Plant Sales!

Spent a lot of today on a happy journey: seeking out some plant sales.  The three I found are each annual events, but none of them I’d ever been to before.  I started my horticultural hoarding at a plant sale in the Lloyd Memorial Centre, Kingsport.  Picked up a Shasta Daisy, Leucanthemum superbum, and White Bleeding Heart, Dicentra spectabilis  alba. Didn’t take any photos of those ‘ordinary’ additions.  But here is the rest of the day’s take.

In New Minas, at the Valley Gardener’s plant sale, I got a bit of unspecified Stachys, likely officinalis.  Also picked up a nice Akebia quinata, usually called Chocolate Vine; this is a plant I've wanted for a while.  Not only do I love chocolate, but this vine is unusual and attractive.  Well, it is getting more and more common; I needed one anyway.  It’s going to find a home on an arbor I plan to build for it, along with some kiwi vines, patiently waiting in their pots.  Also chose some variegated Periwinkle, Vinca minor veriegata, an unnamed Toad Lily, Tricyrtis, and a white Dicentra, perhaps it is cucularia.   

The final destination was the delightful sale in Annapolis Royal of rare and unusual plants; a bit of plant geek heaven.  I even got called a “plant geek” by one of the vendors.  Some local plantsmen and women shared their wares and there was also plant material from the Historic Gardens, thanks to the volunteers. 

     For years I’ve admired the Bottlebrush Buckeye at the Gardens in Annapolis.  Well, here were some offshoots, up for sale.  Aesculus parviflora is a large, mounding shrub, not a tree like many of the other Buckeyes and Horse Chestnuts we know.

     One of the totally foreign looking seedlings available from the Gardens North booth was a small tree called Dead Man’s Fingers.  At maturity, Decaisnea fargesii will develop spectacularly blue seedpods.  I can hardly wait.  Also from Gardens North I got a little rock-gardeny thing called Delosperma aff congesta.  

It will grow quite happily in Nova Scotia from year to year.  It is blooming cheery yellow now. 

     At this sale I also got a little pot of a Corydalis, perhaps solida, which is just ending its season of mauve blooms.  It will go dormant in the summertime.  

I think this is the groundcover I’ve seen for years on some lawns in Wolfville: carpeting an area in May, totally unseen come July.  Let’s hope it seeds and spreads nicely.  I also bought a pot of some Sempervivum or other.  Most of the ones I once had got crowded and shaded out in a neglected and overcrowded ‘rock garden.’ 

     A nice finale to these excursions was dropping by my friend Janet’s place just outside Annapolis.   On the garden tour she immediately asked if I saw anything I liked.  She meant: what did I want to take home!  She gave me a lovely Primrose, Primula, which looks like little carnations held just above the leaves, and some red Bee Balm, a Monarda didyma hybrid, I suppose.  

     Thanks, Janet, and thanks to all the clubs and communities sharing your plants!