"What continues to astonish me about a garden is that you can walk past it in a hurry, see something wrong, stop to set it right, and emerge an hour or two later breathless, contented, and wondering what on earth happened."
— Dorothy Gilman
3/9/16:
Sunday was nice and sunny, so I spent about 4 hours out in the yard. While there's still so much to do, I am proud of myself for cleaning up many of the crowded and messy areas of my container garden. For this week's post, rather than including pretty close-up photos of flowers that are currently blooming, I decided to zoom out a little and show some of the clusters of pots around the outside of the house.
Clicking on the small images below will bring up a larger version.
Along the side of the lawn.
In front of the house.
North side of the house.
I am looking forward to seeing more of my plants resume blooming. The roses have a few buds on them now, but other flowers such as the sweet williams and morning glories seem to be waiting for longer spells of warm, bright weather. It will also be interesting to compare these early-season shots with photos of the same areas taken in a few months.
In the first image, the plants are magenta sweet williams (dianthus), pink columbine, pink geraniums and wild leeks in the little pots on the bench. The coconut fiber planter above holds oregano and lemon thyme. There was a basil plant on the right side of this, but it got eaten up by snails. I think the large hedge behind the bench is a variety of jasmine. Calla lilies grow to either side. And of course, there's lots of English ivy, which I should cut back more.
In the center image, I have pink geraniums, white daisies, yellow and red snapdragons, star jasmine, yellow and red rosebushes, orange nasturtiums, blue morning glories, orange calibrachoa, sage, and an orange chrysanthemum. Purple crocus, gladiolus, and orange lily bulbs are also planted under the taller plants in some of the larger containers. This area is next to our front porch, and gets a decent amount of sun.
In the last image, there are purple carribean lilies, orange nasturtiums, blue lobelia, magenta and white cyclamen, red geraniums, red sweet williams, orange star irises, ivy, red salvia, fuchsias, purple crocus, gladiolus, and orange lily bulbs. In the photo, the newly risen sun is casting a few beams onto the plants, but this spot is in the shade for a larger part of the day.
The areas where I keep seedling starter pots, herbs and lettuce in long planters, and large containers (mostly empty, to hold tomatoes and peppers eventually) still need work, but I'll photograph them once sorted out and tidied up.
