Why I Oughta...

A couple of weeks back,  I showed off some of the most significant annual bedding planting that I've done in our backyard that included a bunch of shade-loving annuals like impatiens and begonias among others.  Number 25 on my 2023 to-do list was to use annuals beyond the container and with the shade annuals, I was feeling pretty good.  But, I also have a more sun-filled border near the kitchen window that I decided to try some other bedding annuals.  I poked around to try to figure out the difference between traditional petunias, supertunias and wave petunias.  Turns out, Wave are 'spreading' and are the best for bedding.  I picked up four of these Easy Wave Lavender Blue Sky Wave Petunias and stuck them in close to the border in a staggered planting. These have a spread of more than a foot, so I'm hoping that these will fill in the spaces in between and put on a nice little blueish-purple show this Summer: In the photo above, you can see the three Lucky...

Back at the beginning of the month, I posted some details and photos of our front yard annual plantings including their inspiration from Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  At the time, I planted (only) a series of Dusty Miller white annuals and talked about how I'd fill them out with a few other colors and flowers.  After doing a little bit of hemming and hawing, I decided to just see what struck me at the big box garden center.  I ended up coming home with purple and yellows.   Purple petunias.  24 of them.  And Yellow Zinnias.  18 of those.  I planted the purple petunias in between each pair of the Dusty Millers.  And planted the Zinnias in a row *behind* those - closer to the house/boxwoods.  Below, you can see what they look like right now, immediately after planting.   Here's a look at the yellow, flowering annual zinnias: And, here below, is the purple petunia: I'm hopeful that they'll fill-in and what I call 'get bushy'....

The past few years, I've used a tricolor combination in the 'corner container' on our back patio that was inspired by beds in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  Red, Orange and blue/purple.  Last year it was marigolds, salvia and petunia .  Along with an Elephant Ear tucked into the corner for a little tropical flair.   This year, I went a different route - with a monochromatic scheme.  Well... actually since the foliage is green and the flowers are all white, this might *technically* be a complementary scheme.  But, I'm going to call it one-color.  I went this route with both the corner wooden container and the larger clay pot that we've had for 10 years or so. Let's start with the corner container.  I planted this with a combination of white flowering annuals and some foliage plants.  First, the flowers:  16 Catharanthus roseus - annual vinca. Those are the white flowers with red centers.  And 16 Easy Wave White spreading Petuni...

Yesterday, I shared some looks at the island beds (of annuals) that you can see in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris this year .  I've used them as inspiration in the past for some containers, but this year, I thought we'd try to use them as inspiration for our front yard in-ground bed.  I decided to use a combination of 36 (small) Dusty Millers and some other colorful annuals (that I haven't bought yet).  I don't love pinks, so maybe reds is where I'll land.  While the alternating color isn't locked in, the Dusty Millers are, indeed, 'locked-in'.  Here you can see them below:  six six-packs bought and brought home. In 2020, I planted 24 impatiens .  Last year, we planted 20 sedum and 24 begonias .  For historicals: Our first full year - in 2018 - we planted some Ranunculuses - about eight of them. In 2019, we planted 16 orange marigolds. +8 plants yoy. In 2020, we planted 24 Impatiens . +8 plants yoy. In 2021, we planted 20 Lemon Coral Sedum and 24...

On our back patio, we have this solitary Volunteer Petunia at the base of our raised vegetable garden bed.  It feels like it tells the story of our backyard and garden this year in a way that I couldn't have predicted.   Not only did we NOT plant this color petunia this year, I don't think we planted it last year.  Back in 2019, we had some Supertunia Blue Skies in some of our containers that I'm now wondering if they reseeded or survived in some weird way to come up through the crack in our patio bricks.   Life has a way, right? Interested in the archives of various volunteers that have popped up over the years?  Head here: [ Volunteers ]. 

Since our first (and only) visit to Luxembourg Gardens in Paris a few Summers back, I've planted this large(r) corner container with the same color combination that we first saw there and have used (mostly) the same trio of plants:  Red Petunias.  Yellow Marigolds.  Purple Salvia.   Last year, I used the same red petunias.  But, used yellow Zinnias and a perennial, more woody Salvia.  Here's a look at a different container that I planted with the remnants of the wooden corner box.   This year, I used this dark purple Vista Salvia and a yellow Marigold and even tucked in an Elephant Ear bulb into the corner.  Thus far, the elephant ear hasn't put up any growth but, it might lend a nice tropical vibe to the corner of this container box.   You will also note that in the photo above, the container is still naked lumber - and hasn't been stained just yet.  That's #4 on my 2021 to-do list that hasn't been done just yet....

Here's one of our patio containers that we recently planted for the Summer.  It is a purple, yellow and red combination - which we've mirrored elsewhere - based on a bed we saw in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.  This container has a larger Blue Salvia  (Salvia farinacea), a yellow Zinnia and in front a red Wave petunia. We've planted this large container every year - always different - but this feels like a nice combination of sun-happy annuals that should flower all season long. Notably, the Salvia (Salvia farinacea) is a perennial in warmer zones (8-10), but is treated as an annual up here in Zone 5b.  With the newly installed Eze Breeze windows in our screened porch, I'm wondering if we move our containers in there this Winter...if we'll get a little bit of a 'greenhouse effect' with the wind cut down?  Maybe this is a container that I should test to see if the Saliva will come back. I'll post a few more photos of our other containers on the pat...

We've been growing Sweet Potato Vines for the better part of ten years.  Basically ever since I started to buy and plant containers of my own, we've found a home for one of these.  Or six of them.  With their rock-bottom price (usually $0.99 a piece), I naturally grab one of these and a spike or two and check the box on the "spill" and "thrill" in the fill-spill-thrill container philosophy trio. But in all of that time, I have never had a Sweet Potato Vine flower.  Until now.  And I have not one vine flowering, but two!  In two different containers .   Here, below, you can see both of the wine barrel containers that I used on our patio and you can see that both of them have a very healthy/robust purple sweet potato vine and both are flowering! (also note how happy the Lemon Coral Sedum is, eh?) The flowers are quite striking and add some drama to the normally boring vine. From this DIYNetwork post , it turns out that the reason I...

I came across this Lemon Coral Sedum from Proven Winners in this video from Garden Answer.  I really liked the way it looked in her video, so when I came across it (at the garden center at the Jewel of all places), I had to bring it home.  I put it in a few spots including this wine barrel planter that we have set on our patio.  Like a lot of other sedums, it is drought tolerant, but this one has a neat chartreuse-y color along with those pretty yellow flowers.  I planted this one and it immediately began to establish itself, stretch out and put on this show.  Tucked right in next to the Night Sky Petunia that continues to bloom all Summer long, this part of the pot is doing exactly what I was hoping for in this spot.  The only *miss* in this pot is any sort of mid-level structure/height, but it is getting close to time to rip out those Pansies and replace them with something more fit for the heat of Summer.  Opportunity, right??? This wine barre...