shopping just got better

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes and ears! Don't even bother guessing because you'll never guess, in a million years, what could have me practically speechless. We think only women could be so.... so.... what's the word I'm looking for.... so fanatical (is that a word?) about shopping. But not so. In this little town of 32,000 of ours, men, too, can get excited about shopping. Yes, shopping! Here's why:



Home Depot opened its doors today and my husband got up at the crack of dawn (okay, dawn came hours earlier), but he got up at 4:00 a.m. just to be ready to meet Ray at 5:15 a.m. so they could be there when the doors opened at 6:00 a.m. Never mind we only live 8 minutes away but they were so excited about Home Depot coming to town that they wanted to show their support by being there when the doors opened! Now, that's shopping! I had to call at 7:30 to see if they were ever coming home and I was assured they would be.

Juneau is very limited in its shopping facilities. No real malls. No outlet stores, or at least not worthy of mentioning. We do have a Fred Meyer that is very nice and provides the one-stop shopping for all us busy people. We have hardware stores but we're limited to purchasing from the choices of one or two products. If you want a new toilet, you have no options. You buy what they have on the floor whether you like it or not. If you want to order something different, that's considered a "custom" order and you pay for it, big time. So having Home Depot come is a huge thing for Juneau. Maybe it will put one or two stores out of business but.... so be it.... If you can't give the customers want they want.... then you can shop with the rest of us--at Home Depot!

Today is a beautiful, sunny day. Things really grew while we were gone. Here's what's blooming in my garden on this sunny day.


Bleeding heart is one of my favorite plants. I was surprised the first time a customer came into the nursery where I work, asking for advice on what to plant over a grave site of their beloved dog or cat. We always recommend the bleeding heart.

Don't you love chives? Not only for their hardiness in a garden (you can't kill it!), but for it's spicy and oniony flavor in cottage cheese. The flowers also make for a great dried flower.


And this is comfry, I think.... I got a small start of it from a friend, never realizing it would turn out to be such a huge plant with such a pretty flower. My dad used to swear by comfry--comfry tea for his health , comfry tea and packs to make the hair on his bald head grow...., comfry bandages for cuts and abrasions. Personally, I think it's a horrid tea and you couldn't make me drink it, but it makes for a pretty plant.


I'm not especially fond of the dogwood shrub.... It gets so tall and so leggy and it's just not so pretty unless you really work at keeping it trim. Clearly, I have not.... But the flower is pretty.


Meadow Rue is an interesting perennial. It grows to about 4' tall and is full of this lacy, fluffy flower. It's really a pretty plant.


This is a hop vine. Yes, like you make beer from. It doesn't have any flowers but I think it's pretty growing up this piece of driftwood my son gave me. It really needs a lot of room to grow as will grow to 20' long. I have a few more plants growing along the split rail fence, but it just doesn't give it enough area to grab on to. Still, I love any vine.


No garden would be complete if there wasn't at least one rhubarb plant! I happen to have about eight plants growing.... enough rhubarb to supply the entire town if I wanted! But it's good for so many desserts. I harvested about six quarts of it yesterday and will get more in the freezer before the week is over. Yummy!

This is my favorite garden in the front yard. The rhodie, ferns, astilbe, bleeding heart, and water barrel all just go together. Don't you agree?



And, last, but not least, my ferns. I love this fern garden. I dug up a dozen of them last year and transplanted them, but looking at this you could never tell. This fall I may have to transplant some more, just to thin it out some and so you can see the other perennials that are actually hiding. You can see the sedum and wild iris. I love this garden as well.


Hope you enjoyed the tour of my front yard. I'll share my back yard tomorrow.