The Great Spring Staycation: Day 7

Today was grocery day.. and since the garden center I go to is part of the grocery store... yep - back to the gardens!

I wanted to get some mulch for the roses and the bush garden

I thought it needed something to make it look more finished. Not to mention it would help keep the weeds down, and the water in.

It certainly helps, but I think it needs a border of beach rocks to make it look truly finished. I'll have to make a stop on the way home when I get back to work next week.

And no - you're not seeing things... there is a little something new....

That circle of rocks is not containing evil spirits... but sunflowers! I loved the ones I grew last year, but there's just no room left in the bee garden this year.  But there was a space between the Queen Elizabeth Rose and the raspberries. I marked where I planted them with the stones so I don't accidentally pull them out thinking they are weeds.

And speaking of the Bee Garden...

I might have managed to squeeze one more plant in there... The poppies I started from seed last year didn't take, and this beauty was sitting at the garden center all alone - I just had to bring her home. There are several more buds on it, so I can expect blooms for months!

Also in the bee garden... there's a bit of a mystery.

It turns out this plant is the
Alpine Aster.... (and the blooms are almost open!)

Not this plant, as I thought

Whatever it is - it's huge and has lots of buds which are very similar to my Cupid's Dart. But Cupid's Dart has very different leaves... any ideas what it could be???

While at the garden center, I also picked up somethings for the food garden.

One of my strawberry plants didn't make it, but I got four more and another bag of black earth to make all the plants happy.

 As you can see, the new strawberries are much bigger than the old ones... but they will get there. And look...

 Itty bitty berries!

I was also hoping to get some annuals for the tree garden

If I'm honest, the tree garden has me quite vexed! When I first moved here, my intention was to keep it as an annual garden. But least year, I got seduced by Campanula, English Daisies and Violas and bought some perennials. But the only thing that survived and came back this year was the black clover

Which is coming back very slowly.

And one poor little hens and chick.

And the dianthans I planted that WERE annuals... came back with gusto!

 There are about seven plants in three different colours

And I'm not upset that they came back...

But they are so darn tall! If I'd known the were going to come back, I'd have planted them closer to the tree trunk, leaving room for shorter plants in front of them. But C'est la vie.... I'll move them when they die off this winter. 

In the mean time, I got some snap dragons

They will get tall enough to stand their ground. 

And a few yellow violas.

Honestly, the garden center didn't have a great selection of annuals - unless I wanted to buy 10 of the same plant in one tray...  so I'm going to check out a couple by  Mom's on the weekend... hopefully they will have some better choices... I'd really like some giant pansies!