What Flower Are You?
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I am a |
Snapdragon: “Mischief is your middle name, but your first is friend. You are quite the prankster that loves to make other people laugh.”
Yep.
Now it’s easy to go biodegradable in the home and garden!
Biobag makes biodegradable trash, composting, dog poop and lawn bags.
You can also dispose of your garbage guilt with biodegradable paper plates, and cups. Remember, plastic trash really is forever. Compostable cutlery isn’t!
Whole Foods carries some of these products as well. Ask your neighborhood grocer to too.
Romantic Chair Planter
July 15 update: My chair planter is doing well despite some pretty intense summer heat. The geraniums haven’t filled out yet. It’s probably time for a feeding and a haircut.
Ta da!
June 7 update (8:43 p.m.)
Ok, I found the “CocoPeat”, in the garage, in a bag from Home Depot. Guess it wasn’t hard to find after all…or, rather, it’s only hard to find after you buy it and bring it home. And if you’re me. I just finished planting the chair and will photograph it tomorrow. I’m pleased with the way it turned out. The only change I might have made, in retrospect, is to use one geranium with some white in the flower color. No biggie, though. I’m sure I’ll replant the whole thing a few more times before retiring the chair.
Plant material:
— ‘Abunda Giant White’ Bacopa
— ‘Galleria Bright Violet’ trailing geranium
— ‘Picasso’ ivy geranium
— ‘Lemon Licorice’ Helichrysum petiolare
— Celosia (unk. cultivar)
— ‘Devon Cottage Rosie Cheeks’ Dianthus (on the ground)
Chair basket:
— green chicken wire
— weed fabric (as a liner)
— potting soil
— coconut fiber or “cocopeat”
— vinyl-covered wire ties for attaching the chicken wire basket to the chair
Tools:
— wire cutters
— scissors
I’m eager to plant… just having trouble finding coir liner. I thought I had some in the garage, but where is it? Did I use it all? Where did I buy the stuff? Argh.
I may have to go buy more, but it’s a bit of a pain to find nurseries and hardware stores selling bagged loose coir. Easier to find are those pre-formed liners, but they’re kind of cumbersome to work with and look a bit stiff.
The mini carnations will probably be planted at the base of the chair, but I hope to be able to include celosia in the chair seat. Without it, the seat plants look sweet and romantic, but celosia adds that necessary hint of passion.
New green pot from Bushnell’s
This gorgeous warm green pot was on sale at Bushnell’s. The plants are from Bushnell’s and Capital (Sunrise). As is my way, I bought a little bit of this and a little bit of that and didn’t even decide what was going in the pot until I got home.
The problem was, everything I held up to the pot at the nursery looked good. That’s the blessing… and curse… of a green pot.
— Ornamental millet (Pennisetum glaucum)
— purple Angelonia
— Heuchera ‘Key Lime Pie’
— red celosia
I like the way the red celosia plays off the crimson blotch on the volunteer orange nasturtium.
First zucchini of the season
I’m thinking… sliced and sauteed in a little olive oil with salt and cracked pepper.
The variety is a bush type called ‘Gold Rush’, by the way. These zukes are in a half-barrel, which might account for their earliness. I’ve also had a major veggie garden epiphany recently– if you want bees in your vegetable garden, plant lavender! My lavender plants are like one giant beehive right now and yes, I do happen to have blooming lavender right next to my squash plants.
Tomato Palace and Veg-A-Lot Greenhouses
As an avid fan of homegrown tomatoes, I’ve been blogging a lot lately about this season’s garden, which so far is doing much better than last year’s. I think it’s because we’re finally getting some heat! Last summer brought late rains and unseasonbly cool weather. My tomato plants responded by putting out lots of foliage and hardly any fruit.
While my garden as a whole appreciated the cool temps. and extra water, some of my warm-season crops, which require sufficient heat for proper growth and development, seemed confused. Especially the tomatoes. Tomatoes won’t set fruit if they experience too many consecutive days of cold (nighttime temps are critical, apparently) or heat (above 90 degrees). Last summer gave me new empathy for cold-climate and coastal gardeners. Sure, I poke fun at coastal growers struggling to grow tomatoes, but that’s mainly sour grapes since I’m firmly established in middle age and no matter how much wishin’ and hopin’ and wishin’ and hopin’ I’ve done, I still don’t own a quaint coastal getaway home. They do. All year long.
Do you think coastal residents fantasize about buying a place in the sun? You betcha. You see we want it all, and frankly, there’s nothing wrong with that. Life is to be lived to the max.
Angela’s Stock Photography
