Lessons learned

In my world (yes, it`s a special place in my head) spring smells like the soil after a rain. It`s a smell that takes me back to my childhood to the farm where I grew up and the huge garden my mother planted every year.

In the spring, my brother, sister and I would tempt fate and try walking through the garden when it was a mud pit.  And every year, one of us would probably lose a rubber boot.  There would a sucking noise, the boot would become mired in the mud, and we`d be stuck.  Sometimes Dad came to the rescue, lifting us out of the mud - hopefully with boots intact but more often less one or more.  When he wasn't around we`d pull one foot or both out of the boots and trek through the mud in our sock feet risking the ire of our mother.  Of course we'd been told to stay out of the garden but the lure of the mud was too enticing!

Today, I love to dig in the dirt though I've finally learned to stay out of it when it's really wet. So when spring finally arrives I start thinking about I'll plant in my containers and front flower beds. Every year I take photos thinking I'll use them to help me decide.  But when I go to the nurseries and garden centers all those thoughts go out the window.  This year was no different.

Last Saturday I decided to go "take a look" to see what was available. Ha!

After filling the back seat of the car this is what I came home with.

I filled the front containers with mums, vinca vine and ageratum.  I hope the purple ageratum will make a show against the yellow mums.

This pot simply has wave petunias, pink and purple, that should cascade down the side of the pot by mid-summer.

I planted nicotiana and snap-dragons in the front bed Sunday morning and decided it looked a little sparse.  What to do?  Head back to the garden center again of course!  

There is now a perennial forget-me-not, and a container on the left.  This bed doesn't get much sunlight so shade loving plants are a must.

I've filled it with double impatiens and an ivy. Last year my friend C had to remove all of her impatiens due to a fungus.  I was fortunate and didn't see any evidence of it, even though I had several containers and had planted them in the garden.  I'm not taking chances so this are the only impatiens I have this year.

Nicotiana is one of my favorites, very colorful and has a lovely smell in the evening!

In the backyard I've purchased a 12 inch container of petunias and verbena for an instant punch of color.

This year I bought a strawberry pot to grow herbs in.  I've got parsley, thyme, oregano, sage for me and catnip for the cats.

The containers on the back deck hold the wave petunias.  Not pictured are the purple mums and alyssum in three containers on the lower deck, and two containers of snap-dragons and verbena on the rails and a pot of coleus...that I'm unsure why I bought.





There are also two more containers out front, one with the pink dahlia, ivy and ageratum, and another with a geranium, callibrocha and verbena.

If you are counting, that means I'm up to 17 containers this year.  Last year the count was closer to thirty. and the year before was thirty-three.  I've learned that I only need to fill the back seat of my car one and a half times to fill a manageable amount of containers.

At least that is what I'm saying now....