like artificial snow that they blow on movie sets in fact.

One of my Japanese maples refused to drop it leaves .. can't blame it !

I needed something with living colour desperately, thus the Costco purchase.

Living, breathing bulbs in this special vase.

The soft yellow was my favorite .. when we bought it, none of the flowers were blooming.
So they really came alive in my kitchen, how perfect is that !

The first post of the new year is always a bit tricky, but there it is.