A little bit ago I refinished some pots for our front patio. With temperatures over 100 degrees and summer travel, the plants are really hard to keep alive. But with stuff cooling off (90′s) it was time to replant. A friend, that has gorgeous plants, introduced me to the idea that there are three essentials to every pot:
- Thriller
- Filler
- Spiller
So, here we go. For the thriller I used tall grass:
The filler is a multi-colored mum (still needs to bloom!):
And finally, the spiller, some pansies that will eventually spill over the edge:
And the front porch is rejuvenated! When you pot, remember the three essentials and it’s easy!
Happy Creating!
Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. We had planned an epic day of hiking The Subway in Zion National Park with friends. As luck would have it, some of the heaviest rain all year began to pour through the desert region and slam us with water. Here is Mike at the back country office
The Subway is both hiking and canyoneering, so when flash flooding hits you do not want to be in a canyon! There was tons of water coming down the huge sandstone walls and flooding all over. We opted instead for a beautiful high-ground back country hike on the east side:
Too bad for Mike that the entire birthday celebration was the all-day hike, even his birthday gift was this truly beautiful photograph of the Subway. Which just kind of rubbed it in, like, oh look how pretty of a hike you DIDN’T get to go on for your birthday! In the end, all was well…
Happy Birthday babe!
I spruced up my home exterior recently, but our front door although repainted looked lonely. And boring. I really wanted some artificial topiary trees but my bff hubby is adamantly against the idea. I have had pots and flowers by the front door before and in the summer when the 110+ degrees come scorching in it is a sad end to flowers and plants. It seems like the three options are no plants, dead plants, or artificial plants… really the latter is the lesser of the three evils don’t you think? I guess I have one more year to prove my theory to my husband, so I might as well do it in style.
I don’t often find anything great at our thrift store, maybe the town is too small, or we don’t donate enough, but Monday I was taking loads of stuff after cleaning out the garage and there were these two beauties in the yard:
Metal. Matching. What’s not to love? I claimed them on the spot. $5 later my bff was wondering why I donated a few boxes, yet brought more stuff home. I assured him they would be awesome when I was done. The hardest part of the project was deciding what spray paint to use. Until I realized our walls are two-toned, why should they have all the fun? I decided to paint blue on top and my favorite oil rubbed bronze on the bottom (I have used the bronze in many projects like this and this)
I cleaned, treated the rust, and spray painted blue, taped off the top and then covered with bronze. This is the first time I have used Valspar spray paint and I was not impressed. It was hard to push and didn’t seem to go on evenly. I can say though that the color was great and really true to the paint lid even after on the planters.
My favorite cheater trick from this project is stretching the good soil when planting… I usually don’t want to use really good soil to fill a pot when the roots just don’t go very deep (and it costs money, yuck.) I usually use any dirt I can find to use at the bottom and even fill the bottom with used plastic bottles, milk cartons, whatever, to take up space:
The front porch looks so much happier:
in part due to my awesome ever-present helper:
Happy Creating!
It’s amazing how much pride I feel when I see something that I planted start to grow. I’m not sure quite what the tribal feeling is, but it’s almost as if I can’t believe a seed + red dirt + water = plant, and I love it.
We originally rented the farm land to have some yummy food and my husband wanted to teach our kids how to work. Like real old fashioned kind of work. Turns out emptying the dishwasher a few times a week isn’t quite cutting it. And guess what? They really are learning how to work.
So, the growing continues, I’m sure soon we’ll be weeding and picking bugs off the plants, but for now I’m basking in the glory of small, growing plants.
Happy Creating!