Tired! (updated with photos)

I think I worked a wee bit too much today. We're having company next weekend for an afternoon to evening party, and since it's now officially spring (but you'd never know it from the chilly weather), I figured I should get some things in the ground and in pots.

So I headed off to the local nursery for some pansies. I have six large pots in the backyard that run along the line of the landscaping that I put giant pansies in each year. So, I bought four flats of pansies while admiring the handsome young kids they hire there...I swear the person who does their hiring is either a gay man or a very choosy young woman, because their guys are always hot!

At any rate, no sooner had I got the pansies home and out of the car than my phone rang...it was another nursery I go to about seven miles away. They were calling to tell me that the rhododendrons that I had been waiting on for more than a year had arrived! I was thrilled.

So I hopped back in the car and made the drive to that nursery. When I got there, I chatted with the master gardener who is their buyer. He was telling all me about some other rhodies and azaleas that I should have when I picked up a delightful scent that was wafting through the place. "What's the great scent coming from?" I asked, and he pointed to a male Japanese Skimmia. It's an evergreen that grows best in shade, which is perfect since I am trying to put together a shade/woodland garden this year. So I picked up one of those and continued looking around. I should have gone to the register! I found a pink Mountain Laurel that I coincidentally had been admiring in a catalog...but the catalog plant would have been much smaller, so I picked that up as well. Oh, and I needed a couple of plants to go in the concrete pots, so I had to pick those up, too. No wonder there is always more month than money!


Here is what the pansies looked like in their respective pots. Further back and to the right, you can see the Japanese Skimmia if you look hard.



A view of a pansy pot from the top.



This is the Mountain Laurel. It hasn't bloomed yet, but there are plenty of little buds down there waiting to open in about three weeks.


So I brought it all home and planted the three large shrubs, the two plants for the entry, and the six large pots of pansies. Lotsa digging, lotsa planting. Later, I assembled and frosted the layer cake I had baked earlier this morning, which I will be freezing for next weekend's party. And I am officially wiped out.


This is the rhododendron I bought...lotsa buds will hopefully mean lotsa flowers!



The cats watched while I worked. The older cat (at left) slept through most of it, as she usually does. Note the younger cat's eyes are different colors. It's the only thing he has going for him; he's about as dumb as cats come.


And here is the cake I made for next weekend's party, in the midst of being frosted. The cake is fudgy chocolate and the frosting is chocolate with a touch of orange oil. It's quite wonderful. It went into the freezer and will come out Friday night.