Planting Day

It was 7:15am and I was eager to be out of bed. But for whatever the reason, I was dreaming of waking with a headache. It's not that I wanted one - certainly not! Lucky for me, the headache never materialized. Mindy asked that I let her sleep until 8:15am. I quietly went about making coffee and exercising. It was 7:45am when I returned from my morning walk with Ykraps. I spent the next 30 minutes sipping coffee and working on my blog. The weather seemed nicer than forecasted. For that I was grateful given that this was “Planting Day”, the day each year when I thrust my hands into the soil burying beautiful flowers throughout my landscape.

It was already in the upper 50’s and it was marginally sunny. The forecast called for clouds and upper 60’s with a slight chance of rain. It didn’t look like it, though. I woke Mindy at 8:20am. She was meeting her friend Teri at 9:30am at First Watch for breakfast. I left for my run while she readied for the go.

I ran within the subdivision. When I returned, Mindy, as expected, was already gone. Excited about the prospects of planting, I somewhat hurriedly whipped up a shredded pork burrito for my breakfast, and then dressed in my yard shorts and a t-shirt before beginning the planting.

I planted the Wave petunia’s in the front flower beds first. I had four flats but even before I was done I could see that I needed more. The temperature shot up and it was fairly humid too. It certainly was warmer than the upper 60’s. It felt almost summery. Mindy returned from her morning out sometime around 1pm. I let her know that I needed to make a return to DeMonye’s. She chose not to go along. I still had some perennials and deck plants to sink but didn’t want to move on to them until the front beds were complete.

As I drove out east I could see that it was most likely raining out eat. The sky was very dark. And once I arrived at DeMonye’s it was sprinkling. Still, back west it was hazy and sunny. I bought another four flats of Wave petunias. All totaled, I’ve spent $160 just on petunias alone. I bought a flat of geraniums while there, too. By the time I left Demonye’s it was raining hard. But just west of downtown the sky was clear and the pavement dry. I was glad that the rain was seemingly past us. Back home I got right back on the planting. Just as I did a breeze kicked up and the clouds began moving in. Unlike most weather, we had clouds moving in from the northeast, and along with the clouds there were significantly cooler temps. Soon it began raining on me. But I didn’t let it detour me form my goal. It didn’t really rain too hard. Rather, it was just a slight inconvenience.

After planting 6.5 flats out front, I moved to the back. I planted a combination of perennials, geraniums, and petunia’s around the two major deck beds. Now I viewed the rain as friendly as it helped water in the new flowers. And besides, the lawn was just beginning to show signs of needing rain. After the major beds were done I cleaned up for the day. I would spend Sunday doing all the deck pots and hanging baskets. For this, however, I still needed some specific flowers. I asked Mindy if she felt like heading out shopping for flowers. She was busy napping while I showered. She agreed to go along. We figured we might get some dinner while out, too.
Around 3:30pm we headed out to Lowes, Home Depot, and then Strader’s. We bought two hibiscus, four hanging baskets, and about eighteen dahlias, tuberous begonias, and gerbera daisies at Strader’s. We spent another small fortune, but I am obsessed with having lots of colorful flowers to express my love of summer. We still needed to get some planter fillers such as spikes and vinca. I refused to pay $3 a piece knowing that I could get them cheaper elsewhere. I’d set out early Sunday morning to get those at Wal-Mart.

We stopped at our favorite Greek restaurant, The Big Fat Greek Cuisina, on our way home to buy a couple gyros to-go. I woofed down my gyro with the last of my Barley’s Hoptopus. And since it was Cinco de Mayo, I whipped up a blender of Margaritas. We drank the entire blender full and then did a couple of buttery nipple shots. By then it was 9:30pm. We fired up the hot tub and enjoyed a good soaking. We lasted about twenty minutes in there. We headed to be after the hot tub.