Wing Haven Plant Sale

Back from focusing on my angst and despair to our regularly scheduled program . . .

Today John and I attended the delightful Wing Haven Gardens plant sale while Daddy was able to watch Mary because she was napping. It was such a lovely sale, full of native plants, and nothing "big box nursery" about it. I have enough loved ones who actually care a lot about plants that I'll share my list and the notes I made. (I come from a family in which, when I was little and would ask my dad the name of a plant, he'd give me the Latin name, and when I'd complain that I wanted the NAME-name, he'd say that was the real name! And now I agree with him.)

For our front lawn island, which we'll be further populating with azaleas over the next few years, I bought six non-native azaleas, plus one native azalea that may go in the front but probably the back.

(3) Azalea 'Hardy Gardenia,' double white blooms

To H2’ x W4’, Blooms once, lasts a month, evergreen

(3) Azalea 'Sunglow' (red blooms)

To H5’, blooms twice?, evergreen

(1) Azalea 'Pinxterbloom' (Rhododendron periclymenoides) in pink (native)

To H10’, deciduous

For the backyard, I bought a bunch of native big boys to fill in some large spaces. I wanted plants that would attract our many song birds as well (since I have no time to maintain bird feeders), so got some with berries that birds love.

(2) Beautyberries (Callicarpa americana) (native)

To H6-8’, spring: lilac flowers, fall: purple berries

(1) Silky dogwood (Cornus ammomum) (native) [Mary now recognizes this shrub and will point it out to us and call it "doggy"]

To H6-10' and same W, deciduous, creamy white flowers May-June, blue drupe fruit, a favorite of birds

(1) Oakleaf hydrangea (Hydrangea quecifolia) (native)

White flowers, four seasons of interest. To H10' x W12'.

(1) Red chokeberry 'Brilliantisima' (Aronia arbutifolia) (native)

6' to 10' tall and 3' to 5' wide, deciduous, brilliant fall color, raspberry to crimson, many clusters of small, white flowers in early May (flowers last a week), red berries in flat clusters; effective from September into December

I am in plant-mama heaven!

Today I introduced John to the Montessori feely bag game. However, it turned out that he was way too good at it, so I realized it was probably more age-appropriate for a two-year-old.

He did really like it though! Maybe it felt good for him to "score" perfectly at a game instead of the usual of being somewhat challenged.

Today is the feast day of Our Lady of the Rosary and, after pondering many complex ways to celebrate and teach the rosary, I hit upon my own idea of making a rosary out of gummy candies and toothpicks, because that would be simple, right? Then we'd pray a decade of the rosary, then eat our creation.

It turned out not to be such a success for ages one and three. The kids had the dexterity but not the patience to assemble the rosary. And they really couldn't control themselves to refrain from eating the candy. So then I decided simply to assemble it myself while Chris led us in our decade of the family rosary because that would be an efficient use of time. Can you imagine any difficulties that might arise by asking little children to pray the rosary and sit still around a table covered in candy? Yes, well, now I can imagine the problems as well. But, really, the kids did beautifully because they were desperate to finish the prayers and eat. I built two decades of the rosary before giving up and letting the kids dive in for a sugar fest.