Rainy day joy! Etc. (With update)

Raindrops are falling on my almond verbena and I'm loving it!

It actually started yesterday.  We had a brief, intense shower in the early afternoon.  It yielded only 1/10 of an inch of rain, but it was much appreciated.  It meant that I didn't have to water my little seedlings in the vegetable garden.  And now, today is looking very promising indeed.  We've had slow, steady rain off and on all morning.  If only it will continue for a while...

Just before our teaser shower yesterday, I had trekked over to Arbor Gate to do some shopping.  I had decided that I had been in a gardening funk long enough and it was time to replace some of my lost plants as well as adding some others to the landscape.  Specifically, I wanted to get some herbs for the fall garden.  

Visiting Arbor Gate is always an adventure for me because, of course, I always find more than I went for and often I find new plants or plants that I find I suddenly must have!  Yesterday it was a beautiful variegated abelia and a cassia totally covered in wonderful yellow blossoms.  I resisted temptation and didn't buy either, but I'm contemplating where I might be able to use them in my garden.  And, after all, Arbor Gate is only a few minutes away...

What I did purchase were several herbs and a couple of grayleaf cotoneasters.  As I noted in my last post here, I lost quite a few plants in the herb garden when I basically stopped watering that area for an extended period to concentrate on some other parts of the garden during the hottest part of summer.  Consequently, there are blank spots to fill.

I bought a Mexican oregano and bronze fennel (Foeniculum vulgare nigra) to replace the ones that were lost.  Others that I couldn't pass up were catnip ( Nepeta cataria), fernleaf cilantro (Coriandrum sativum 'Delfino'), Italian giant parsley, salad burnet (Poterium sanguisorba), lemon thyme (Thymus x citriodorus), creeping sweet marjoram (Origanum humile Creeping Marjoram), and something that I've never grown before called pineapple verbena 'Moujean Tea'.  It's described as being a small shrub with pale yellow flowers and small orange fruit.  It sounded interesting and should be quite a nice addition to the garden.

The grayleaf cotoneasters were planted yesterday, but the tray of herb plants is now sitting under a magnolia tree and being watered by Mother Nature.  Now if only it will stop raining so I can go plant them...

Ach!  Shut my mouth!!!  Come on, rain!


UPDATE 10/10/11:  A total of 3.2 inches of rain fell on my yard yesterday.  Along with the .1 we got the day before, that makes a grand total of 3.3 inches.  More than we had received during the previous six months.  It was wonderful to see some of the ponds around the neighborhood actually having water in them again today!