What gardeners like - bargains

Those of us infected by the gardening virus can develop quite a plant habit. TPP has never dared keep track of what he spends annually on plants purchases and other gardening expenses.  However, when you are sitting on your patio sipping a margarita while surveying your gardening domain, the only word that comes to mind is priceless. Nonetheless TPP keeps his eye open for bargains, as an excuse if nothing else.  As Mrs. Phactor points out that at our age buying a 1-gallon-sized tree because it's cheap isn't really any bargain.  Still the lure of a good bargain is hard to pass up. In the fall of 2014 TPP was looking at the sale items leftovers in the garden shop of a big box store and there were some sort of bushy magnolias in 5 gallon pots and they looked quite nice considering. The tag indicated that they were Magnolia x. loebneri 'Leonard Messel', a hybrid between Magnolia kobus and a pink variety of M. stellata, but the two are rather similar species anyways, so no surprise the plants quite look like a Star magnolia, but pink flowered.  But the kicker, the thing that brought joy to TPP's heart was that a magnolia he lacked cost $20.  And it's proving to be a lovely plant so far, an absolute bargain by anyone's standard. 

Always looking for bargains

There are certain things in life that you continue to seek, for example, an excellent wine under $10 a bottle and great bargain plants. This is the time of year when big box stores heavily discount their plants to empty out their garden centers. Mostly the plants are  not worth the effort, however, it doesn't cost anything but a little time to take a quick look. TPP was pleasantly surprised to see a number of small shrubby magnolias that were in particularly good shape for late summer. TPP's second caveat is that most of the plants in late season sales are not of much interest to the more sophisticated gardener, but TPP had to change his mind after seeking red currants and only finding them, and excellent plants too, at a big box store. To TPP's great surprise, one of the magnolias was M. kobus var. loebneri (M. x loebneri), which sort of looks like a star magnolia in growth habit, but it flowers a bit later and the flowers are light pink. Wow! The next worry is that potted trees and shrubs can be rather root bound especially late in the season. TPP recommends giving the pot a tap and pulling up the root ball for a look. In this case the root ball was in great shape so it will only take a few minutes to spread the roots out nicely which is necessary because this greatly improves the early growth ultimately the survival of the plant.  And here's the best news of all; it only cost $20!  Oh, yes, a new magnolia that's already 4' tall and ready to flower in the spring, and only $20.  Now where to plant it?