Tis the season to start gardening

Tis the season to start gardening. Not sure whether to put an exclamation point there or a sad period. I’m pretty far behind being that I bought seeds to start and haven’t got them started yet. I also need to clean up and repot the sad-looking ferns I overwintered. Was it worth overwintering them? Probably not. We’ll see how they fill out after I divide and repot them.

I did get some life in my sails today on the gardening front. You see, I’ve been looking for a bird bath ever since I cleaned up the pumpkin patch earlier this year. I knew I didn’t want to do the pumpkin patch this year. I mean all those pests! Let that shit lie for at least a year. So when I cleaned up the vines and mesh layer, I drug the pots over to the fence. Seeing this, I thought “hmm, I could just put plants there.”

Watering my plants is usually such a pain. Especially mid summer when it’s upper 90’s every day. However, last year I set up automatic watering for the pumpkins on that side. So I could use that again. I thought some butterfly bushes might be nice. We have butterflies and dragonflies so I’d love to encourage more. Dragonflies eat mosquitos after, all.

Last year I wanted a birdbath but didn’t grab one. The thought of setting up auto-watering made me want one even more! I can run a line to the birdbath and it will stay nice and full. So I preemptively grabbed a solar fountain off Amazon Vine and have been looking for a bird bath on Marketplace ever since. But people want crazy money for their birdbaths. So last weekend, I went to Home Depot, and two fancy plant nurseries in search of a birdbath.

Home Depot had not ONE SINGLE BIRDBATH. WTF? I had looked on line, but they’re all “free delivery to store.” I should have looked harder at that. So we hopped over to the Enchanted Garden: A very overpriced plant store. Disastrous experience. They didn’t know any prices and wanted to get my number to get back with me. The prices they did know were outrageous. Also, some unknown bugs ate my feet up in there. Like I’d think it was poison ivy rash if I didn’t know it was bugs. Cat Bird Seat is on my way home so I stopped in there. Nothing deep enough to have a fountain in. Both places had their butterfly bushes for about $35, though Cat Bird Seat had much larger ones and they guarantee their plants for a year. I fucking love that place anyway.

So yesterday, I went looking online. I saw Ace Hardware had some birdbaths from Athens Stoneworks. I assumed this was Athens Alabama, but it was Athens Georgia. Not important. On the manufacturer site, I saw that I wanted the “tulip” top. It’s deep enough for a fountain. So I messaged about six nurseries asking if they had anything like that plus the Stoneworks asking for who I could locally order through (since they’re wholesale only). Welp, only one person got back to me this morning. Unique Outdoors in Hartselle – A 40 minutes interstate drive.

They didn’t have the larger version, but they had the medium and small and even took pictures with a tape measurer. Good customer service! But 40 minutes one way? How much is it? $100? Fuck me, OK. People on marketplace are selling their old ones for more than that! And the rains not coming ’till 2pm! I’ll go now!

I did go and I chose my bird bath. Then I looked at their butterfly bushes. They varied from $11.99 – $13.99. Why did I only buy two? Because I’m a dumbass. I got the Cranberry and the Bicolor. Yes, the bicolor I saw online when researching them and had to google if it was real or AI bullshit. It’s real and I got one! So then I take my wagon over to grab the bird bath I want. It starts to sprinkle — “Fuck I better hurry.” It’s getting worse and this shit is heavy. Then god opened the heavens and just dumped all the water out. Awesome. While I’m trying to carry very heavy concrete with my weak arms. In flip flops.

That’s cool. At least someone loaded it to my car for me. He was very strong and made it look weightless. I’m sad that place is so far away because their prices were crazy good.

So I paid half of what I expected for a brand new birdbath. Do you know what that means? Gargoyle.

See, in my quest last weekend, I saw the most adorable stone-cast gargoyle. And I said “NO.” I want a birdbath and some bushes. No gargoyle. But all week, I thought about that gargoyle. I had taken photos and found him all over online — for over twice the price! Ugh. So after the bird bath was so cheap — fuck yeah, let’s go get Gregory! (Yes, I had named him already in my head before I decided to buy him). Then when I got there, he wasn’t exactly where I thought I remembered him being. My heart sank. SOMEONE BOUGHT GREGORY! And that’s when I knew I had really wanted that damn Gargoyle. But wait! THERE HE IS!

Isn’t he amazing! He’s 62 pounds and I love him so much I’m not sure I want to even put him outside. It was pouring rain so I had to get him hosed off and it was totally worth it. I love himb. <3

I thought about naming him Grinderwald, but that’s Harry Potter. Then Gareth, but then people would think I was a big Labyrinth and David Bowie fan which I am not. And so Gregory. They put him in my car and asked if I knew my towing capacity cause that’s a lot of weight in there. It’s fine. Give me Gregory.

I’m gonna be honest, I think he was probably at Cat Bird Seat so long that they lowered his price. Everywhere online (even if it’s a garden center you pick up at) he’s well over twice the price. A lady in the store (customer, not employee) said she has one and it was based on a gargoyle at Notre Dame. I looked him up online again and find nothing to back that up. I think someone lied to her to sell it.

So now I’ve started my 2025 planting! After the storms, I set up the bird bath and planted the bushes. I also moved some solar light spheres over to this fence:

I know, it looks crappy right now, but it will look awesome. I’m going to do flowers in the other bags. I have some small red sunflowers, red poppies, purple asters, and big fancy marigolds I got all in seeds. And I’ll spray the weeds. And of course, you won’t see the plastic bags like that. They’re just like that because last weekend I pulled out all the dead lemon grass and prepped the dirt and wanted to cover it so the squirrels didn’t fuck around with it. Those same bags are in the big 20 gallon ones and tucked in.

Now to get my seed trays out and start some seeds!

UPDATE: Five seed trays seeded. I only have 5. Two with purple Asters, one with Red Poppies, one with giant Marigolds, and the last with “Red Fire” Sunflowers. I set them by the front door. It gets first morning sun and is an noticeably extremely warm every morning. Should be good to get them going.