Mish Mash Monday 8-3-09

It's beginning to look a lot like...Fall?? So it seems here. The spiders are beginning to build their webs in earnest. I love the way this one looks like gossamer with dew on it and the rainbow of color that slides across one side. We have had so much rain that the old table top in the garden is sprouting fungus. It has three types on it. This one is the most colorful.

I just love the bloom of this begonia.

I really grow these big leaved begonias for their interesting shapes and markings. Sometimes I am gifted with some blooms.

This planter has turned out quite pretty. With the begonia, persian shield and petunias together.

The window box is full now too. The caladiums are growing like crazy. I love the way they fill up the kitchen window. When you look at them from inside they look like stained glass.

I hope you all have a great week.

Winter Window Boxes and Planters

This fall when the shade loving plants begin to fade I like to do something different with the window box. When we look out the kitchen window I like to look through plants. It makes me feel like I am sitting in a meadow. So this fall I cut some Hawthorn limbs that had berries on it. On the right hand side if you look closely you can see the remmanents of a Cardinal nest on one of the limbs.

I think someone mentioned concern about how big the Purple Fountain Grass would grow when I planted it in this window box in spring. It didn't get too big luckily. It didn't have great growing conditions here but it did fill a space and the blooms lasted until I cut it down. Hawthorn limbs don't last very long. They dry up and lose their leaves, the berries dry up and look ugly after awhile. So when it gets cold I like to do a little something different with my window box. It looks so boring sitting there empty. Now when we look out the window we can feel like we are in a forest.

I hate that I don't have pine boughs to cut for the window box during winter since our pine trees came down during storms last winter. There are lots of cedars around. This year I cut some limbs of cedar, a few berries of the deciduous holly and some grass plumes. The wren box is one of several that I had in the garden. I thought this looked like a cozy place for a wren to roost and keep warm during winter. Once I got going with the trimmings I decided to fill a pot to set on the front porch. The front porch looked a little naked without a pot of something to greet friends coming to visit.
Do you do seasonal decorating with your window boxes and empty planters? I would love to see/hear about what you do to your empty window boxes and planters.

Container Gardens

At Gardening Gone Wild Steve Silk has written a post for the monthly focus which is Container Plantings. I sort of cringed when I saw the subject of this month. Containers are not something that I excell in. I don't know what it is but when I put them together I rather like what I have done then when the season progresses I quickly fall out of like with them. It might be my method of caring for them. The only thing I can possibly add to what Steve has posted already is that I have found that the type of planting medium is of great importance. I find when I pay a little more to get the medium that the local nursery uses for their potting my plants do a whole lot better. Now I can't tell you what it is exactly. I can tell you I use 3 big bags every year.

I have a small collection of blue pots that house tender tropicals that I use for house plants. They summer outside under the apple tree.

This blue strawberry pot is the first pot of this type that I have been able to succeed in growing something. I just love the looks of strawberry pots but in the past have had nothing but failures in them. Even the tried and supposedly indestructable hens-n-chicks were a failure for me in this type pot. However I got some succulents that have to be brought in every winter and they have done just fine for the most part. The living rocks succumb to nature but the rest of them have survived.

Last year the staghorn fern summered atop the old soil in this pot.
This pot gets planted different every year. It has been in full shade but this year things will be different due to the pines coming down this winter.

I have one of those big styrofoam pots that looks like it is moulded clay.
It sits in front of the barn with bamboo in it. I got the bamboo start from my sister last year. I put a few annuals in it to make it look fuller.

I use all sorts of items for containers. I have posted about my log planter before. You investigate this further if you want to here.

I found these ferns and fern-like plants as plugs last summer. They have wintered inside ok this year.

I will have to find a nice shady corner for them this summer. I also have some big palms that will have to be tucked into a shaded spot. Gee it seems odd to be thinking shade when I would be most thrilled at this moment with a few rays of sunshine.

I do like containers that look like heads. I looked and looked for one that I liked well enough to bring home and when I was on a little jaunt a couple of spings ago I found this lovely lady. She has moved from place to place but continues to be one of my favorites.

I have quite a collection of different types of pots. The designer in me sometimes goes 'eeewww' but the collector in me says 'yipee I found another one'. Of course I think you can see that I don't have an abundance of them. I guess if I was any good at putting them together and keeping them watered/fertilized properly I would have more.

I got this big concrete basket for my birthday one year. It has gone through many metamorphosis. I had annuals in it the first spring I had it.

Then the next summer I got a collection of minature hostas that now make their living in this pot.

Oh mercy, you don't want to get me going on my window box again. I can't tell you how many combinations I have tried in this little box. I always have such visions here and rarely do they turn out. I have had to use shade plants in the past but maybe this year with more light in this area I can try something different.





The picture with the caladiums in it is one of the more successful combinations. I love the way the large leaves look like stained glass when looking at them from the inside through the kitchen window.

All I know is that this spring my mantra will be Thrillers, Fillers and Spillers as I think Steve's advice is the best I have read.

Happy container gardening everyone.

Window Boxes

On this cold rainy day I got out a book that I checked-out at the library to do some of that winter dreamin'. I guess you might say I am obsessing over my window box since not too long ago I wrote about it. I am glad I didn't purchase this book. It is interesting but there isn't one mention as to what to do with your window box during winter. This is what I have done to mine this winter. I used some varigated privet and some grasses since I can't reach the pine limbs very easily now. Last winter I had a few more greens to add. This year the pine trees have been limbed up so high I can't reach the greens. Plus I lost another pine and the blue spruce was taken down this summer. So my greens are limited. I didn't use the glass balls this winter either. ha.. I am sure the wrens appreciate that.
The book shows many boxes for full sun. Which is great if you have full sun. In my case this window box is in such dense shade that even impatients don't bloom here. Coleus gets very leggy and the leaves don't form properly. So I have found that tropical plants, things that you use inside during winter are better for this box. I was surprised to find that caladiums did so well in our box this year. I was out watering more than usual because of the drought we had this summer. I think this helped a lot. I have used various hostas in this box too. They seem to do ok here.
I was just wondering if anyone else has any ideas for window boxes in deep shade? I am trying to think of something interesting to do with this window box next summer. It is situated right in the middle of my patio. It is mounted on a kitchen window so I am looking at it often. Maybe this is why I am slightly obsessed with it.