Plant Shopping in Connecticut

Last Memorial Day weekend, my friend Liz invited me up to Branford, Connecticut to do some gardening with her and visit plant centers.  This year, I was lucky enough to be invited again.

Liz has some lovely plants of her own, including these irises

 

and this Japanese Maple:

 But any gardener can always use more plants, right?  So I took the train up on Saturday, and we made our way to our favorite garden center, Van Wilgens.  

If you're ever in North Branford, I highly recommend you drop by Van Wilgen's.  Their plants are in fabulous condition, and they have an amazing selection of just about everything.  My 2016 purchases from Van Wilgens were the Key West hosta, the Whee! hosta, and the Fire Chief heuchera, all of which are doing well.

This year, because one can never have too many hostas, I bought Ivory Queen:

 and Electrocution, whose name is alarming but apt:

Ivory Queen is a tri-colored hosta that is blue on the outside and cream colored in the middle, with a bit of green in between.  Honestly, in my garden, it's likely to be three shades of green, just like my other tri-color hostas, Touch of Class and Lakeside Paisley Print.  (In fairness, Lakeside Paisley Print is actually supposed to be three shades of green.)  It does seem like I keep buying the same hosta, but the tricolor ones are so pretty.  Ivory Queen will grow to be medium sized.

Electrocution will be small to medium.  I like its twisty, ripply leaves, which are different from any other hosta in my collection.

Liz bought some things too - coleus plants, a geranium, and other plants that people who have sun in their gardens can grow!  Here's our shopping cart, with a special guest appearance from Liz!

In back of the coleuses (colei?), you can see my other purchase, a green plant called Jacob's Ladder, also known as Polemoniuum boreale "Heavenly Habit."  It will allegedly bloom in the summertime - we shall see.  Even if it doesn't bloom, it has nice foliage.

We visited other garden centers this weekend, including Vaiuso Farms and Shelley's Garden Center.  I believe that it was at Shelley's that I got two more hostas - I did not photograph them on site, but I will introduce you to them when I get them transplanted.  The two hostas at Shelley's, combined, cost less than any individual hosta at Van Wilgen's, which was a terrific deal even if they were both a tiny bit straggly.

We returned to Liz's house and transplanted her new plants, plus the extra Blue Mouse Ears hosta I had brought her.  Liz also showed me the hydrangea I brought her last year, which looks significantly healthier than its sibling back in my garden.

On Sunday, we went to the community garden plot that Liz shares with a friend who prefers to remain anonymous for purposes of this blog.  Liz, Anonymous Friend, and I planted, weeded, watered, and mulched.  Anonymous Friend's Husband went to Home Depot for supplies.  A good time was had by all.

In their community garden plot, Liz and Anonymous Friend are growing lovely lettuces,

lovely strawberries,

 

and lovely allium, among many other things. 

Squashes, cucumbers, eggplants, radishes, peppers, all sorts of delicious things.  They were very nice about it when a certain visitor from the city pulled up all the carrot plants, thinking they were weeds because they were so very tiny.  Oops.  

I was paid in lettuce.  All in all, a terrific weekend, and my special thanks to Liz for having me to visit.  Happy Memorial Day to all!