Close call

In fits of spring fever, we've gorged on new plants, and are tucking them into their new beds as fast as we can, and not without problems. There were a pair of salvia I bought impulsively, thinking they'd bring late summer color to the edge of a bed. The tag wasn't alarming, but yesterday - after I'd planted them - I looked them up on a lark. They grow up to six feet tall! Not so much of a foreground plant, after all - but easily moved still.

I'm always doing that - I pick out something that seems like a good idea when I'm at the nursery, and then wander around (sometimes for weeks) wondering why I thought I'd want another four cistus when they already seem to be in every spot one could conceivably grow.

Or, worse, I finally find the one plant I've been after for years, and find that all the spots it could go are filled with the pale imitations I bought in a moment of despair over ever finding the one perfect one. So do I euthenize perfectly good plants? Try to fob them off on unsuspecting friends? Move them somewhere less high-profile?

And, at the Saturday Market where I'm trying to decide whether four types of basil are enough, and he says, "Did you want chard?",Chard Bright Lights

I don't hesitate. I'm a goner as soon as he hands me the tray of seedlings. Are six plants too many? Sure they are, but I know I'll find room for them somehow, because they will dazzle both in the vegetable bed and on the dinner plate, never mind what they'll do at the cellular level.