It started with the farmer's market this morning. I wanted to check on a type of tomato that was being sold at Thursday evening's market (of course, the tomato fellow must have been at another market this morning). But a local garden club had plants for sale from a small nursery that I hadn't heard of before, so after buying some thread-leaved coreopsis (Coreopsis verticillata), a pink-flowered form called C. rosea, lemon verbena, and dwarf thyme, I thought I'd go check out the nursery. Much to my delight, they had all sorts of things that you usually don't come across locally, so first I broke my rule about not buying big plants in small pots (because they're usually pretty pot-bound) and some of these had been subjected to less than ideal conditions (it's been so hot and dry, it's hard to keep up), and second, it's quite a subpar time to be planting perennials, in early summer with hot, dry conditions predicted.
But I added a perennial foxglove, a Mexican bush sage, several Penstemons (Husker's Red), a couple of other Penstemons that I'm not familiar with, a lovage plant, an unusual lavender, a tricolor sedum, and a dark-leaved Heuchera (to replace the unattractive lime-green one I bought by mistake last year).
Hmm, I think I had in mind that I was going to spruce up the bed outside the breakfast room window, which is looking a bit threadbare?
At least, they're all drought-tolerant and tough!