The Bluestone order came in. I just put black snakeroot, plumbago, globe thistle, sea holly, and echinacea hybrids into the patio bed, and wished good luck to them. Most of the same things have done fine in the garage bed, so I’m confident.

Into the back border went monarda “Aquarius” to the left of the peonies (among the portulaca) and a replacement “Quarterback” football mum. The defunct Quarterback easily snapped when I pulled it up, but the inside of the stem was green, so I extracted the root ball and buried it beside the mystery-bush-that’s-almost-certainly-a-hibiscus. Then to the flowering quince, Chaenomeles toyo-nishiki. I had wanted to begin a bed of flowering quinces in the protected southern wall by the garage, though I can’t go full-out this season because Sparks is storing drainage pipe there. It’s currently filled with a few pathetic cedars that the deer gnaw to death, and a spray of scrubby something in the corner by the back border. I bought the quince to go there. A little bit of hacking at the scrubby stuff and a try with the shovel revealed that the turf there is too tough to dig up. It’ll have to be tilled and maybe pick-axed some other time. So, I planted the quince at the far other end of the back border, between the buddleia and the mystery-bush-that’s-almost-certainly-a-hibiscus. And there it will stay until, perhaps in a year, we get the original spot cleared out.

In other news, in the back border the honeycomb mum is going to bloom, dammit, seasonal or not. Go go little mum, I can hardly stop you now.