Container Gardening

Last weekend, Bradley took me to the Atlanta Botanical Gardens (free admission with our season pass to the Smith Gilbert Gardens!)  It is so beautiful there, and I can’t wait to go back.  Throughout the gardens, there were containers with beautiful blooms that made my few little containers at home seem even more sad.  I don’t give them the attention they need, so everything I have put in them either dies or takes over.

Trying to follow the rule of ‘thriller, filler and spiller’, I originally had some tall perennials and Dianthus and Stonecrop.  Eventually, the  tall perennial was replaced with a Dwarf Alberta Spruce for year-round impact, but the Dianthus and Stonecrop took over. I ended up moving the stonecrop to the rock wall on the hill.

Also, My clay pots started breaking because of water getting in between the layers and expanding during our freezing cold winter.  I replaced them with a couple of light-weight styrofoam ones.  While I was at it, I trimmed back the Dianthus and split it between the two pots for filler.  In the larger container, I used Golden Globes Lisimaquia as my spiller.  In the smaller container, I planted a Sky Pencil Holly for a thriller and used Bacopa as the spiller.

In the third pot, I have a yellow mum from last fall that sprouted back out this spring with purple Petunias.  The beautiful deep purple calla lily that was originally there did not survive it’s second winter unfortunately.

I’m not a maintainer, which is why I usually research options for our yard that are low maintenance and drought tolerant.  I like having container gardens on our patio, but I am going to have to be better about keeping up with them.  In a small pot, I planted a coral-colored Geranium and some more Petunias:

While I was searching for new container plants, I came across the clearance section at WalMart.  I picked up two Asiatic Lilies that I installed under the dogwood tree, and a few more Speedwell ‘Georgia Blue’ that I plugged in along the retaining wall to help fill in some gaps.  Lastly, I moved the Lamb’s Ear again.  I love them when they are small and cute, but I just haven’t figured out what to do with them.  Where they were, the sun shone on them all day and they had gotten enormous and washed out.  I moved them to the corner in front of our air conditioning unit in which we have given up trying to grow grass.

Bless the mess!  They will be very shaded there – hopefully they will behave more like this little guy that has stayed mostly shaded, and is still small and cute.  I am making all kinds of assumptions about this purely on what I see.

And for fun, here is one of the blackberries I planted last year:

Guest Room Storage

After moving my Expedit shelf into Bradley’s office, I have been on the prowl for some night stands with storage for the guest bedroom.  Bradley took me to pick up these on Friday:

They are taller than I need and as wide as I could possibly go in the room, but I think I can make them work (I might incorporate some bed risers).  I haven’t made my final decision about what, if anything, I will do to them.  They are not in pristine condition, but definitely fine to stay as is.  They are also not antiques, which makes changing them easier to swallow if I decide to.  By the stamp on the back, it seems as though they are originally from Bombay Outlet.  This might be a slow makeover, so don’t hold your breath for the ‘after’ shots of the guest bedroom!

Happy Easter!

In addition to the decoupage eggs I created a couple of years ago, I have accumulated a couple of additional Easter decorations.  After the holiday last year, I bought a set of pretty pastel beaded eggs and filler on clearance at Tuesday Morning.  I attached them to a grapevine wreath that I had lightly sprayed with white spray paint.  I love the way it turned out.  Because our front door is not covered (from rain or harsh afternoon sun), I decided to hang it on the inside of the garage door so that I get to see it everyday as I leave.

The final Easter decoration came from my childhood.  Growing up, I received a Disney movie and an Easter bunny figurine every year.  I came across the bunny stash this past year while preparing for a yard sale.  I decided to keep one and let the others find new homes.  I decided on this one because it reminded me most of my mom (since obviously she was the one that picked them all out).  He is a gardening bunny, complete with straw hat, watering can and a pot of flowers.  Check out this master gardener news article about my mom for the significance!