It Grows and Grows, So How Is It I Am Still Spending??

I said we were not going back - ever.  Well maybe just to get some mulch.  And we did forget to start zinnias from seed - but after that - NEVER!

So we went, just to get mulch (and maybe some zinnias.)  But Always A Garden is our favorite place!  We went at 5:00 in the afternoon when the temperature was close to 90 degrees.  Our thought was that the conditions and the approaching closing time would keep us under control.  Nope.

We did get four bags of mulch and 4 market packs of Zinnias.....and a fuchsia to try out int he shady area in the front, which is going to be a bit bare when the larkspur dies back...and a super-tall Black-Eyed Susan...which is exactly what we need - well... somewhere.  Then as we were checking out, I saw a perfect pair of pruners that are so much better than the old pair of Fiskers desk scissors I was using this morning.  Perfection is never cheap.  We garden on a strictly cash only basis, but today, I confess, I had to pull out the plastic.  That's it!  I'm NEVER going back... for a while.

GARDENING SATURDAY

I had  8th Grade Graduation today and assorted errands, so I wasn't around much for gardening.  Tim was busy all day, mostly working in the herb bed and weeding.  This morning when I was deadheading in the front (using that old pair of Fiskers,) I discovered that the stems of  a rudbeckia and a few of the daisies were covered (and I mean covered) with aphids.  Normally we don't worry too much about aphids, they don't seem to do much harm, especially to the native varieties, and they do have lots of natural predators.  However, this looked like the entire aphid population of Wilmington had settled here.   Tim said the best offense, in cases like this, is a forceful focused shot of water to knock them off and drown them in the process.  He grabbed his hose weapon and forged into battle.  Ten minutes later, there were no aphids to be found.  I checked when I came home late this afternoon and there was still no sign of the little suckers (that's literal, not "eighth-grade speak," of which I am sometimes guilty.)  We'll see how things look in the next few days, but for the moment, it's Donovan's 1, Aphids 0.