68 Thompson Materials & Nursery
October 14, 2022
70 Dig Gardens
November 18, 2022
The Rest of the Story
I n blog post #49 I was excited to tell you about my new She Shed and about a fabulous lamp post that was to be installed at a corner of the shed. But I could only show you this photo of an upside down nursery pot covering the lamp’s installation bolts in their cement pad.
The lamp post was to be my 2020 birthday present from Mike and, well, it’s now 2022 and the lamp post is finally in place. So let me tell you the rest of that story!
The lamp originally came from a job where Mike was hired to replace the old lamp posts at Hyde Street Pier in San Francisco with updated ones that use LED lights. He hauled the old posts home in pieces and then, for my birthday, put one together as a present. He gave it one coat of paint but the second coat got stalled because it was “too windy to paint,” so he said.
Well apparently it has been very VERY windy at our house because—2 years later—the lamp finally got a second coat and had its scrollwork attached. Now it was ready to move into place at the She Shed.
Before it could be moved however, Mike came to me (I do the books along with 4 other jobs for Burke Construction) and said, “I need a thousand dollars.”
“For what?” I asked.
“For a crane to move your lamp post.”
Readers, I ain’t stupid. I knew my husband did not need to hire a crane to move the lamp post. This was his way of trying to weasel out some pocket cash. So (for kicks and giggles) I said, “Sure, give me the guy’s phone number and I will schedule it for you.”
Well Mike just laughed and walked away. He knew damn well that I knew he could move that lamp post with his backhoe.
So he got the lamp post wrapped up, secured and tied to the backhoe, and then he comes again and says he needs my help with it.
Readers, when your significant other “needs” your help, do you not just jump for joy?!
So I go out and watch as he maneuvers the lamp post near its pad. Then he tells me to hold onto it to keep it from swinging into the side of my beautiful (my word) She Shed.
Mind you, I am in flip-flops per usual and I’m grabbing onto this very VERY heavy lamp post as Mike inches it closer, and I am thinking of so many things that can go wrong! (Because they always do.)
Sure enough, the strap attaching the lamp to the backhoe gets in the way so that Mike can’t move the post into the right position over the bolts.
So we have to ease the lamp post down onto the bolt assembly—even if in the wrong position—in order for him to reposition the strap.
He gets that done, climbs back in the driver’s seat and tries to raise the lamp to get it positioned right. And of course I’m still hanging onto the thing like I’m a match for the backhoe and can actually keep the lamp post from knocking into the side of the shed—or knocking ME into the side of the shed.
But wait! The post is stuck now on the bolts and won’t lift off. Gawd! So Mike works to get it unstuck and finally he’s able to get it moving into the right position—which in his mind would be with the curving top of the lamp parallel with the side of the shed.
But halfway there, it’s curving away from the shed and I say, “Wait! I like it this way!”
Mike says, “That’s not the way I built the bolt template.”
I say, “But I like it THIS way.” (LMAO.)
Mike just looks at me and says, “Ok. I’ll see if I can ease it onto the bolts THAT way.”
Well of course he can, and he does. After all, the lamp IS my 2-year belated birthday present from him, and he IS my man.
Mike can do anything. I mean literally ANYTHING! Except clean the house…do the laundry…you get the point…
And by the way, I came through the lamp installation intact and with all my toes.
Now when it’s dark out, I can walk from greenhouse to holding-area under constant light without having to dance around to keep the She Shed’s stupid motion-detector light on—which would only stay lit for a short time because gawd forbid that Mike would have to climb a ladder to readjust the timing! (He can do anything, but will he?)
Before the lamp post, though, remember the blue pots from post #58 that I temporarily put on the concrete pad to hide the upside down nursery pot?
I bought them at Alden Lane Nursery for 50% off. The rest of their story is that those pots needed to move to make way for the lamp post. So their new location is under a tree, and they now house hellebores!
Those hellebores originally needed to be dug up from where they used to be because, as you know, they need shade, and the tree they were growing under died, allowing full sun to hit them.
They were in a big black pot that sat there in the way of the new blue pots. So I put the hellebores into the blue ones and moved the black one elsewhere where it waits in full sun for a new plant and for me to try—as I’ve done during the more than 10 years I’ve had it—to get the stupid price tag off it. (No more hellebore foliage to strategically hide it.)
One of my many pet peeves is price tags that are damn near impossible to remove without scratching up the item they’re fused to. I have tried just about every solvent to remove that tag. Won’t budge.
I tell ya’ Readers, trouble never ends! It’s like dominoes—the rest of one story starts the beginning of a new one!
Here’s a plant I featured not long ago in post #65, “Summer Annuals.”
Abelmoschus manihot (Hibiscus Sunset)
It’s my first Hibiscus Sunset. Very picky. Does not like afternoon sun and does not like ambient heat. Must be my twin.
You would think at the end of the season now I could collect seeds from it where the blossoms had been. Nope.
About a month after the blooms were finished I noticed these huge buds at the end of each branch.
I thought, “Oh…more blossoms.” Nope. Seed pods.
I have never experienced seed pods at the end of branching where flowers had not grown. So odd yet happy.
The rest of the story?
I now have hundreds of seeds if I want to grow more pretty but picky Hibiscus Sunset.
FYI, to collect seeds in your garden, wait until the seed pods turn from green to brown.
That’s a sign they’re ready to harvest. You could also shake them and listen for rattling. But be careful—I’ve been known to shake seeds right out of their pods onto the ground and the next Spring have 100 seedlings I have to…well you know the rest of that story. Selective death!
In blog post #20, “Fall Colors,” I featured Home Grown Nursery located in Corvalis, Oregon. I bought a pink pampas grass there in a 1-gallon container. I did not write about it because I wanted to wait and do a big reveal when it came into bloom.
Cortaderia selloana ‘Rosea’ (Pink Pampas Grass)
The rest of the story is…that photo is NOT my pampas grass!
I waited 4 years—the time it’s supposed to take for pampas grass to throw up its first plumes and which mine has now done.
And guess what? Crap! IT AIN’T PINK!
Cortaderia selloana ‘?@!?#!!’ (My Damn Not Pink Pampass Grass)
To: Home Grown Nursery, Carvalis, Oregon
Re: I waited VERY patiently and it just pisses me off when plants are MISLABELLED! I already have a NORMAL pampas grass. Why on earth would I buy another?
Daphne x transatlantica ‘BLAFRA’ (Eternal Fragrance Daphne)
After reading “Darling Daphne” (#46) did you go out and buy some Daphnes for your garden, as I told you to?
Well if you didn’t, right now they’re all in the nurseries because their blooming season is coming upon us. But it’s post-COVID now and you are going to pay dearly for them. (Next time, do what I tell ya’ at the time I tell ya’ to do it. Just sayin’.)
I mentioned Daphnes are finicky and that in particular they don’t like constant moisture. So me being me, I installed my Eternal Fragrance Daphne about 2 feet from an irrigation line. But I checked the moisture of the soil there first and felt it was dryish enough.
Now, 3 years later, the rest of the story is…
Daphne x transatlantica ‘BLAFRA’ (ETERNALLY DEAD DAPHNE)
It grew to 3 by 3-feet and was just lovely. Until it wasn’t, and death happened.
Do I mourn? Yes, but life is short and there are way too many nurseries to visit. A new plant is now already in its place. And besides, I’ve got 6 other Daphne varieties to enjoy. All healthy.
Here’s a plant I featured in post #30.
Aglaonema ‘First Diamond’
The painting ain’t right—I paid a ridiculous amount of money for that plant.
It ain’t dead yet but its only been 18 months so there’s still plenty of time for me to screw up and kill it.
When that happens, you’ll know the rest of the story….
