Wednesday, June 13, 2007

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...
Pots for the front porch
And these are some of the plants that went into them...
plants used in the pots for the front porch
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...
plant name that gets me in trouble
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)
a plant i bought because of its name

5 comments:

bemused said...

I love 'Peach Flambe'! Yummy, yummy, yummy! And 'Blackie' and 'Marguerite' (the golden sweet potato vine) and, and, and.

Lovely containers, Lelo!

bemused said...

Well, dang the other half of my post went missing. It certainly couldn't have been my fault (yeah, right).

What a hoot about that plant's botanical name! Wonder what the story is behind that name. I looked it up online at Dictionary of Botanical Epithets and nada came up.

Monogram Queen said...

Yeah you wouldn't want to be yelling "Blackie" in the Deep South either *wink*
Beautiful El Jardin Lelo

witchtrivets said...

Oh I love the Garden centers at Fred Meyer. Do they have have the lesbos? Because now that I see it, I must have it. I've been thinking of doing an all gay/witch-themed garden. So far all I got is witchhazel, gayfeather, and now the lesbos. Have to start somewhere.

Rozanne said...

Has Sassy Gardener officially defected from the O? I hope so.

You always come up with the most amazing plant combos for your pots.

I am a huge fan of Calibrachoa AKA 'Million Bells' BTW. It really trails and spreads, so it just keeps looking more and more fabulous as the summer wears on.