Feed That Addiction, Plant Junkie!

Nobody else was taking pictures in the cemetery, or I would have retaken this contraband photo.

Feed that addiction, Plant Junkie! You know you want to!
If you missed the Hall County Master Gardeners Spring Expo, you still have time to enjoy these:

The Gently Used Plant Sale (Display models being sold at the Atlanta Botanical Garden.)

Herb Society Plant Sale
(also at the Atlanta Botanical Garden)

Norcross Garden Club Plant Sale
(I was a speaker there one year!)

In case the cold weather kept you home:
Oakland Cemetery is an Historic Atlanta landmark, and they let me in anyway! The GPS got me to the ornate gate that they picture on their website. I was worried. The website makes it sound enormous and my hiking skills are beginner level. Bring a cane if you aren't steady on your feet. There has been a little settling int he last 200 years.

But WOW! This place is...
great! You can see from one detailed, ornate, intricate, impressive, well-kept end to the other stunning, herbalicious, cheerful end. Did I mention this is a cemetery? It's actually kinda hard to get lost, since the visitor's center is the only sizable building and it's in the middle, standing just high enough to see from most of the property.

There are also a number of beautiful, stained glass, architecturally intricate, chapel-like crypts that are tall enough to use at landmarks. Just don't stand near them in a storm.
And a busy railway runs within inches of the back wall, making enough noise to raise the dead, but it didn't. Maynard Jackson and Margaret Mitchell seemed fine with it.(Hi Guys!) A small price to pay to be covered in roses and irises for eternity.

As I approached the Visitor's Center, looking for the plant sale, I saw the sign: 
Plant Sale 
To the Left
Down the Hill
At the Greenhouse

And by "To the Left, Down the Hill" they mean: 
Down the Hill
To the Right
At the Greenhouse 

The greenhouse was on the left, after I went down the hill and quite a way to the right. That was after I went down the hill, to the left, to the left again, back up a hill, marked my progress by one of the very tall, beautiful, unmistakable crypts, and went back to the gift shop to read the sign again. The clue was the in the "At the Greenhouse" part. So I wondered around, passed picnickers and tourists, an enormous ivy shaped into draped bunting, centuries old trees, sculpted benches and thousands of little violas, until I found a greenhouse. Did I mention this is a cemetery?

I really wanted to take pictures of all this stuff, but nobody else was, probably because it's a cemetery.
The plant sale was a good one, and I've been to a lot of plant sales.

The vibrant, greenest-rosemary-I-have-ever-seen hedge just inside the entrance reminded me that I need a new rosemary, and they had 5 varieties to choose from. 
An enormous, deep purple iris hung over a one of the corner tables. Lured me in. Purple. I bought an iris. This is the first one I have ever purchased, although I own a few. 

Whoever was in charge of signage (plant signage, not directional signage) was a master. Each plant had a full-page, laminated sign, with a picture and attached so well the ocean-fairing winds could not dislodge them. Good work, Sign Wizard.

I also bought a hardy orange. Turns out I've had them before, when I killed off my other citrus trees. Hardy Orange root stock is used to graft less-hardy citrus trees unto. Learn something new every day. And I would not have known it, if it weren't for the Sign Wizard.