Mid May and STILL too early to plant

I had a few double early peony  Monsella tulips  (yellow with a red stripe) that bloomed yesterday. 

I cut them all and put them on my dining room table (with a few other tulips/daffodils) where I could enjoy them all this week.

They are much smaller than they were when I planted them about four years ago, but they still make a nice dining room table centerpiece.

DH had to go to ACE Hardware tonight to get some fertilizer.  While he went looking for that, I headed straight for the little flower section they have...the first time I have looked for annuals this year!  I found a few things I just had to buy:

Flowering Kale in purple and green/white.  I have only planted this once, but it is so wonderful in the fall (if you can get it through the worm eating stage).  I decided to give it a try in some of my containers this year.

 I also picked up four six-packs of Salvia Victoria Blue.  It will get a foot and a half with blue spikes that look good in so many container combinations.

I put the flat in the garage as it is still too cold to plant outside.  Today it is 52 degrees.  I have found that if I don't  buy them when I see them, I probably won't ever see them again this season.

I also picked up a cinnamon basil plant:

I have no idea what foods would be good with cinnamon basil? Suggestions are welcome!  Even if I never eat it, I will get $2.00 worth of pleasure just walking by it all summer and rubbing a leaf between my fingers, then smelling that wonderful aroma!  I will pinch off the flowers that are already on this plant.

We had to go to a builder's supply store to look at composite decking after work today.  We are having a small deck built this year on the front of our home to replace our crumbling concrete steps.  We hired the same contractor who did our living room last fall.  He won't be able to build it until early July, but we had to pick out the color so it could be ordered.  We decided on a TREX Transcend product. The color is called Spiced Rum. Here is the tiny little sample piece with my salvia tag on top:

The railings will be white.  We are both happy with our selection. It should be totally maintenance free...unlike our large back treated wood deck which we will be staining this week.  As we age, we are realizing that we cannot keep up with all the maintenance the stained wood/solid-stained white railings requires. TREX is a fake wood that never has to be stained.  It is at least three times as expensive as treated wood, but since the front steps deck will be pretty small (9ft. x 8ft), we decided to splurge to eliminate the maintenance.

I guess as you get older, you have to pay more to work less. 

It's a sad fact of life.