Garden Season Begins!

 Due to our trip to Texas, I got a bit of a late start on planting my pots this year. I expected things to be picked over when I got to the greenhouse(s) but to my surprise, there were still plenty of flowers to be had!

My favorite local greenhouse is Piney Ridge. It is open from April until they run out of plants, which is usually sometime in June.

 

 

I had no trouble rounding up enough flowers to fill all of my patio pots. This year I saw a few different flowers, including black petunias and all of these beautiful foliage plants! I briefly considered going with a color scheme like the one in this photo, but then I decided I needed a few blooming plants, too.

  

In all, I made three trips to various greenhouses to fill up my planters. I can never go just once!

 

This year I bought a Mexican Bush Sage plant. We'll see how it does.

I also bought a double vinca, which was a new plant at the greenhouse. So far it looks healthy but hasn't bloomed much. The jury is out on this one.

I subscribe to the "thrill, fill, and spill" concept for creating balanced pots. You can see it in this sample at the greenhouse: Something tall (the "thrill"), something that cascades over the side (the "spill") and something that spreads and covers the gaps (the "fill").  This year I noticed that the "thrill" plant does not need to be exactly in the center of the pot. It can be at the back, as shown here.

 

 Having cleaned out all my pots, I gathered all of my plants to figure out which combination went in each pot. I had a mental idea of this at the greenhouse but it never works out quite the way I planned it!

 

 For my "spill" plants, I chose a few different varieties of sweet potato vines. I love the color and they always seem to do well.

 

 For my "thrill" plants, I purchased a few taller flowers such as this angelonia.

 

 For this pot, I put a spike plant at the back for the "thrill" effect. Positioning it at the back gave me more room for larger "spill" and "fill" plants.

 

 Vinca and sweet alyssum make good "fill" plants.

 

I love the deep purple color of these salvia plants!

 

 

Here are all the patio pots just after I planted them. A week later, they have already filled out quite a bit.

I usually avoid pink and red but I caved in on these pink vincas. They're a nice contrast to all of the purple in my pots and gardens.

I also have several herbs in pots, including mint, basil (a clipping from Bailey's plant in Texas), my rosemary that wintered over inside, cilantro, dill, and (of course) catnip which is not pictured here. Everything is doing well except for the dill which now looks very poorly for some reason. I fertilized it and am hoping for the best, but it may have to be replaced. The herbs will go on my garden cart. The catnip will stay on the step so that it is reachable by the neighbor kitty when he comes calling. :)

Oh, hi, Lily! She wants some fresh catnip!

I also bought a tomato plant so that I can compete with Bailey, who has already had at least one ripe tomato! I bought a large plant since she had such a head start. It has several blooms already so I can see this is going to be a stiff competition! (Not really...I haven't grown a tomato plant in years so we'll see if it even lives!)

Here's to a successful (I hope!) garden season!

jp