Do you dread getting your credit card statements after the Christmas holidays? Ha! You should see my credit card statements after the month of May. By early June, those statements often look like a directory of nursery and garden centers around my side of town and beyond. Some garden centers are even listed more than once.
I have to give some credit or blame to my stylist, Gloriosa Vanderhort. She has expensive taste and often whispers in my ear, “You work hard all year. What else are you going to spend money on? When will you ever see that plant again? When will you be here again where they are selling these sculptures? Now is the time.”
Then Ms. Hortefeller, my other garden center visiting companion, takes over. She marches me up to the cash register, pulls out one of my credit cards and buys the plants and everything else like she has the money of a Rockefeller.
Once Ms. Vanderhort and Ms. Hortefeller get done shopping, I feel like I need to turn to that tightwad gardener in all of us, Ms. Hortwad, to restore the balance and save up for the next big garden shopping spree in the fall. But I try to leave Ms. Hortwad at home when I am actually at the garden centers. She can be a real downer.
Collectively, though, they do provide balance. Gloriosa Vanderhort makes sure I buy good stuff, Ms. Hortefeller makes sure I just buy stuff, and Ms. Hortwad figures out how to make it all balance out.
And when they don’t all work together, there is always Dr. Hortfreud…
No one gardens alone, or shops for their garden alone, truly.
You're doing your part to stimulate the economy.
I just love your blog! It always always always makes me smile,a nd I can't say that about much!
You are spot on with this post. I need to find Ms Horwad and let her take over for awhile.
Last year I saved my loose change and single dollars which I took out of my wallet each Friday and saved in a jar…from May to May it totalled $300 this year
And what other asset can you buy that provides a comparable return? You purchase one plant, it starts to grow immediately and in a year or so you could have hundreds of them. It's not an expense, it's an investment!
Cool garden! Gardening indeed never fails to make my day.
Oh I so feel your pain! This year has been especially addictive with plants. Right now I'm not even sure I have a place for everything. And plant SALES??? And I haven't even made it to my favorite native plant nursery yet. 🙂 My friends say I need a 12 step program now.
Isn't this the truth! Some women spend all their money on a closet full of shoes. Not us gardeners, we have a garden full of plants! I think our return on investment is better!
Now that he is retired, my husband is with me most of the time. He doesn't seem to understand that, yes, we are stopping at another garden center, and YES, I need that plant.
Truly loved this blog today. Thanks! Happy Memorial Day!
I shop with Ms. Hautehort, the garden designer (I'm trained in design), who keeps asking me, "Where are you going to put that if you buy it? Do you want your garden to look spotty with all sorts of odds and ends?" I used to silence her by buying quantities of the same plants, but I'm running out of room for that. I envy you all your new beds. I'm getting to the point of a new plant means getting rid of an old plant.
Then, there's Ms. Hauterhody (I used to work at the Rhododendron Species Botanical Garden). She says things like, "OMG! Rhododendron irroratum 'Polka Dot'! WHEN was the last time you saw THAT for sale? You MUST buy it!"
It's really annoying to shop with a couple of snobs like Ms. Hautehort and Ms. Hauterhody. I'm really more the "Ooh, that's pretty" kind of shopper.
I apologize for the multiple posts. I have ADHD. I'm not organized enough to write a single post. It's probably just as well that I have Ms. Hautehort to keep me in line.