The Bargain Hunter

So, there is this giant hardware store (let's call it 'S') that has fairly recently opened up quite close by to me, in direct competition with another giant hardware store that is also quite close. I have discovered that S's attached garden centre often has the most amazing bargains. I think they buy up so-called unwanted stock from various places and then flog it off really cheaply. My first favourite bargain was finding caper plants for the basement price of $2.50 each. I was astounded enough that they even had caper plants, let alone for that price! Naturally, I snapped up two of them.

My second best bargain was three deciduous magnolia plants for $13.95 each. They're small pots, granted, but a bit of a gamble in my area and I'm not sure if it's cold enough so I didn't want to spend loads of money on them (I have 'Merill,' 'Stellata' and 'Susan'). Anyway.

Here is bargain #3 which I got yesterday: Five roses for $1 each. I could have taken up to 'six per customer' except that I could only find five that I wanted. For the record, I have three climbers: 'Golden Showers' (terrible name, isn't it?!), 'Zephrine Drouhin' (a pretty name to make up for the previous...) and 'Pinkie', then one shrub rose, 'Apricot Nectar' (because when I went to a rose show - where I was by far the youngest person present except for a number of small children who'd been dragged along by grandparents - it was the only rose which really caught my eye), and a ground cover rose called 'Our Rosy Carpet.' I have places for all of them - I think - except for the ground cover rose which I have no flipping idea where it's going to go.



And to think all that time I spent making lists of roses, muttering over the prices, and making agonising decisions about what to put where, and how X would have to wait until I could justify it, and Y was probably not quite gold enough, and Z wasn't a repeat flowering rose so I wouldn't get it, and then all it took was one ultra-cheap rose sale for all that ground work to go out the window and I just bought whatever took my fancy at the time. Typical!

Got a cold?

Horseradish is supposed to be good for that! And I can believe it too: today I pulled a whole heap of it out of my garden (I foolishly planted it in the ground as a gardening newbie, not realising it was invasive, oops! Time will tell if I got it all or not) and even out there in the chill air I could smell the scent from the roots wafting up around me.
These strange alien-like plants are waiting in the sink for me to attempt to process them, but I think I'll wait into SP is in bed as at least one of the web pages I've read re: horseradish processing compares it to chemical warfare!

Mmmm, pumpkin!

2.022kg (4.4lbs)! Not bad, hey, for a pumpkin self-sown out of a compost heap! There are a couple more on their way, too. I don't think they'll get so big since it's getting quite cold outside now, but I'm quite impressed with my free food.

(This post is just to stay I still exist! We are the Lurgy House at the moment but hoping to be back and blogging properly soon. I'm not sick, by the way, I get to be the nurse this time.)