Good Garden Center, Good

For people like me who suffer from severe “full-sun envy”, trips to the garden center can be spoiled  from feelings of bitterness and resentment… kinda like being diabetic and walking down the candy aisle.  When I go to my favorite local garden (in my humble opinion, the BEST in the state of CT), I have to walk through the ginormous cheerful land of sun-worshipping specimens and begrudgingly mope over to the smaller and less interesting, less colorful selection of the dark and gloomy shade-dwellers.  Dave (the owner) is quite used to and tolerant of me… he tries to be helpful and makes suggestions… and I never fail to point out something I like only to be told it won’t fare well in my landscape.  I sulk and pout, yet Dave stays positively upbeat while he points out more appropriate selections… to which I respond with an assortment of grunts, gagging noises and comments like “ick” and “ew, that’s ugly”, just like a bratty, whiny child.  I hope he realizes it’s nothing personal… I just haven’t gotten over this whole “no-full-sun” thing yet. 

Anyway, here’s what I like about my garden center – they don’t lie to me, and they actually discourage me from buying things.  Yes, you read right.  Not that they’ve ever turned my money away, but I guess to be more specific, they discourage me from making bad choices.  When I express interest in something that they know won’t perform up to my expectations or that will outright die, they tell me not to buy it.  I had my eyes on the Blueberry Muffin Viburnum shrub all winter long.  I fantasized about the pretty white flowers in the spring and summer and then the bush being covered in pretty blue berries in the late summer.  Everything I’d read indicated that the shrub was deer resistant.  When I told Dave I wanted it, he asked me “How’re the deer in your property?”  I said they were crazy (they practically annihilated my Calsap Rhodie this past winter – it’s presently being nursed back to health after being relocated inside my fenced-in yard).  Anyway, he wouldn’t let me buy the Blueberry Muffin Viburnum – told me they were “like candy to the deer.”  Obviously, he would have let me buy it, but he didn’t want me to waste my money and see me disappointed in the long run.  So he suggested some not-so-tasty shrubs with similar attributes given the intended location to be filled.   I went home to do some research on Dave’s suggestions… ended up back there the next weekend and made what I believe will be one of the best garden purchases I’ll ever make:  a Doublefile Viburnum.    Don’t know that I’ll get many flowers this season… but I don’t care – I’m so jazzed over what this shrub has to offer given time, that I honestly would rather forgo flowers this season and have it focus its energy on survival and growth.  The faster this bush gets to its maximum size and potential, the happier I’ll be.  I am NOT a patient person.  Which really makes me wonder how I’m going to be any success at gardening and how can I really enjoy it when it takes seasons and seasons to often see the real measureable results and rewards from it all…