I hate shopping for school supplies. I hate picking out all the notebooks. I hate it, I do, I do.
For the past few years, I’ve taken my sons. They hate it, too. This year, I left my eldest home, and my middle son was traveling on a bus home from camp (he’s now back), so I took my daughter. She didn’t seem to mind it that much, though when I asked if she wanted to look at skirts, she clearly just wanted to get out of the store.
Since we were close to my favorite plant nursery, Livingston Park Nursery on How Lane near Livingston Avenue in North Brunswick, we rewarded ourselves by going plant shopping. And taking photographs.

One of the reasons my daughter is happy is I bought her that purple costume she is wearing, a belated birthday present. Among my plant purchases were two of those little evergreen bushes behind her. Hopefully, we’ll have something green in our backyard in the dead of winter.
This is how the nursery looks:

I could have held unto this one until next Tuesday, so I could post it for Ruby Tuesday, a fun photography meme in which you post a photo that has red, but I like it too much to wait:

Finally, one good purpose for going to nurseries is that you find out the names of the plants that you already own. I don’t think I will forget Andromeda now:

On the other hand, I’ve already forgotten the name of the tall purple perennial I planted in my backyard. Is it loosestrife? lobelia? salvia? penstemmon? If it lives through September, I’ll take a photo of it and post it with a “please identify”.
How do you deal with school-supply season?