I might start out with the best-laid plans, but somewhere meandering around the garden centers and farmers markets each spring, a few surprises not on the list seem to make it into my garden flat, and I find myself back home, wondering exactly where I thought I was going to put that.

Sometimes it's a plant I bought for the name as much as anything. Like the Sun Sugar tomatoes, tiny orange tomatoes that have lived up to their name this year.

Other times it's a seeming bargain that tempts me: the woman at the farmers market this spring who was eager to make me a deal on a flat of her delphiniums. Since there were no pictures, I was curious to see how the plants billed as "mixed" would turn out. I was rewarded with a dozen double blooms of white and pale blue at about the price of one of my fancier hybrids. They had shorter bloom times, and we'll see what the reseed rate turns out like next year. At any rate, they filled in some gaps at a nice price.

I've never grown watermelons before, figuring that given my limited space, they were best left to the farmers market. But I yielded to the impulse to buy one billed as producing smaller melons. Unfortunately, the tag I carefully put in the soil next to it I now realize only had the price on it, not the variety name, so I'm left to other methods to determine when it's time for harvest. I plan to cut into one this weekend and see whether my $3.95 was worth it. Certainly it's been a prolific bloomer, and there are at least a few melons to show for it.

My favorite impulse purchase this year was a rose, at the pricier end of my whimsies. I was in the market for something to shade out the roots of a troubled clematis, and came home with a Blanc Double De Coubert shrub rose. It was so long between when I planted it and when it bloomed that I'd forgotten part of its billed attraction was its strong fragrance until I finally stopped to smell the roses, literally. Well worth the $16 I paid for it, and the clematis behind it is happier too.

What gems have fallen into your garden cart this year? It's always fun to step off the planned path and experiment. And if it doesn't work out, there's always next year in the garden.