Mama Kat Thurdsay: Online Shopping Relief

Stuck at home? Shopping online to fill the time? What are you buying?
That's the Mama Kat question of the day! 

For me, garden shopping is my favorite! I have several online resources I like, depending on the sort of thing I'm looking for. This year I'm working on improving the view out my back door toward the deeply shaded woodsy garden bed at the back of the yard.
I started with a container of Chocolate Elephant Ears and am planting around that. It's not unlike decorating at home where you pick you pick a picture or a piece of furniture to theme your decorating choices around.

I've purchased two deep shade plants from a local garden center for

a Bleeding Heart & Astrilbe. Both are deep shade flowering  plants, though it probably a year or two before they're big enough to really be seen well---if they survive and that is the ultimate trick.

Finding stuff that blooms and thrives in partial to deep shade for my planting zone is challenging. Anything that says it "needs moist rich soil," or isn't rated for Zone 8 is generally out.

So here's things I just recently ordered:

  Pink Spike Cimicfuga
I chose this because it's a tall flowering shade plant I thought would look good behind the container. It's got feathery burgundy leaves and 3 foot flower spikes---when it's mature. It arrived as a healthy bare root, but it will a couple years to fill out to anything really showy. But it's not something I can pick up at a local garden shop in a quart size container that's more fully grown. So that's the trade-off.
 It's supposed to smell like grape soda.

Ostrich Fern

The other bare root I ordered was for an Ostrich Fern, which is a tall fern. I planted it bit further back, behind the Pink Spike. It's the only edible fern---you can eat the curls of new growth called "Fiddleheads."  If it thrives, it will be an investment in being part of my "perennial garden" as a spring edible as well as a nice visual.

Mixed Color Hardy Lily Bulbs
Along with the Pink Spike & Fern, I also ordered a pack of 8 Hardy Lily bulbs to plant in a narrow bed along the back of the house that gets Western sun all day. These are the kind of lilies you can cut and vase---and that's exactly why I want them. Hopefully they'll spread.





Golden Zebra Squash Seeds
I recently ordered these from Burpee. It was one of the few non-farm seed company's where I could find still stocking plenty of squash seeds at a reasonable price. My other go-to seed company was sold-out due to a pandemic of "pandemic gardening." (Not my reason, by the way. I garden every year, usually twice a season.)
We filled my second 4 x 8 raised garden recently and the squash seed I had was over 3 years old. (Most seed stays good at most 2 years.)  I want bush-type squash, because it's suited to a small garden space and stays compact; not like vine squash that goes everywhere and such compact breeds are mostly found from online seed sources. I was pleased to find these though, and they shoud arrive soon. Plus I'm rooting a sweet potato to plant in that bed as well.

Copper Fit Compression Gloves

Finally, something not to plant, but stillfor gardening use: compression gloves! These are fantastic! They keep all my hand joints happier while I'm working outside! I wear them for a hour or so most mornings because they're simply very comforting. Hubby wanted a set, too, and those should be here today.

Star Wars: The Old Republic Online Game

Normally, Hubby and I play as free Preferred players, but since we have so much more free time right now, we  recently decided to subscribe for 2 months. This opens up any new chapters and all the subscriber level reward perks not available otherwise to free players. Once that subscription ends, we're reverted back to Preferred, but any new story chapters opened will remain open for us to enjoy free, so that's the an advantage to subscribing once in a while.

So that's our main entertainment.

What's your online shopping look like right now?

Thanks for Visiting!