Monday, May 23, 2016

2016 Container Garden

It has rained nearly every day for over a month.  We've had a few moments of actual sunshine lately, though, so I seized the opportunity to take some photos of this year's container flower garden on my deck.  Here it is!


Also, down to the left we have my two bigger pots that used to have my lavender plants in them.  I got those in the ground at last (we'll see if they manage to grow or not), so now we have blueberry bushes in these pots, since those didn't do well in our clay-y ground.  So left-to-right here, we have blueberry bush, blueberry bush, a few lilies-of-the-valley left over from when I divided the patch of those out front, and some magenta petunias that Tootie chose at the store.


Moving on up, we've got these two lovely double-layered pots.  I planted purslane in the top of both of them, and then it never came up, and it never came up, and I gave up on it and bought some pretty purple lantanas for the tops... and when I planted those, I discovered the purslane is coming up at last.  So left that plenty of room in both pots.  I planted marigold seeds in the bottom of the left pot, and bachelor buttons in the right one, but the buttons never came up, so I put in some petunias that Sarah (yellow) and Sam (purple) chose instead.


My three biggest pots are a delight this year.


The ones on the left and right have yellow pansies and purple johnny-jump-ups that are from last year!!!  They stayed alive over the winter and started blooming in March again.  They're huge and bushy and great.  I stuck some pale-ish blue lobelia in those pots too because they each had an empty spot where something last year died.


The center pot is all new stuff.  I stuck a "bandana" lantana in the very back, flanked by a yellow dahlia on the right and a "starsisters" dahlia on the left that had a gorgeous two-color bloom on it when I bought it, which promptly snapped off in the car on the way home -- but it has lots of buds, so I'm hopeful.  Anyway, directly in front of the lantana are 4 celosia, one of which has already died off.  I tried them a few years ago and was disappointed by them, but my dad grew them really well in his container garden, so I thought I'd try them again.  We'll see what happens.  Then in front of those is a yellow "sunsatia" with delicate flowers I love.  Flanking that are two "Aloha Kona" calibrachoas, which should get drape-y and awesome like the ones I've had previous years.


Finally, to the right of that trio is another double-decker pot with a purple lantana and some tiny purslane shoots on top, and more marigolds coming up in the bottom.  The yellow pot in the foreground has another lantana (I got a little nutty with those this year -- usually I just have one or two, but now I have five).

And the three on the stand belong to Sam, Sarah, and Tootie, arranged according to their age, with Sam's on top, full of bachelor buttons we planted as seeds.  Sarah's middle pot mostly has these succulents called portulaca that seem to have reseeded themselves from last year.  She planted a few marigolds in with them, though, because Sam and Tootie were getting to plant seeds.  The bottom one is Tootie's, with different bachelor buttons from seeds.


Now I'll share a few close-ups just because I love taking pictures of flowers :-)  Here are the johnny-jump-ups:


The lobelia:


The sunsatia:


The calibrachoa:


The dahlia (and yes, I totally chose these because of the Alan Ladd movie The Blue Dahlia):


The "bandanna" lantana:


And here are a few of the johnny-jump-ups and some roses from the bush by my front door, which I stuck together in a jug to decorate our table when we had some company over for supper last week:


I don't know much of anything about arranging flowers, but a bunch of fresh blooms stuffed in a little jug almost always turn out pretty, I think.  We were celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday, so I wanted to dress the table up a bit.

20 comments:

  1. I love all of your plants and am jealous about your blueberry bushes. I wanted some this year, but they were out when we got to the garden centre.
    I also love your jug of fresh flowers. I'm with you. I don't really think you can go wrong putting fresh flowers in crockery.

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    1. Thanks, Jennifer! I'll let you know how the blueberry bushes fare. They're supposed to work in containers, so we'll see.

      Your post on putting a pretty centerpiece on the table when you have people over for a meal directly inspired my spending 5 minutes cutting flowers that day!

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    2. I am very curious to know how your blueberries do because maybe next year I can do them. :)
      I'm sure your company appreciated your five minutes of effort. I know I did. It doesn't take much to make our surroundings more beautiful, eh?

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    3. I'm hoping to get better about bringing flowers from my outside plants in to share when we have people over. Because exactly, it's not much effort and livens the dining room table up so nicely :-) Not always feasible, like when we have more than about 6 extra people over, but sometimes it works!

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  2. Beautiful! You do have an eye for color, which results in some stunning combos!

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    1. Thanks, Vicki!

      (I know three Vickis. Are you my mom's friend, my son's Sunday school teacher, or my C! squaddie? I'm curious!)

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  3. Hi there! It's Vicki from church! (And also a big Bobby Darin fan!)

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    1. AHA! See, both you and my mom's friend Vicki were "liking" my Bobby Darin posts on Facebook, and then one of you popped up here too, and I was like, "Which Vicki is this???" Thanks for telling me :-D

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  4. Beautiful! What a lovely deck full of flowers! I didn't know that you could grow blueberry plants in pots! I planted half a dozen bushes in a field last year myself, and now I always love seeing other folks plants. :)
    The Dahlia made me smile, that's a grand reason to plant it I think! :)

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    1. Annie, I didn't know that either, but Cowboy read that you could, so we're trying it.

      What kinds of bushes did you plant?

      Yeah, I saw those dahlias and said to myself, "Hmm, what are those? They're not mums. Let's see... they're dahlias? Dahlias! My Alan Ladd! Must have!" and stuck them in my cart. Glad that connection made you smile :-)

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    2. Blueberry bushes. Several varieties, Star, Misty, and one other whose name slipped my mind. :)

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    3. Annie, yum! I have no idea what varieties we have here -- they're whatever Lowe's was selling, lol.

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  5. I love your flowers! You've got a lot of purple and yellow, which I heartily approve of because those are my favorite colors :-)

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    1. Thanks, Jessica! Purple is my favorite color, and I don't love yellow, except yellow flowers. Those I do love.

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  6. Oh, how pretty! Your biggest pots are so bright and cheery, and I love that flower arrangement in the jug too.

    And you have lilies of the valley! I adore them—we used to have them in a place we lived years ago, and I've been missing them since. We never planted any in our early years here because of concerns about their being poisonous, with children and dogs about, and also their tendency to spread. I didn't realize you could grow them in containers—perhaps I could manage that now!

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    1. Thanks, Elisabeth! I just love taking a moment every morning to look out at my flowers and enjoy the beauty God has given us. I mean, he could have created the world without colors, or without flowers -- those are just things he gave us to make us happy, not because we needed them.

      I have a big plot of lilies of the valley by my front door. Every couple of years I have to divide them because they try to escape, hee. These ones have been in the container for over a year and even flowered this spring, so good luck with them! They do try to take over in the ground, so a pot or a well-bordered plot are the best bets with them.

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  7. Your flowers are so beautiful! I LOVE the johnny-jump-ups, they're so pretty it makes me want to hug myself with delight :D

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    1. Thanks, BC! Aren't those johnny-jump-ups just happiness made tangible?

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  8. Your flowers are beautiful! I have four potted plants on my back deck currently that were given to me after mom's funeral. And as I have nary a single green thumb on either hand, they all look a little worse for wear. But I'm trying! We'll see if they survive until Fall... *crosses fingers*

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    1. Thanks, Kara! We've had lots of high heat the past couple weeks and they're not looking so nice right now. Though my starsisters dahlia did bloom a lot last month -- my header is a photo of it at the height of its glory.

      Really, all it takes to grow plants is the ability to remember to water them and a willingness to learn. Like I learned this year that nope, lavender doesn't grow in our nasty clay soil -- both plants I put in the ground died. Oh well. Good luck with yours!

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