“Field Trip Report”, a copyrighted post, was written for my WordPress blog called Always Growing by Jan in Covington, Louisiana
Yesterday turned out to be a beautiful day. This was the day that my sister and I went on our first gardening field trip of the year, and we were not disappointed. We had decided to go to out of town nurseries that seem to have a better selection than the local ones have right now. I met my sister about half way and then we drove together to Denham Springs to visit one of Clegg’s Nurseries. This is a wonderful, large garden center.
This is a photo from the parking lot, and you can see immediately there were tons of blooming plants. In the foreground are all the colors of the Knockout roses, including the new yellow one. There were no nice blooms on the yellows, so I didn’t take a picture, but from just seeing the spent blooms, this is a very nice yellow rose. I can’t wait to see the flowers when they are fresh.

Inside, there were rows and rows of blooming flowers, mostly cool season ones, but they did have several warm season annuals out. Even though I was not going to buy any cool season ones (they would have to be ripped out by May), it was so lovely to see all the colors of pansies, violas, petunias, dianthus, alyssum and snapdragons.

This is my sister (below) checking out all the selections. The warm season plants were to the back. The hanging baskets were so nice. Mostly verbena, but there were also baskets of petunias that just seemed to scream “Spring!”

They had a plethora of pansies. They had the frilly ones which I wish I would have seen in the fall because I just fell in love with them.

They also had a great many blooming camellias around at a very good price for their size. This pale pink with the white center was so pretty, but the white one was my favorite. Several years ago (pre-Katrina) there was a large piece of property near our home that must have had hundreds of camellias, and it was gorgeous when they were in bloom. After seeing these two camellias, I wouldn’t mind having a small forest of camellias on my property as the aforementioned grounds had.


So, what did I buy? I did restrain myself from buying any warm season bedding plants. I did purchase some sweet peas because I love these flowers and forgot to plant my seeds in November. I had to buy some bluebonnets for the same reason. I bought four more Curry plants since the one I purchased last year did so well and survived the freezes we had. They had Alternanthera Mexican Myrtle, pictured below. I bought this for old times sake. One of our neighbors, an elderly gentleman who loved to garden, had given me this plant years ago. He called it Tahitian Wedding Veil, and I had it growing in a hanging basket for years, but it finally died. When I saw this at the nursery, I thought of Percy and just had to have some. I also got some more Mexican bush sage, and a rex begonia to replace one that is not doing well.

After lunch, we went to another nursery. I only bought some Louisiana Blue Phlox there. I am trying to get a border going of these plants. Sometimes this particular variety is hard to find.

My sister and I had a wonderful time getting out of the house, buying plants, and being together. We are already planning our next foray. Maybe then, I’ll be ready to buy those warm season plants.