This weekend I felt like a high roller. Picture less Vegas vacation, diamonds, cars and rolling around on piles of cash. More rolling around on piles of groundcovers and you’ve got the idea. We’re among gardeners here. You guys get it.
Thanks to Tamara of Chickadee Gardens, a bunch of garden bloggers were invited out to ogle, photograph, and shop the 50+ wholesale sized greenhouses at Little Prince of Oregon.
I had to pinch myself, because this was my very dream for this spring. I’m on a groundcover blitz, as part of my speed gardening strategy to recover from last year’s puppy devastation out there. There may be no better place to fulfill this mission. Little Prince has a HUGE collection of (dog) foot traffic friendly groundcovers, and I was checking things off my wish list left and right.
Of course you always remember the one that got away. The plant shown up top is to die for, right? It’s killing me. It was flagged for another customer, so I am without. At least I got to pet its soft foliage briefly. Be on the lookout for Selaginella kraussiana ‘Brownii’.
Luckily there were plenty of wish-listers that were not spoken for.
Inexplicably, I let one get away completely without a fight. The Scleranthus uniflorus I was dying for when I saw it on Danger Garden? The tag said it needs sharp drainage, which, if I’m being honest, is hard to come by in my garden. So I made Patricia buy three. She has the rock wall to make it happen, and I can always visit and live vicariously. Now I’m despondent that I didn’t get one. What was I thinking? Fortunately, she is nice enough to allow take-backs, so I’ll get one out of the deal after all.
But… also exciting, I found another from top of my dying-for-it list from my moss impostor round up, and this one I grabbed up with all possible haste. Azorella trifurcata ‘Nana’.
This is the ‘Nana’ relative of the Bolax gummifera (Azorella trifurcata) I was after. And since we’re in the circle of trust here, I’ll admit, I actually scored one of these last year, and killed it before planting it. I promise to do better this time. It is soooo deserving of better treatment.
I never want to tally up the number of plants I’ve loved and lost. I’m hoping Raoulia australis will give me another shot. I grew this very early in my gardening life, and thought it was in a sunnier spot than it was. I was initially attracted to the description that it “looks like a pile of sand,” and that still works for me.
The Raoulia was available in a big flat, which I couldn’t resist buying to make for lost time.
I’ve never been able to resist gold foliage. I couldn’t pass up a few Soleirolia soleirolii ‘Aurea’ (Golden Baby’s Tears). Soleirolia is one of those plants I love to touch, very soft little flat ground-hugging leaves.
Another with good gold foliage that jumped into my arms: Veronica repens ‘Sunshine’.
I was familiar with the ferny leaves of Leptinella squalida, although this is the first time I’ve noticed the flowers, which makes the common name, Brass Buttons, make a tiny bit more sense.
I was taken with the tiny leaved member of the same genus, Leptinella gruveri. Apparently it can withstand car traffic a couple times a day. I hope that means it can tolerate some beagle traffic too.
What is it about tiny leaves that makes them so irresistible? Thumus praecox ‘Elfin’ is so adorable, even the non-groundcover-fan Annie, of Annie’s Annuals approves.
And then there were the tiles of mixed sedum. Never one to pass up a shortcut for an established looking new planting, naturally I had to get one of these. One 12″ square that is, not one of these huge squares, although it’s a tempting thought.
I have been after the tiny serrated foliage of Acaena microphylla since my groundcover hunt began earlier this year.
I scored a couple Acaena anserinifolia ‘Blue Haze’ which fit the bill. I’ll need to find the right spot to plant it where the burs don’t find their way into dog fur. It’ll be a front yard, out of the way kind of plant.
I did quite a bit of damage on my plant wish list. But look! There was still room for a six more pots in the back of the car. What fun. Thanks to Tamara for organizing the trip, and Mark at Little Prince of Oregon for welcoming us and letting us all run wild.
