Gardening to relieve stress over elections

Tues AM and I'm off work enjoying a 4 day weekend... Went to Rogers Garden store Sat. AM and bought a few plants to spruce up the driveway garden in these pix...

The spiky looking plants are some type of hybrid. There are bright red buds waiting to open on the 2 Rhododendrons. Our soil has quite a bit of clay so hopefully these plants will be OK. Bought some spray fertilizer, too, so will spray the new plants to help them along...

Our driveway near the street is not paved so we have grey pebbles along it. Couldn't have a pebble driveway at our old house in northern Illinois... too much snow and shoveling in winter. There are quite a few driveways near us on almost 45 degree angles. A bit of snow in Auckland would be traffic mayhem - no way people could even get down their driveways if they ever got icy.

This little orange plant is quite pretty, semi-tropical type that can handle the semi-shade of the driveway. Our backyard rehab, a year long project, has just been newly replanted with grass so hopefully in a month or so, it will FINALLY be finished. It does look good though...

Its really nice to have gardens to putter around in and relieve daily stresses - like reading about upcoming USA Nov2 mid term elections. I can't do much about it from over here in NZ. I hope the conservative wave does create a decent sized TEAnami (as Rush coined) so new faces join congress to make better decisions and reverse the commie-marxist tide. Well, back to reading some news this morning... or maybe I'll shop for some new garden planters. <- That sounds more fun...!