When I went out to water the hanging plants, my eyes immediately were drawn to the package at the foot of the door. It’s here! I grabbed it and headed into the house full of joy (yes, be happy for the little things in life.)

I slit open the box with a knife and I marveled at all the parts. Then I sighed. Now the hard part. I have to read the directions and figure out how to put it all together. Then I noticed the box only contained one patio-watering kit and the extra parts I also ordered. The packing order said there were two. Nope, only one. I checked my order email and it said I ordered two, they charged me for two and that they were being delivered complete in one package. Well, darn it anyway!

I called the company and said I only got one in the box. Really? was her reply. I told them the box was too small to even contain two kits. They’d send out another one. Now I’m waiting for the second one to arrive.

In the mean time, I’m going to be working on figuring out the first one, hopefully today. Normally, though, I’m always happy with my mail-order items. I’m really happy with these guys, too, for the speed of processing my order. Missing a major part of my order, not good, but other than that………

Work inside the house has come to a screeching halt. Too much to do outside right now. We spent a whole day running around to the nurseries and garden centers for my garden flowers and hanging baskets on the front porch. I still have to figure out some landscaping idea for the area the roofers ruined last fall. Below is a little slideshow of my purchases.
You can watch the Flash version below or choose to see it with Windows Media Player on the second screen.

Last weekend we went to several Erie, PA area nursery and garden centers looking for 2 Tree Mallows - Barnsley. The nursery where we bought them before took our name down and if they get some in, they’ll call us. In the meantime I ended up buying 4 hanging baskets and 4-14″ metal baskets for them to hang in. I also bought several fragrant flowers to add to the garden and other deck and garden plants. We bought some 6-paks of petunias (they sure smell good) and made some of my own hanging arrangements in metal baskets we already had for the back deck.

Watch the Video

I ordered my patio drip-irrigation kit today. I hate to put the burden of watering all my hanging baskets and flower pots on my deck and porch on my in-laws every time we leave town. They have enough to do feeding the cats and cleaning our cats’ litterbox.  It should be here by next week.

I used lots of drip irrigation when I lived out west. It was a way of life but pretty much unnecessary here in the northeast unless you have potted plants. Though, there are times we do need to water during a few dry stretches.

I plan on putting a feeder tube to my fountain, too, to keep it filled with water. I used to like watering my hanging baskets but lately I just think of it as something I have to do, even though I just love my flowers. The kit includes a battery-operated timer so I won’t have to worry about it except to make sure it is working now and then

Last year I looked for 70% shade cloth but couldn’t find any around here locally. I ordered it last month and I put it up last week. The hanging flowers are just going to love it. I’ll use the deck a lot more because it blocks out 70% of the sun on our deck. My plants were always in stress during the hot spells. I will just take it off come fall so it lets the full sun come back to the deck when it turns cooler. We have a decorative pergola above but it doesn’t block much sun. Now we can have the best of both worlds.

After losing 2 of my 3 tree mallows, I went on quest to find some new ones. I haven’t had any luck so far in finding the Barnsley Tree Mallow, “lavatera barnsley.” I called the nursery where we bought them before but they didn’t have any, maybe the next shipment.

I drove to the west-side Lowes and Walmart yesterday to buy flowers for my garden. I can’t help myself, I find every flower SO BEAUTIFUL! My cart was getting pretty full of flowers so I had to stop or risk injury to the flowers already in the cart. My attention was diverted toward a rack of seeds after hearing a loud, child’s tantrum in that general direction. Oh, I forgot about seeds. It was still early enough in the spring to plant some flowers from seeds. I put 5 packets in my cart.

I pondered a considerable time, though, over one packet. I love sunflowers, my husband doesn’t. I was trying to dream up a scenario in my mind of how this could work out. The tree mallows are expensive. They ran about $25 apiece for a two-gallon container when we bought them from the nursery and they are biennials in our area. I have this empty space now where the mallows were in my garden, along the lattice work on the side of the garage. Really, it is a perfect place for sunflowers as I could tie them up to the lattice. The birds love them and even though they would be in our backyard, people would be able to see them between the houses on the next road over. Big, beautiful, round, bright sunflowers.

So the packet went into the cart. Driving home I started thinking how I would convince my husband this is a good idea. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. We both loved the tree mallows and he said it was worth the money to buy some more. The tree mallows have class. Sunflowers are a bit straggly looking and it takes 2 months to get a bloom.

After the welcome-home kiss to my husband, I fiddled with the bag of stuff I bought. “Oh,” I said trying not to stutter. “We could save a lot of money by not buying the tree mallows and instead plant these sunflowers.” I blurted it out, not unlike Ralphie in the Christmas Story movie.

He gave me a blank look and took the packet of seeds and looked at it. “It’s not so much that I don’t like sunflowers as it is that they are messy and they’ll keep sprouting up everywhere.” He turned the packet over,”These grow 16 ft high.”

What kind of monster flower had I bought, I didn’t know they grew that big. My garden is about 20 ft by 20 ft tops. “Huh,” I grunted, “16 ft?”

That’s higher than the garage and if I planted them next to our house, we could pick the flowers from the second-story window. Not going to happen….chipmunk food.