Houston, We Have A Problem

Behold, my friends, the spring is come; the earth has gladly received the embraces of the sun, and we shall soon see the results of their love!
— Sitting Bull

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul.
— Alfred Austin

From plants that wake when others sleep, from timid jasmine buds that keep their odour to themselves all day, but when the sunlight dies away let the delicious secret out to every breeze that roams about.
— Thomas Moore

I always see gardening as escape, as peace really. If you are angry or troubled, nothing provides the same solace as nurturing the soil.
— Monty Don

And that problem would be my lack of impulse control. *sigh* A funny thing happened to my vow to not buy any more plants . . .

The daughter and I went to the Vintage Clothing Festival in Toronto on the weekend. Only the foolish, or desperate, drive downtown in Toronto, so we drove to Oshawa and took the GO train in. It got very crowded very quickly – sort of like “fill a bag for a buck” day at the thrift store. We went through it all once and then we were pretty much done.

However, we knew this was probably going to happen, so we had a couple of alternate plans in place, seeing as we were already in the city section of the 401. One of these plans was to go to a garden centre in Ajax where a friend of the daughter’s had bought a miniature orange tree. It seemed harmless enough, and it wasn’t too many miles out of our way.

O. M. G. It was the largest garden centre I have ever seen, and I defy anyone to go there and come away empty handed.

We breezed through the outdoor section, proud of ourselves for only picking up a couple of plants. Then we went inside, where we entered plant nirvana. First up was the most amazing collection of succulents it’s ever been my pleasure to witness:

And trust me, the above pictures were just the tip of the iceberg.

The fuchsias had the largest blooms and the most vibrant colours I’ve seen:

And I didn’t realize that calla lilies came in so many different colours:

There was a section for water plants, but it was a little too early for them. However, they did have huge vats of koi of various sizes:

They even a section for those interested in the art of bonsai:

I bought a couple of dwarf daffodils, a blue and a white grape hyacinth, and something pink to use in a fairy garden, and a morning glory I’m hoping will grow up the light pole in my peony garden. And then we got deeper into the houseplant section where I had to keep reminding myself that I had no more space for plants.

I did, however, find a couple that were irresistible:

That’s the morning glory in the bottom left, and you can see just a bit of the strawberry begonia beside it. On the right side is a string of arrows, and above that is a string of marbles (also known as string of pearls or string of beads). In the upper left corner is a pot of turtles on a string.

No, I do not know where they’re going yet, so wish me luck in keeping them alive.

And wouldn’t you know, they were sold out of the miniature orange trees that brought us there, although they did have full sized orange, tangerine, lime, and lemon trees. But they are supposed to get more of the miniatures in June, so I guess we’ll just have to go back for them.

I’m sure it will be worthy of another blog post.