Furkids

Bulk pressed rawhide @ $15.99/50

The pups used up the last of their pressed rawhide supply last night…and it’s time to replenish. Shopping around on the net for bulk rawhide yielded poor results…hardly anybody offers pressed rawhide in bulk numbers. Petedge.com still has the best price on a 50-pack of pressed 4″ bones. I also tried to research the differences between porkhide and rawhide, but the general impression I get is that porkhide is simply tastier. Still, I’m not fond of the carpet-staining selection of smoked porkhide that I’ve purchased previously. Plus, I don’t think the puppies are too fond of the taste.

Now if only they’d get rid of that $6.99 minimum charge…!

Technical

Site update: Sidebar login

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After unsuccessfully implementing an integrated logon page within my WordPress sites, I discovered today this great plugin at Blue Anvil that allows login through a sidebar widget. Initially, I had trouble setting it up because it kept pointing to the server name minus port (my IIS and network setup prohibits this). After some tweaking in the code to make the path include the server port, I managed to get it working right. Thanks, Mike at Blue Anvil!

Looked for the following code:
$_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']

And changed to:
$_SERVER["SERVER_NAME"].":".$_SERVER["SERVER_PORT"].$_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']

Ye Olde Garden

More purchases, plantings, and today’s wishlist

08/09/2007 Agastache Acapulco Salmon PinkOn Tuesday, dear hubby and I took a trip to the local Home Depot. I was intent on building on the idea of his tree ring by grabbing 16 red/charcoal foot-wide retaining wall stones. I also needed some new gardening gloves and gave me a good excuse to check out the plant selection. Sadly, no blue salvia in stock. I did find two trays of Agastache Acapulco Salmon & Pink in full bloom. I took one home and got it planted yesterday.

I discovered that the Salvia Hot Lips in the side yard had gotten so big and rangy that it overwhelmed a neighboring purple salvia (along with a black ophiogon, artemisia, and the only other existing anemone). I quickly dug up the purple salvia–okay, more like violently uprooted–and transplanted it to the middle bed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like it’s going to survive the move, having lost much of its rootball. It hadn’t been too healthy to begin with after living in the shadow of its leggy neighbor.

So I’ve been toying with the idea of putting crocuses in the yard, except that I learned that they are considered annuals in Texas. Having learned my lesson with tulips, I’m not about to invest in a single-year show. So other ideas have crept onto my white-and-blue wishlist of the day: more muscari, more irises (dutch and dwarfs), white daffodils, white callas, allium caeruleum (azureum), nepeta (catmint) racemosa or faassenii, black leaf plants such as heuchera and ajuga and penstemon digitalis Ruby Tuesday. I’m also growing fond of Agastache rupestris and a agastache coccinea x rupestris hybrid called Firebird.

Speculation of the day: those salvia greggi reds in my front yard–could they be Furman Reds?

Ye Olde Garden

Reviewing an old order

3/9/2007 Tulipa bakeriI emailed High Country Gardens yesterday to request a copy of my November invoice, which they gladly sent to me.

  • Tulip Bakeri ‘Lilac Wonder’ x1
  • Muscari Botryroides ‘Album’ x4
  • Muscari Armeniacum x4
  • Tulipa Humilis ‘Alba Coerulea Oculata’ x2
  • Allium Christophii x2
  • Allium Karataviense ‘Ivory Queen’ x1

To my knowledge only the Tulipa humilis was the no-show in my garden this year…the one I most wanted to see in bloom. The Tulipa bakeri was kind enough to put out 2 blooms before disappearing into the ground altogether (picture taken 3/9/07). The white flowering muscari and allium weren’t nearly as spectacular as their darker colored counterparts, Ivory Queen proving to be a shorter, ground hugging allium than Christophii. The alliums however do make for interesting dried subjects, their preserved spiky heads still linger in the garden today….