Impulse buy, no guilt
>> Tuesday, August 16, 2016 –
succulents
I was at Lowe's yesterday when I decided to take a look around the garden center. Nothing really caught my eye until I saw the big succulents display:
Okay, I don't really need more plants that need to be overwintered indoors, but I couldn't resist looking, especially when...
...they had beauties like this!
Somewhat misleading labels described these as "cold hardy cactus", but you had to look closely to see that the rated miniature temperature was 20ºF. It would be nice if winters here never got lower than that, wouldn't it? Sure it's usually warmer than 20ºF, but it can get quite a bit lower than that for a few days at a time at least -- long enough to kill all of these.
So I was debating whether or not I wanted to grow these indoors over the winter...
I was really considering the white cactus (lower left):
And this fishhook cactus (if I remember correctly) was so tempting:
Since this is the summer that I resolved not to buy many plants, it was almost easy to walk away from those.
Then I saw it...
Do you see it too? There's a clear path right to it, even though it's on the back of the shelf...
A cool Euphorbia! An employee had to wait to push more carts into place here behind the shelf, as I was busy reading and taking photos.
Euphorbia anoplia, "Tanzanian zipper plant". Maybe not the most exciting plant on the table, but it was speaking to me...
...and soon it was riding home with me!
A nice little colony for $20. Looks great in the truck too!
More photos when I have it planted up. Which I suppose might be October...
So easy to justify an impulse buy when it's mid-August and it's your first one of the season!
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"Looks great in the truck too"... Are you going to start a new trend? Car gardening.
Nice score! And you deserved it, no impulse purchase until August -- and you call yourself a gardener!
Your self-control is impressive. You deserved this cool euphorbia!
Maybe you should reward yourself for only buying one plant by going back to get that tempting silver cactus!
Nice. The plant looks happy to be riding home.
Peter and Loree: gardeners are such enablers! :)
Peter: I like the way you think, but I just need to look at the driveway to remind myself that I don't need more plants.
Loree: I suppose that cactus, agaves and the like could live in the vehicle, but driving around with a seat full of those spiky things might not be the smartest thing, at least for me. ;)
That is a great selection for a location where there may not be much demand for cacti.
Euphorbia anoplia is easy to grow and very forgiving of underwatering. Just keep it protected from freezing temperatures. You don't want it to be marred with unsightly spots.