Missing...

First, a frost update: nope. There was no frost Friday night. But there will be another chance at it come Thursday night. And I think this one is much more likely, so my plants will stay in their cozy spot for now. So, what's missing you ask? Well... my poor front porch steps look like they are missing a tooth! The board warped so much that it pulled itself off of the right half of the steps, so I finished the job and took it all the way off so no one would trip. But don't worry. I have already selected and sized up a suitable, already-greyed board to replace it. Which I plan to do tomorrow.





And if you came to my blog hoping to see something at least somewhat pretty, I won't disappoint you. These little flowers just fascinate me and I hope you will enjoy this one.


Have a beautiful day!

My front porch...

I am fairly well pleased with my front porch right now. Even though I have had to make some changes in the pots this summer, the plants have finally filled out some.



The Impatiens have slowed down in their blooming; I think because it has been so hot.



Red is not my first choice for my main plantings, but it was too hot for the plants I had originally planted in the pots for the summer. So, I put in the Salvia coccinea because I had them already and I thought they would do better.



Don't get me wrong. I do like Salvia coccinea very much! It's a great plant and it helps draw the hummers to my garden. It puts up with a lot and it reseeds freely, so I should have more next year.



I initially had Black-eyed Susan vines in the pots, also, but it was too hot for them as well. When I transplanted them out, I transplanted in Cypress Vines. I just love how they look and plan to use them again next year.



I absolutely adore my "new" blue shutters! A few months ago, my very sweet brother came to visit for a couple of days and took down the red shutters, washed them, and then we started painting them blue. I am still working on finishing up the project, but I have gotten a few of them back up. Having them blue makes such a lovely difference for me; I can't even begin to tell you how much!


Have a beautiful day!

Beautiful porch pots...

Just a thought... If you have not cut your grass because you are saving the blooms of the Buckhorn Plantain for the little bumblebees so they can collect pollen, and if the little bumblebees come and collect the pollen, then sandals are not the shoe to wear in the morning as you walk across the grass and Buckhorn Plantain to go feed your chickens. Ask me how I know. Go ahead. Ask me.

{Plantago lanceolata - Buckhorn Plantain}

I have a very unimpressive front porch. In fact, I think it is more like an alcove than truly a front porch. But I try to do the best I can with what I've got. There is room - just barely - for two flower pots, one on each side of the door.

(Left side of the porch.)

In the winter, I fill them with the cheerful Johnnies to carry me through that cold, dark season. And that works great because the porch get sun in the winter.

(Right side of the porch.)

In the summer, the porch is shady and each year, I try something different in the pots. So far, because the pots really aren't that big, I have only put in one type of plant. One year, I tried white Impatiens, thinking the white would "lighten" the porch. Well, that ended up being kinda blah. I did hot pink Impatiens another year and that was better, but still somehow too static. I also tried Coleus, which I think are really pretty, but they grew way too big for the space.

{Dracaena 'Spikes', hot pink Impatiens, and Creeping Jenny. And new blue pots.}

This year, though, I have been informed that I got it right. Someone is very impressed and she is not one to be impressed too easily. She approves of my planting scheme. And, I must say, I like it very well, also.

{Can you see the little guy?}

A little Praying Mantis has taken up residence in the pot to the left of the front door, if you are facing the front door. It is cute to see him (or her) there as I go in and out. Yesterday, I caught him eating his lunch (below). (Click on either picture for a larger view if you are having trouble seeing him.) He can have all the "lunch" he wants; more power to him!


Have a beautiful day!

Sweet peas...

My Sweet Pea crop of the year is pretty much limited to the vines growing up the wooden tuteurs on either side of my front porch. The seed packets promised that these were "Very Fragrant," and with a name like "Captain of the Blues," do you really think that I could not give them a try?




I love seeing them out the front door. And going out on the porch and smelling them. I don't think they are as fragrant as "Old Spice," which I have grown a number of times, but I like them very much.




Given that my front porch lacks an awful lot, I thought I would try to make up for it just a little bit by building these garden towers to stand on either side of the porch. They are made of oak and the wood became much too hard for me to drive nails into it, so I drilled holes instead and wired them together with copper wire. The tuteurs are planted in large pots, along with my Johnnies, and, of course, the Sweet Peas.




I don't know whose red shutters those are or what they are doing on my house. You see, my house has blue shutters. Well, at least, on my to-do list, my house has blue shutters.


Have a beautiful day!

California Garden...

On Friday, I looked at a blog by someone who gardens in urban Los Angeles. Seeing a few of her pictures made me miss my California garden so much. For one thing, she has an orange tree. I had THE most wonderful lemon tree. It produced tons of huge lemons which made awesome lemonade. And another of her pictures was of her string of pearls plant with blooms on it. I, too, had a string of pearls that bloomed for me. I think I must have given it to a friend when I left. Maybe I will have to find another one to grow here.




Missing my garden as I was, I had to dig through boxes and boxes of photographs (got to get those put into albums) to find some pictures of my California garden. I found a few. Not the one in particular I was looking for, of course. But these were enough for today. The little date stamped on the back (way before I had a digital camera) is Aug. 1998, so I had done quite a bit more in my garden by the time we moved.



It was a little city lot, only we were in more like a town, if you can call any place in Southern California a town. My simple rail fence really made a difference. It defined the space and provided a very charming back-drop for my border. (My garden here in North Carolina seriously needs the addition of a fence.)




My little doll with her little doll adorned the front porch for this picture. This morning she pointed out that the flowers in her doll’s dress matched the ones she was standing next to on the porch. What more could you ask for? (See? Even that porch is larger than the one I have here in the South, where porches are supposedly de rigueur.)


Have a beautiful day!

My front porch...

Now, I ask you. Would you call this a front porch? A veranda? A loggia? Do you see any stately columns? Any vine-covered pillars? Any stylish railing or fancy fretwork or enchanting arches? There is no comforting ceiling fan. There are no low, wide, double-hung windows looking out onto it. Nor elegant French doors opening out to it. No rocking chairs. Not charming seating areas with tables and glasses of lemonade. Nor mint julep. I cannot believe that I live in the South and have no front porch.



There is plenty of room on the front of the house. Someone could have made a nice-sized, adorable porch. But, no. It looks like an after thought. “Oh, yeah, huh. Maybe we should make an outside door going into the living room.”

I’ve tried. Really, I have tried. There just is not much that can be done. There simply is no room. After all, we’re talking not even 2 ½’ by 6’ here. I have managed to put matching pots on either side of the door. I’ve even put them on stands to make them taller. And I do fill the pots with friendly, seasonally appropriate plants.


O.K., so I am being pretty mean to my poor little alcove. It does its best. And it has made a good back ground for some of my photographs. I do like to sit on it, sans a chair, dreaming of what my garden will one day be. The kitties love to congregate on it, soaking up the warm sun in the winter, and napping in the shade in the summer. But, still, no mint julep. Oh, well.

Have a beautiful day!

Coleus...

Earlier this year, much earlier this year, I grew coleus from seed. I hadn’t done that before and I thought it would be fun to try. Now, if I had planted just one seed, it wouldn’t have sprouted, so I planted the WHOLE seed pack. Do you know how small a coleus seed is? Do you know how many coleus seeds are in a seed pack? Well, let me tell you…



Anyhow, of course the seedlings were way too cute to thin out. I transplanted quite a few of them to make a couple of terrariums for a centerpiece and that was interesting for awhile.




Eventually, they all got put outside in one way or another. Some went into the pots on the front porch (if you can call it a porch), others went into a pot on the deck, some went into K’s shady garden and many of the green and white ones went into J’s white garden. And a number just got left in six packs.



Most of the plants were just typical shade coleus (I’m not a big fan of the sun coleus; somehow it just doesn’t seem right to grow coleus in the sun). But there was one plant that had the most gorgeous markings. It was the only one like it out of all the coleus seedlings and I didn’t want to loose it. I took cuttings of it before it frosted and now it is growing on my kitchen window sill. I hope to keep propagating it through the winter and grow enough of it to make a semi-mass planting of it. In the mean time, isn’t it beautiful in my kitchen?



Have a beautiful day!