Last Friday, I visited Valley View Farms in Cockeysville, Md.
I had a lot of empty flower pots and I really wanted to fill them up, so I decided it was time to visit a garden center.
I have 3 favorite garden centers.
I really love this garden center. It’s been here for as long as I can remember.
This garden center is on the smaller side but the plants are very well tended, the staff is helpful and they usually have a good selection of healthy Milk Weed/Swamp Weed plants, which I always get for the Monarchs that visit our garden every year.
I work my way slowly through the store, carefully choosing plants for the areas that I need them.
I arrange plants in the shopping cart as I might arrange them in the garden, to make sure they look good together and the heights are staggered.
I have a huge yellow Cone flower at home. The bees love it, so I considered getting this white one but in the end, I left it behind and got 2 daisies instead. I’ll put one daisy in the front garden and one in the back garden.
One of the down sides of this garden center is that the parking lot is on a hill. It’s impossible for me to hold the heavy shopping cart AND load the car so, this year…
I swallowed my pride and asked for help! It was difficult to do but I did it and I’m glad I did!
A very strong young woman pushed my cart out to my car and then I held the cart, while she loaded the car.
The back end of my suv was packed full and I wish I had gotten a photo of it but I forgot to take one.😞
It was such a hot day that I stopped at Starbucks to get a frappuccino for the long drive home through rush hour traffic.
As I headed back to the highway, I encountered an old homeless man who reminded me of my father. It made me very sad to see him. Sad, both for him and, once again, for the loss of my father.
The loss of my father is always just under the surface and I dread the day I’ll lose my mother.
When I have that thought I try to just remind myself that she is relatively healthy and instead of dreading the future, I need to “live in the moment” and enjoy the time we have left, which is likely to be years.
I hope you have a great day!