|

|

Tootin’ My Own Horn

I love pretty flowers.  Over the years I’ve tried my hand at various pots and planters, but I’ve never really loved the results.  I’m so particular that I can never create one to suit myself.  Every once in a great while, I’ll splurge and buy the ready-made ones at the nursery, but that’s SO pricey.

In recent years I’ve gotten quite lazy.  I don’t even think I did ANY pots last year.  I know we didn’t plant annuals in the flower beds.  I remember thinking that I didn’t want to bother watering them, so we just skipped it.  Can you say L-A-Z-Y?

This year I am determined that my yard will not be the poor neglected step-child of the neighborhood.  I’ve arranged for someone to come and help us in the flower beds, and I hung some petunias over our front porch.  I definitely want some potted arrangements by my front door, but I dread the effort of making them.  I’ve eyed the gorgeous flower arrangements at the local nursery, but the price tags are daunting.  I was THIS CLOSE to buying one last week, and then in a rare moment of fiscal responsibility, I thought better of it and drove home empty-handed.

Yesterday I decided that I need to make use of one of the many sets of pots stored in my garage and make my own arrangements, for better or for worse.  I drove to the farm market and walked around until I saw the prepared potted flower arrangement that I would have purchased if I weren’t feeling so industrious, and I made a mental note of the arrangement and color combination.  Then I went around and found each of the individual plants.  I even made a few substitutions.  I KNOW.  I’m living life on the edge.  Next thing you know, I’ll be jumping out of airplanes.

I came home, and these are what I made!  I am SO proud of myself.  I know they’ll look a lot better in a week when all the plants are in full bloom, but I couldn’t resist taking a couple of pictures to post this morning.

dsc_00021

dsc_0003

I can’t gaze at them for too long, or I start to note all of the flaws in my workmanship.  I could drive myself crazy with the I wish I’d moved that yellow one closer to the edge, and the I should have spaced those white ones out more, and on it goes.  But they’re done, and they cost less than half what the ones I copied would have cost me had I bought them ready-made, AND I love the combination of flowers and colors.

I’m so pleased with them, in fact, that I have a good mind to go buy more flowers today and put together a couple of pots for the back deck.  I think I have enough potting soil left over.

Join The Conversation

30 Responses

  1. Beautiful! I can’t wait to see it in a few weeks! Our front porch is being built this summer, so I can’t wait to FINALLY get out landscaping done!

  2. Those are perfect just as they are. Good job! I finally planted one blueberry plant (on a hillside) and one tomato plant (in a pot) this week. And that’s the extent of my gardening so far. Next week: planting lettuce and beans…maybe a few flowers?

  3. That is gorgeous! Our patio is truly sad. I need some inspiration. I stopped yesterday at a road side fruit/veggie stand to look at their flowers but they looked beat up from all the darn frikitty frakkin’ rain we’ve gotten here.

    Gorgeous! (hiding head in shame over our white trash looking patio) 😉

  4. Gorgeous!! I had to laugh while reading your post. I feel like I’m being lazy this year – I’ve only done some pots this year. Usually I plant many annuals throughout the yard. I’m hoping to get some motivation this weekend!

  5. Good job!

    Take it from an anal-retentive OCD architect. Gardening MAKES you get over perfectionism – FAST. You can do everything right and the plant decides to grow the way it wants to! The nerve!

  6. Love them. Now, do you think you could head over to KS and make my front porch pretty?

    Every time we go to the store, my four year old asks me to buy flowers. I keep saying “oh, we’ll plant them next week.” It seems that next week is never going to happen!

  7. Beautiful! I’m just trying to keep the flowers alive in our current yard since we’re moving in 5 weeks. I’m not planting anything new in containers since they won’t take them on the moving truck. Can’t wait to get settled in SC and start some projects like that in our new house. I think flowers will really make it seem more like a home. Congrats on saving money!

  8. My yard is SO the poor, neglected child of the neighbourhood. But we are building a new deck and I have a new book on container gardening, so if that along with this post doesn’t inspire me, I don’t think anything will. Lovely job, Jo-Lynne

  9. So! Cute! I haven’t gotten around to doing mine yet…mainly because it is raining here, and has been raining most of the time for the last month. I might get some flowers in before the end of the month.

  10. Nice work. I love the colius… one of my favorites (although I don’t think I spelled it right). I struggle with this task, but I keep trying. They always look better after a couple of weeks of growth. Enjoy your beauties!

  11. Very pretty! At this point, I would be happy just to get the weeds out of my flower bed, LOL! I do have a few volunteers sprouting up from last year’s flowers, and that’s probably gonna be it for this year.

  12. Very nice. What a great idea to find one you like already made and then just go buy the individual plants. And I’m like you, I can’t look at mine too long or I start seeing “mistakes”. But once it starts filling out those “mistakes” won’t even be noticed. Way to go!

  13. I swear we live parallel lives somehow! I JUST made the same vow and have spent a week making it all happen. I’ve just spent a lot of time with family members who really take the time to cultivate flowers in patio pots and they say it is worth the effort.

    So, after the motivational speech I totally dug up our front area (didn’t do ANYTHING to it last summer, just like you) and planted a ton of moss rose and zinnias that I had purchased on sale at Lowes. Then I turned to the pots. I’ll send you pics when mine get bigger.

    It’s fun to have the challenge of taking care of plants. Surely if we can raise humans we can raise plants, right?

  14. Gorgeous! I am so craving some color in our yard. I just have no idea what grows well here and so on. Guess I could talk to someone for advice. Way to be industrious and responsible.

  15. I hate to be the pooper of the party, but I would NEVER take the advice of whatever nursery you went to, EVER again.
    The pots look GORGEOUS now, as you arranged them, there are no issues.
    The issue is the plants and the sheer amount of them you have in the pots. Over time, they’ll all grow and fight to be the “center of attention”.
    Geraniums can get pretty big. Petunias have a tendency to take over whatever pot they’re in, and coleus has the same tendency. If you would have just put a geranium, the petunia and the other creeping flower you have in there (I can’t tell from the picture) the pots would have been fine AND wouldn’t be in danger of over-crowding and some of the plants dying. Ooh, and a spike in the center, that always looks pretty.
    Anyway, the moral of the story is that I would keep an eye on these pots over the next month or so…it may not look like it now, but they’ll all start getting bigger and eventually will be fighting for space in your pots.

  16. I think they are wonderful. I don’t have any pots yet, but working on it. I loved making my own before, so I can’t wait to do it again.

  17. They look great! It will is quite easy once you get the hang of it. I planted mine this weekend as well and always fuss about how close together the flowers are together too. But then I remember that in a couple of weeks they’ll be overflowing and it won’t matter that there’s an extra half inch on one side. 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Search
Close this search box.