Apr 28, 2009
The Daily Poverty Post.
Spring, spring — what to do about spring? Bossy loves to plant seasonal annual flowers along with the perennial plants she’s been carting around from house to house across state lines for decades, but this year she is pinching pennies, where pinching equals Sister Mercy, Bossy would like to squeeze the life out of you, bastard Penny.
Bossy is planting seeds elsewhere, but for the front of her house she requires the immediacy of blooms, where immediacy equals last thursday wouldn’t be soon enough.
So Bossy and her husband went to the local home center store this past weekend and stood over the array of options representing every color of the beach ball, exactly none of them copacetic with the impossible color of Bossy’s shutters.
In the end they walked away with seven starter petunia plants. Seven. Seven plants to distribute among two lengthy window boxes and two porch containers. And those seven plants look amazing. If your name is Charlie Brown. All that’s missing for the rest of us is approximately one bazillion more plants.
I’m not doing flowers this year. I expanded my vegteble planting because prices have gone up on everything. Cross your fingers for me, please. Most I’m starting from seeds, but I did buy a few plants. I got a really good price ordering from Burpee online in February. You order early and they ship the plants to you when it is planting time in your area.
Fortunately, Petunias are fruitful and multiply. By June you will have rather a lot of petunias.
I wish I knew you had this problem. I let my son plant seeds (read:mix seeds and dirt together in a pot) thinking nothing would come of them but I have HUNDREDS of seedlings that I’ve been passing out to unsuspecting neighbors and friends.
Next time they are all yours.
I filled in my flower beds with leftover lettuce seed. It comes up super fast. From the street = awesome. From the front porch = Peter Rabbit’s house?
Don’t spread ‘em!!!
Put the all in blue planter, and any overflow in a smaller planter next to it. Save the window boxes for a shocking contrast color!
Last year I started plants from seed. Of course a packet of seeds makes a bazillion little plants. After I got my yard set, we had a yard sale and sold the extras. Made more than enough to cover the investment of peat pellets and trays!!!
Around these parts, when we aren’t dodging tornadoes the local greenhouses have what they call a “flat sale” where you get 12-14 plants for like $12-14. My planting budget is also zero so I went to WalMart and bought cheap-o snap dragons and petunias for my window boxes. Otherwise I am hoping my little seedlings grow grow grow and don’t drown!
I always, always end up killing whatever I plant in my beautiful flower boxes on my lovely little apartment balcony. So I’m giving up. In other news, I got my credit card balance to ZERO!!! Hooray!
My daughter and I went to Lowes to get plants. What we came out with was humongous long skinny pieces of wood to MAKE a trellis cause it’s CHEAPER and sturdier than buying one. Then when we got to the mini and realized that d’oh- they wouldn’t fit, we had to stand in the parking lot like idjits waiting for the rescue truck which was home watching the draft.
Flowers? You can PLANT flowers? I thought they came at Valentine’s day and stayed a week.
Huh.
Oddly enough, my Hebrew name IS Charlie Brown.
Oh, they’ll fill in. In my front step container this year, I’m going to plant nasturtium seeds that didn’t get planted last year. Which means not even flowers for a while, but I expect come the high season they’ll be lovely.
honest to god, my mother steals plants from the side of the road. they always look awesome.
A big gigantic huzzah to Elaine/8 and her zero balance!
And congrats to Bossy for restraint, even though there’s the teeniest bit of self-pity around the edges of it… Maybe cram all the petunias into two fabulous pots and wait for seedlings in the boxes? No wait, you’ve already decided what works best for you. Good job on restraint.
About a month ago, I posted a small entry about our family’s finances:
http://wimbittworld.wordpress.com/2009/03/23/shhits-a-secret/
I think you should raid your neighbors overgrown thicket and acquire some branches and twigs to tuck into the pot. Then BOSSY’s petunia becomes a SCULPTURE, not a mere lonely plant.
You can never have enough petunias!
Sorry, but you are right. That is a pretty pitiful spring showing. Why not cut some flower pics out of magazines, put skewers on the backs and stick them in the pots and window boxes. You will hardly be able to tell the difference and can continue your thrift measures unabated.
I’ve been putting off gardening for the very same reason. That and my husband thinks we are going to start a tomato farm on our center city concrete patio so that we don’t have to pay an outrageous $5.99/lb at the lovely local farmer’s market. Last year’s attempt yielded exactly 2 tomatoes, one about the size of a pea. Approximate cost: $32 each.