Container recipes using hot new annuals, succulents, and veggies in unexpected combos plus garden and patio design ideas using container plantings.
March is slowly coming to an end but for gardeners in many parts of Canada actual gardening is still a good month or two away. So who among us, itching to get our hands on plants and dirt, have turned in desperation to our houseplants? There they sit, oblivious, while you come to the conclusion…
I didn’t know “up close landscaping” was a thing until I discovered a page about a ruffled Pansy on the Proven Winners website. The plant was described on the site as “a frilly flower that looks great in containers and ‘close-up’ landscapes.” (More on those pansies below.) What is all this about Close Up Landscaping?…
When I started writing this post I had every intention of waxing poetic about the virtues of Snake plants. I realize that, as houseplants go, they’re about as run-of-the-mill as you can get and yet I found myself looking at them in a new light. My guy and I had offered to temporarily take care…
You know when you’ve chosen a combination of plants (promising an explosion of fiery reds) and picked out the absolutely most perfect container (glossy blue) to showcase your selection and then you stick all the plants in the pot and they start to grow and fill out and the whole thing turns into something completely…
Maybe it’s our depressingly dark, wet, cool June here in southwestern Ontario that’s inspired me to look at dead things with renewed interest. While the plants I’ve recently installed in the ground and in containers are already looking exhausted from repeated deluges, perpetually damp stumps and fallen logs are springing to life as generous hosts…
I love to combine annuals with the goal of creating ultimate sensual overload. Proof: check out my eyeball-searing circus of a container planting, with super bright flowers that appear to swing through the air on upside down trapezes. But I realize one can’t continually decorate one’s patio or pathway with planters that can also be used…
It’s a given that daisies are the happiest of plants so when you fill out a container planting of them with equally cheerful flowers like petunias and calibrachoa in bright shades of pink, yellow, and red, it’s so easy for the whole thing to take a sharp turn into crazy clown town. So how do you…
I never thought I’d have a canna in my garden. I thought they were hard to grow, that you needed a special container for them, that planting them in said container was complicated and that you had to put them in a special protected area or they’d die almost immediately. But then last year (2016),…
There are two reasons why I love this cool hanging frame planter and neither has anything to do with the facts that you can make it look traditional or modern or anything in between (ie make it totally your own look) and that when it’s finished, it can look like a 3D painting. First, it’s…
Like the perfect T-shirt you reach for every May, you probably have your favourite tried-and-true plants you return to when it comes time to fill those patio containers. But, like that awesome pair of sunglasses you A) didn’t realize you had to have before you saw them and B) are wildly, mezmerizingly fabulous, here are…
Color, texture, form, movement as well as interaction with light, deer, rabbits and overall health – all are assessed when trialing plants Between testing plants for growers and having the opportunity to grow new introductions in my landscape or containers for photo shoots I consider myself incredibly fortunate. The sense of anticipation never gets old;… via…
Here in southwestern Ontario, the Victoria Day long weekend, which falls on or around May 24th, is anticipated with guarded respect by gardeners. Not because this 3-day weekend also goes by the name May Two-Fer, referring to cases of beer, not the date. No, it’s because this weekend represents all that is soul-crushingly cruel about…
When Proven Winners sent me some Superbells® Holy Moly!™ Calibrachoa hybrids to trial last spring (2015), my first thought upon opening the crate filled with potted plants was “Wow! These are well named.” With bright yellow petals covered in splashes of neon pink, the flowers practically glowed. In a container planting, these plants need to…
Who’s heart doesn’t do a little flip at the thought of moonlight and marshmallows? I know. The possibilities seem wondrous. But can you take such a potent commingling and apply it to that ho-hum shady spot in your garden? Well, not to put too fine a point on it, this romantic container recipe starts with a…
If the saying is true that you eat with your eyes, then vegetable gardening is a foodie’s dream come true. You can walk out your door and a minute later pull up beets with eye-popping white and purple bull’s eye insides and radishes as black as night. But what I also find immensely satisfying about…
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Exploring the Depths of Curiosity
A blog about nature, home, community, books, writing, the environment, food, and rural life.
Ministry of the fence 