~ Summer Garden Colors

The warm temperatures came early this year, and came with the promise of much needed rain. The rain never came even with a prediction of 100% chance. And then temps made Florida cooler than Denver, but just for a couple of short days. You just have to roll with the schedule that Mother Nature gives you sometimes, and hope that your plants can hang on as well. 

The window boxes got planted along with a few of the large pots. I don't think I've changed colors much in several years. Whatever colors feed your soul just keep calling you back again.  The sweet potato vines in both the margaurite lime green, and the blackie deep purple, are so easy to grow and their colors and vine habits are so perfect for a window box as well as a ground cover.  They are also fool proof for propagation. Just stick any clippings you have in water and they will grown roots easily and be ready for the garden in no time.

The lighter purple to lavender flowering plant in the front is also a vine and is called scaevola. The back area has angelonia, which will get a bit taller, along with the white pentas.  All of these will take lots of sun as long as they are kept watered. This box should last through the rest of summer.

Mostly we have been reworking the front planting beds. Grass suffers drastically down here high temperatures and lack of rain. When we first sodded out there, it rained for 5 or 6 days with no break. Of course that caused a lot of it to die from fungus due to too much water. And that is the cycle we often have to grow with, too much heat - not enough water, then too much water. It can be tough to find plants that will do well with heat, drought and too much water! But we still try to coax the little lovelies to do their best and be a part of our garden.

See Y'All Soon~
Donna

~ Decorating for Spring - Indoors

Wondering how to bring a little Spring inside, but without buying anything new? There are so many ways! The entry table is dressed with a few old favorites, this lovely white painted urn with a large reindeer moss ball, a beautiful antique vellum book from the 1600's, and a mercury glass crown. The urn is a perfect contrast to the black marble top. I'm not sure that these 3 items have ever been used together before. New fresh spring look, nothing new purchased! Perfect.

I was spying the antique blue bottles that I used last year holding a single flower or two on the mantel. But at the moment we are spending days outside redoing planting beds. Trying to get more done before the temps hit the 90's. We made great progress but there is much more to do yet. The kitchen courtyard needed very little work. It is such a wonder micro-environment. It was time to add some seasonal flowers, but all the shrubs are now established and look wonderful.

See Y'All Soon~

~ Decorating for Easter

The bunnies are running wild in the house this year. Even this little old garden bunny is inside. I think he has been somewhere on the porch for couple of years, although he was an outside bunny once upon a time. He is sitting beside a reindeer moss ball in a slightly tarnished bowl. Together they are perched atop a beautiful antique Italian vellum book from 3 Fine Grains.

Thanks for the nice comments on the last post, but I deleted the whole thing due to an overactive spamming party over the weekend. Thank goodness blogger has that spam filter now. I've included the same picture below that was in that post. An open shelf cupboard with drawers in the kitchen. It won't be there forever since open shelves are too much work to keep clean for me.

This week I'll add a few more pictures of Easter decorating around the house.

See Y'All Soon~
Donna