My Gardening Efforts

I promised to show you how I potted and arranged those plants that were huddling in the corner of my deck. It will look better once things fill out, the plants that wintered over have revived and started blooming and perhaps the few seeds I planted germinate as well. Let me tell you, it is a much better "after" view than the "before" view of dead plants and empty pots! If you look closely in the upper right hand corner, you will see that the syringa are doing their part too, having recently started to bloom all along the greenbelt behind our street of duplexes.

I was really drawn to yellow and orange blooms this year for some reason, but was sure to add this purple colorway to the orange one I picked out. I realized I was picking flowers like I used to pick fabric - if I couldn't decide which colorway I liked best, I'd buy some of each.

Here's the orange colorway along with this pretty yellow flower tinged with pink. Almost out of view in the upper left is a dahlia. I've never had dahlias before but know they come in so many varieties and colors. I hope this one does well in its pot. Could have bought different colorways of this one too but I only have so many pots on my deck! In the upper right is the pot holding a purple perennial whose name eludes me at the moment which is slowly re-emerging. Out of view on the left is a robust pansy which I hope does better than pansies I've had in the past. They seemed to be prone to mildew and bugs but this one looks much hardier. I have to try because pansies are a special  link to my mother and her mother who, I was told, always said pansies looked like little faces smiling up at you.

This is perhaps my favorite pick of the lot. It was a last minute grab after I thought I had the requisite number of new plants for my pots. It's called funny honey for some reason and because it seemed to have a spreading nature, it has gone in one of my long pots where I'm having a bit of trouble establishing anything perennial. I almost put it back, realizing how heavy on the orange/yellow I'd gone, but just couldn't resist.

I also have a big pot by my front steps that I've never been able to get to look like other people's large front step pots along my street which overflow with greenery and blooms. I just end up with a few blooms barely peaking over the edge. I truly am not much of a gardener, pretty much failing at every residence I've lived at to groom lush gardens. I love roses and tried them at several places only to have them go nowhere and be aphid gatherers. I've planted hundreds of bulbs over the years, never seeing more than widely spaced results in spring. Never could get foundation plantings to shield foundations with greenery and blooms. When we moved to Wisconsin, I swore off gardening, save to continue planting geraniums each year in that big copper tub - the one thing I have success with. So what to try this year? To my surprise, I brought home some double pentunias, a surprise because I have never cared for petunias, mainly because of the sticky secretions coming off them. But this pink double caught my eye and I thought maybe, maybe it could give me a better result.

I went back and got two more so the pot would be fuller with them. I'm hoping they will literally rise to the occasion.

And because they are giving me as much joy as the newly potted blooms on the deck, I share with you some closer shots of those wild syringas.