It's high gardening time

Lots and lots of stuff going on in the garden, or, El Jardin, as we call it here. Not too many plants going into the ground—well, a few that I just could not say NO to—but mainly plants have been going into pots. And I'm proud to say everything is potted, fertilized, watered, and placed. Now comes the on-going watering throughout the season but it's worth it to me. I love putting pots and plant and flower combinations together. It combines choices of color, size, texture, contrast, movement, form with needs for water, heat and sun. And it's three dimensional. Combine that with smell, foliage and life expectancy and you have many variables. I love the challenge.

Some of my favorite pots to plant each year are the front porch pots. They're copper, and I really love their unusual color. Here's what I did this year...

And these are some of the plants that went into them...

Mango, terra cotta, peach flambe...don't these names make you want to eat them up?
Actually, one name got me in trouble a little bit...

I love these black sweet potato vines. Their rich black leaves provide the perfect contrast of limey yellow and chartreuse coleus. I bought a few too many of them, and walking into Interstate Fred Meyer I was telling AdRi I needed more plants to contrast with the Blackies (as you can see, the name of the plants). Evidently I repeated the name several times and she finally told me to keep it down. Yeah, I guess out of context it's not the best name to repeat loudly in public. Especially not in the Interstate Fred Meyer. :)

And then there are the plants that I buy simply BECAUSE of their name. I could not walk by this plant and not buy it, could I?! (note: it's the latin name that hooked me)