Planting Pots For Autumn

 I always buy mums in the autumn, and I will, but this year this plant caught my eye and I thought I might enjoy it for late summer/early autumn.

These red Celosia were $3.99 each, and buy one get one free at a local Amish greenhouse. I also bought the Creeping Jenny planted between them in the long planter.

I think I'll put this along the house by the driveway.

Celosia has always reminded me of brain matter! But it's velvety looking flowers have always intrigued me and this color is wonderful!

I bought these two for two of my concrete pots, but the flowers in them are still looking good so I'll keep these alive in their current pots for now.

I've never had Celosia before, have you?

Cottage Garden: Dahlias

 

My parents had an elderly neighbor, when they first moved to Pennsylvania, who grew the most beautiful dahlias.  Sometimes the kids would walk down and say hi to him and his adult daughter who lived with him. Mr. Groff always sent a beautiful dahlia to my mom and my grandma. This was my first introduction to dahlias and I thought they were beautiful, but I'd heard they required a lot of care. At that time I was a novice at growing flowers and I had a lot of children and felt I couldn't give dahlias the care they needed.

This year I've decided to give dahlias a try, at least this one in a pot.  I'm really loving this one and may try a few more.  

I'm also enjoying the lobelia in the pot with it!

Our weather has been delightful, and today is going to be hot for this time of year. Enjoying a few more days with the out of state grands. Lots of good memories.

Garden Talk

 

As I mentioned yesterday, we mulched the flower beds on Saturday.  We also replanted a few of these roses, as I realized that they were planted a bit too high. In this bed of roses, I also have the perennials of Echinacea, salvia, larkspur, daylily.  There are also, in the other beds, hydrangea, bleeding heart, feverfew, iris, a few tulips, poppies, and a lovely hollyhock called, "Nigra."

In the past I've had some zinnia which were great, but in the last few years I've had trouble with sowing seeds due to chickens scratching in my flower beds.

Now that the chickens are happily residing at Lindsay's home, I can direct sow these gorgeous poppies, the zinnias, the hollyhocks, and the cosmos!

I'm beyond excited to grow these gorgeous additions to my garden!

Garden is trial and error sometimes. I've planted things that haven't done well, started seeds that turned out great, had failures and successes. I like the process and the creativity of gardening, and I love having fresh flowers to cut and bring into our home. I also love taking a bouquet as a hostess gift, or to someone for a birthday gift.

I'm going to try to get to one of the garden shops I like and see about some flowers for my concrete planters!

Do you know the key to planting in pots?  The basics are you want a filler, a spiller, and a thriller! A main plant for the middle (usually something that will grow tallish) that's the thriller, then you want a plant that will grow down the sides of the pot, then you want a pretty plant for the rest of the pot, and that is the filler.

Here is an example

The geranium is the thriller (color) the white flower (I don't remember the name) is the filler, and the sweet potato vine is the spiller!  These plants and colors played nicely with each other all summer. As you can see this method works no matter the size of your pot.

Here's an example of a big flower urn.

This is so big, they have several fillers and spillers, and a hydrangea for the thriller! 

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Isn't it gorgeous?! It's way to big for the scale of my home, but I can easily use this method to make something beautiful in my own garden planters, and so can you!

I do want to say, though, that sometimes a beautiful pot planted with just one kind of flower is stunning.

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The great thing about gardening in pots, planters, and urns is you can do it in any size space, and its easier on your body to care for!

What garden plans do you have for this year? Any tips or favorite plants you want to share? Let's chat in the comments!

Potting Flowers and Growing Tomatoes On The Deck

Yesterday was a glorious weather day.  Sunshine, bluest of blue skies, mild temperature.

It was the perfect day to pot up some plants I bought last week, at Cherry Hill Orchard, but first I need a few pots for my tomatoes, and I needed potting soil.  Rachel and I headed out to Christmas Tree Shops for the pots.

Then to Ken's Gardens for the potting soil I like.

I planted the tomatoes in the new pots, and did a companion planting of Nasturtium Alaska Mix.  I like the nasturtium more than marigolds, and they do a good job repeling bugs. 

I decided to give tomato growing a try this year, but knew I'd need to do it on the deck so that the chickens couldn't get to them.  I'm hoping they grow well!

For my summer look on the deck, I also wanted some pretty flowers in pots.  I love red, and I've also done red, white, and blue on the deck the last few years.

So I went with Calliope (large, dark red) Geraniums, Techno Heat (electric blue) Lobelia, Endurascape (white) Verbena.

I made another pot with the same geranium, but did Megacopa (bacopa white), and Sweet Caroline Sweetheart Lime (sweet potato vine) in it.

After I potted it I placed this pot on the deck railing near the stairs.

Now, I just need to remember to give the a regular drink, if we don't get rain.

We're ready for summer!

House Plants: Time To Re-Pot

My house plants have all be thriving this summer with new growth and growing in size, so I decided to re-pot several of them yesterday.

This Pathos didn't get re-potted, its doing just fine in it's spot and in it's pot.

It's got new growth on it, and it seems to thrive with a lot of indirect light.

My Boston Fern is usually on this little chair on the table by the front door.  It had grown and needed more room so it got re-potted, and I put this smaller pathos in its old pot.  This pathos, well its actually two, were grown from cuttings, that Lindsay gave me.

The fern is in an urn now, and today I placed it on our dining table.  Its getting big and stately.  It will probably not stay here in this spot, but with our open plan living room and kitchen/dining room, I'm limited on actual spots for it!  

 I'll have to re-think some of my decor or perhaps take it back to my bedroom.  My room is on the north side of our house and I don't get any direct sunlight in that room, so maybe I'll swap the bigger pathos with my fern, and but the pathos in my room.  We'll see!

Since I was repotting the house plants, I decided to re-pot my aloe, too.  He is sitting next to my ficus.  It won't be too many more weeks and I'll be bringing these two plants into the house until spring.

You can see my tablecloth hanging over a chair, so I thought I'd show you the current state of my deck.

My table is at Lindsay's house, as we were planning an outdoor party for Rachel's going away party.  I need to get over to her house, and bring it back!

The weather is just lovely this morning.  Cool, and sunny.  The today is going to be 76 degrees which is cool for August.  It won't last but I'll enjoy it while I can!

In The Middle Of A Busy Week

A misconception I used to have is that as my kids got older and left the home, I would be less busy.  So far that is not true.

This week my granddaughters will be here four times, we are in the last few weeks of school, we have our year end evaluations on Friday, and I have wedding work today.  

Tim and I are taking my parents out for dinner tonight, since their birthdays are May 5th and May 15th. We are taking them to a nice Irish pub we like, that they've never been to before.  My mom always says that you don't need to buy us gifts, so we decided that dinner out on us would be our gift to them this year!

Yesterday was the warmest day we've had and the evening was perfect weather.  While Tim and the kids washed cars, I did some repotting of some plants, and cleaning out old pots to get them ready for new plants.

I need to get plants for the deck now that I am sure we are past a freeze!  Of course with the weird weather we've had, as my Grandma Lily used to say, "You just don't never know!"

I've gained a bit of my weight loss back, but I am really working to eat on plan, as I really want to kick back into weight loss.  I need to get consistent in working out as well.

Happy Wednesday!

House Plants

For the last several years, I've been trying to bring more live plants into my home.


I first bought a wee Mother Fern and then a Pathos.  

I am very good at growing Pathos.  They're easy.

Lindsay has take some cuttings from mine and given me two cuttings from hers.  They were tiny when she gave them to me and they are growing full and tall.  Its time for them to be transplanted.

She also gave me a ficus.  I love ficus and this one is really growing too.  It likes the light in my house.  I need to transplant it, but I'm afraid to shock it and kill it. 

As for my fern...It was growing beautifully and two summers ago I had it out on my deck.  It was full and lovely, until a sweet little girl pulled off almost all of the fern fronds! It hasn't been the same since.

At times it does really well, growing and getting full and then other times, its sparse.  I'm not sure why.

Obviously, I need some more plants.  I don't have the space for a lot in one area, like Lindsay has in her dining room.  But I want to continue to have oxygen producing, stale air filtering plants in the house.  They're pretty and useful, too.

Do you have houseplants?  What kind is your favorite?  Any helpful hints on my fern?

Let's chat in the comments!

English Cottage Garden In Late Spring

My English Cottage Garden is a wild place.  No neatly ordered plants, they've all spread their seeds over the years and now I can find poppies in several spots, the same with the coneflower, feverfew, hollyhocks, and larkspur.

The boxwood by this rose bush is big and will be getting a cutting back this year.  But they play nicely together, don't they?

My Annabelle hydrangea are thriving in their corner, behind the spent peonies.

Along the walkway and by the front steps you'll find feverfew in bloom, poppies nearly ready and larkspur.

 This daylily is ready to flower, tucked in by the fence and coneflowers.

We've had such cool weather the bleeding heart is still blooming.

 Coneflower buds, and some larkspur tucked in.

 This is the hydrangea that started to leaf out early, then we had a few days of freezing temps.  It blooms on old wood so I thought the freeze had killed it but it's come back and I am very happy.

 My hollyhocks self seed now. I used to have pink and raspberry colored ones, but they died out.  I ordered these black ones from Baker Creek and they are thriving!

 Look how big it is!  Its growing in the narrow space between the walkway and my arbor!

Here's a view of the hollyhock and the larkspur, poppies, spent iris, my goldmound spirea just in view to the left. You can see some lychnis along the fence to the left - its the deep pink flowers.  The hydrangea is on the right under the window. Behind the left side of the arbor, behind the larkspur, I have a new red climbing rose.  It is growing well, but no climbing yet or flowers.  I hope to get red roses climbing up and over this arbor!

My spirea thrives in this spot by the lamppost along the drive way.  It flowers all spring and summer!  Pretty pink flowers with chartreuse leaves.  In front of the lamppost I have purple iris, but they are done flowering.  They look so pretty with this lovely spirea behind them.

How is your garden growing this year?  It will be interesting to see how the summer shapes up after this cool and wet spring!