I went to the Beltsville Garden Club Sale: Globularia repens, G. meridionalis, Penstemon kunthii, and Louisiana iris 'Black Gamecock'

It;s like an addiction, this craving for new plants. These are all from Mike Bordelon. I've never grown Globularias but they ought to work well in the hot front garden; I know they like drainage. I almost think that if they live at all, they'll spread.....enthusiastically. Penstemon kunthii I've had before but not for more than a year or so. I'm psyched because it's my favorite kind of plant, a xeric sub-shrub that likes heat. I'm afraid though, that it likes more mineralization than we have. Maybe mix a little clay into the sand? Anyway It'll be fun to try it again. 'Black Gamecock' is a beautiful Louisiana Iris; it's very dark purple, one of the few I might recognize.

Hooray! The system worked (will work?) so we'll be back in our gardens Monday!

The weather was dreary yesterday and apparently will be dreary today but the good news is that the Federal Budget for 2011 is a done deal so we won't miss a beat in the collections.

Actually this is turning out to be a good spring at least from the point of view of the plants. It's been consistently cool but we haven't been more than a few degrees below freezing for a long time and it begins to look like we may be done altogether with frosts. We've had plenty of rain and the odd hottish day here and there to "goose" progress along. It's supposed to go to 87F (31C) on Monday and then drop ~20 degrees into a more seasonable coolish range. The long term forecasts suggest we'll get rain here and there over the next few weeks so all is good with the world and I can go to the Beltsville Garden Club spring plant sale without a care in the world. Or at least without that one big worry!