Tilting at Windmill

Well just visiting Windmill nursery in Sumner really.  Why, you may ask, would someone who has too many plants as it is go to a nursery?  Because it's fun!  Candy stores aren't usually visited by thin people who are hungry, right. Also, because it was there or rather, I was very close, at my pal Alison's house to pick up lots of her plants to take to the plant swap this weekend. While Windmill remains open year round, they have a lot fewer plant offerings in the winter and shut down some areas to customers.  Mother's day is the day when more sales are made in the horticulture biz in this part of the world, than any other day of the year so most nurseries are stocked floor to ceiling.

Well, okay, let's.

Windmill (more info in previous posts here. ) is owned by the DeGode Brothers, a huge and long established wholesale grower that supplies Fred Meyer and other retail customers with great plants, especially fuchsia baskets so it's no surprise that Windmill is dripping with these beauties right now.

These are huge plants taking up four or five feet in all directions.  The fuchsia basket has become an ubiquitous mother's day gift.  In the ground, I prefer the more diminutive flowered varieties, as porch ornaments, these huge overblown flowers which dwarf hummingbird visitors are quite the sight.

Having a smallish front porch, one of these would have been more than enough for the Outlaw Garden.  After considering that it would mean daily watering, weekly applications of some sort of food, and picking up spent flowers all summer, the tough decision of which one is most beautiful was eliminated.

So pretty!

Don't have a place from which to hang a fuchsia?  Fear not, a standard is just the thing!

So much color!  Surely something to please every mother!

In addition, there's  a great selection of perennials, annuals, trees, shrubs, cut flowers, supplies, and gifts.

Nice arrangement featuring our native Lewisia.

Agave 'Mr. Ripple' with a Delosperma.  One would need good gloves and a steady hand to under plant an agave!

Looks like we just missed a big flush of blooms on this jasmine.  There were still enough unspent blooms to send a powerful and lovely scent through the space.

Medinilla magnifica have been blooming since February.  

Ah, the tropics with big bold foliage textures that remain year round. 

It's nice to have a cool green visual rest from all of that floral color. 

All ready for July!

I usually get a few New Guinea Impatiens with variegated leaves each season to throw in pots on the back steps so these came home with me.

The sweet little double flowered variety of wax begonias (not my favorite begonia usually)  tempted me briefly.

If you celebrate Mother's Day now (U.S.) did earlier as they do in the U.K. or celebrate your mother's love every day of the year, I hope you have a great weekend  and do something nice for or in memory of your mother.