Well I really racked them up this weekend.  My favorite nursery, Perennial Point, was having a customer appreciation weekend and all plants were on sale for 30% off.  A dead garden will make you weak in the face of temptation and I guess I blinked.

Not smart version 6.0:  The garden was bone dry and I couldn’t even take care of what I had.  Weeds are having a field day, the lawn is dead and other plants are dying left and right.  I just bought home several delicate, nursery-perfect plants which probably haven’t even broken a sweat their whole lives and I’m planning to throw them into this nightmare.

Three big ticket items followed me home, ‘Plum Magic’ crape myrtle, hypericum ‘Red Fame’, and daylily ‘Bubblegum Pie’.

Not smart 6.1:  I don’t like daylilies, don’t ask me why I would buy one.  The leaves look horrible in late summer, the old blooms look like soggy tissue messes which need daily cleanup, and the name ‘Bubblegum Pie’ is insanely dumb.  The flower on this one is fat and fleshy and overdone with way too many ruffles.  There’s nothing graceful or elegant in the flower but I’ll plant it near the one daylily which came with the house (and resprouted after I thought I sent it to the compost pile) and the other species daylily which I grew from seed (Hemerocallis atissima, a tall and graceful night bloomer).  We will see how it does.

Look at the fruits on Hypericum inodorum ‘Red Fame’!  I’ve seen these used in flower arrangements and never thought it might do well in the garden, so we’ll see if it does.  btw the crystalline glisten on the leaves is something called raindrops, yeah it took me a few minutes to recognize it as well, apparently we used to get a lot of it back in the day.

Not smart 6.2:  I bought a Hypericum ‘Red Fame’ which I think is cool with its juicy looking bright red fruits and according to what I’ve read may tolerate drought just fine, but I also bought a crape myrtle.  Crape myrtle are not hardy here and even at 30% off this one still wasn’t exactly cheap but somewhere deep down inside I seem to think someday a miracle will happen and one will survive.  Maybe fourth time’s the charm….

Three new caladiums and a new coleus.  Buy one get one free on annuals since no one bothers to buy annuals on the last weekend of July… no one except me apparently.

Not smart 6.3:  I bought more annuals.  Tomorrow is August 1st and the days for annuals are numbered and I should be focusing on limping through the summer and getting ready for fall gardening rather than wishing for another June and July.  Plus I seem to remember telling myself (you wouldn’t remember since Iwas talking solely to myself) that I had too many coleus last year and I should let some meet their maker when frost came.  Now I’m adding more?

Caladium ‘Pink Splash’ which I managed to overwinter from tubers purchased last year.  At least that was smart.  Also smart is the healthy, dark-leaved Eucomis (pineapple lily) grown from seed supplied by Nan Ondra.  I’m hoping it will be big enough to bloom next year!

Not smart 6.4:  I already have too many caladiums for a reasonable Pennsylvania garden, but if you hang on for another minute I’ll tell a quick caladium story.  It used to be I could overwinter them with ease and even had some survive for more than 5 years, but then my luck changed.  Dead tubers would greet me each spring and I wasn’t sure what was wrong.  Short story even shorter last winter I tried keeping them completely dry in their pots and in a warmer spot and lo and behold they made it through perfectly.  Logical next step is to take advantage of any good caladium deal which you come across and then be immensely disappointed when they go back to dying next winter…

White caladiums and a pot of mixed tubers which I found on clearance.  The spotted one is my absolute favorite.

Pristine white caladiums filling a terra cotta planter in the high shade of a southern garden is tasteful.  My mixed, gaudy plantings in reused plastic nursery pots are not.  But I digress, and will leave you with one last glimpse of my new daylily.

The disgusting daylily ‘Bubblegum Pie’ with all its offensive frills and flounce.  It really is too much of everything and I’m positive this will be the one and only daylily I ever purchase for this garden.  Since I have it I might as well plant it, and I might as well even spare a few shovelfuls of my precious compost on it.  The pot has three fans already and I can only imagine three or four deliciously overdone stalks next year filled with more of these flowers!

Not that smart 6.5?  A few days ago I ordered some iris through the Historic Iris Preservation Society’s annual fund raiser.  That’s innocent enough, but now that the sale has wound down I noticed a posting on Facebook looking for volunteers to take in leftover rhizomes and grow them on for a year before sending them back for next year’s sale.  I’m wondering where I would put 10 or 20 more iris 🙂

It rained by the way.  An absolutely amazing soaking rain which stretched out for hours and got into many of the driest nooks and crannies of the garden.  I’m quite pleased and know it will be a good week and wish all the best for yours as well.