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.

Manducate Monday

manducate ~ to chew or eat

I have a cautionary tale for you today that doesn’t show me in a good light, but it does have a happy(ish) ending.

Saturday night after dinner, I fired up my lap top intending to do some editing. Naturally I didn’t just dive right into work, I had to check my email first. There was a message from one of my sisters – not unheard of, although she usually emails me in the morning, not the evening.

Anyway, the reason she was emailing was because she needed a favour. She was trying to purchase a gift card on Amazon to give to a friend for her birthday, but her credit card wasn’t being accepted. Could I do her a favour and make the purchase for her and she’d pay me back when she got her credit card straightened out.

There were a number of things that should have tipped me off that this wasn’t on the up and up. To name just a few:

Why would my sister email me instead of texting me?
It’s unlikely she’d send a gift card via email
It’s really unlikely she’d spend $100 on a gift card for a friend
And why wouldn’t she just use her hubby’s credit card instead?

In my defense, I was tired and not thinking clearly, and while the request seemed a little unusual, it didn’t raise any alarms with me. So I logged into my Amazon account, ordered up the gift card, and sent it off. I even sent her a copy of the receipt.

Then I logged into Facebook where one of the first messages I saw on my feed was from a cousin who warned us that my sister’s email account had been hacked.

O. M. G.

I immediately phoned Amazon support and they were pretty damn amazing. They’d already flagged the activity as suspicious and temporarily suspended my account. To my relief, the purchase hadn’t gone through. They sent me an email confirming what was going on and followed up with a phone call letting me know I’d have to reset my password and any other account information.

I don’t make purchases with that account very often and my credit card information was out of date, so when I placed the order I had to fill that in again. After I finished straightening things out with Amazon I called my credit card company, just in case. A purchase from Amazon had been attempted but it didn’t go through, and they suggested I keep an eye on my account for the next couple of days. If I see any activity I haven’t authorized I need to call them immediately.

So when all is said and done, I got off lucky, thanks to being able to take action so quickly. Other than the embarrassment of being gullible, the only fallout from all of this was having to reset my Amazon account. I resent the password for my email as well, just in case.

It happened to me; it could happen to you; it could happen to anyone.

Be safe out there in cyberspace.