• Mandevilla
• Lemon Coral sedum
• Superbena Dark Blue
• Cuphea Vermillionaire
• Dichondra Silver Falls
• Infinity White impatiens
• Plectranthus Silver Shield
These pots are new this year. You may recall the pots were cheap finds at the Restoration Outlet that I stained over the winter. I’m really happy to report that the stain is holding up great and I’m loving having these. For a long time I’ve felt that we were missing something near the entrance of the house.
I wanted to keep these simple. Between the circle garden, the annual planting along the house, the window box and everything else going on over there, it’s a riot of color and I thought something a little simpler might be nice.
The centerpiece is a white rose that I planted bare root several weeks ago. It won’t get big this year, but I hope we get to see a few blooms at least. In the meantime, the “skirt” of gray and blue around it will be the star this year.
• ‘Windermere’ rose
• Licorice plant
• Lobelia Laguna Compact Blue with Eye
I must be on a gray kick this year because there is a lot of gray foliage showing up in my containers. I loved the ‘Elegant Feather’ I used in a few containers last year, but I also love cardoons. They get huge (even though they are tiny when planted), so they’ll fill up most of this container, but I added in a few Superbells to make a “skirt” and I threw in some Verbena bonareinsis seedlings as well. They are tiny and I don’t know how they’ll fair but there’s no harm in trying. If they grow, they’ll get tall and provide some much-needed height there.
• Superbells Blue Moon Punch
The container by the front door (which we made, by the way) got a similar treatment. It’s always a big of a leap of faith putting such a small plant as the cardoon in as the centerpiece, but I’ve had great luck with them before. In fact I worry it may cover the Gaura, but I’ll just play it by ear if that happens.
• Cardoon
• Dichondra Silver Falls
• Supertunia Bordeaux
• Gaura Karalee Petite Pink
• Ipomoea Sweet Caroline Bewitched After Dark
• Verbena seedlings
Here’s how they all came together.