We took a little break and drove down to the annual Garden Palooza event at a local nursery in the Willamette Valley. This event draws people from Portland all the way to Corvallis. We go early on Fridays and there’s still a parking lot full when we arrive, This year didn’t seem quite as crowded but it was fast filling up by the time we left.
Prices for plants were all over the place, too. I wrote down the price of commercial bleeding hearts at the gate: $6/gallon pot. We saw 4-inch pots for as much as $14 and as low as $4. I found grand collomia starts (two to a pot) for $4, a big yellow yarrow for $12 (gallon pot), an exotic looking “epinedium youngianum” (Young’s barrenwort) also for $12. And a lot of commercial bleeding hearts in gallon pots for anything from $12 to $24! I returned and bought two of the first ones I saw at $6. Our friend found a bottle bush (he likes mine) for a decent price as well. We stopped at another nursery on our way home because the vendor at the event told my husband they sold smaller versions of a plant he fell in love with at the nursery: an Australian mint with purple flowers.
I also asked the expert from Brother’s Tree Peonies about this damage to one of my peonies. His eyes got large and he said, “Bugs don’t like peonies!” But then he came up with an answer: the culprit is most likely a carpenter bee who dug out the hole, decided it didn’t like peonies, and moved on to a better home. Makes perfect sense to me and it is only one peony, the “test” peony. Because bugs don’t like peonies.
Now to wait out the next week of rain clouds. And to get ahead of Round One with Allergies.
Jaci Dawn 