My Containter Garden

My friend Kate asked me to show some photos of my patio so she could see the whole thing.  Although I'm very proud of my garden, I also believe it is probably very underwhelming to the seasoned gardeners out there.  But I tell myself everyone has to start somewhere, and this is my start.

Here's a copy with the plants named, to the best of my ability.

That blue planter on legs is actually a sand and water table.  Miller graciously gave me half of it to plant in.  And he as sand in the other half.

I'm probably guilty of over crowing things.  I just don't have the experience to know how big things will grow.  Plants usually come with some guidelines, but when I buy a six pack of plants, and they say to space a foot apart ... but my planter is only 2 feet long at the most ... well, then I just shove them all in.

Also, I should probably not plant things like radishes and green onions, which will be pulled out of the ground, next to other plants that I want to be more permanent.  Ah well, it's all part of my learning process.

My favorite right now is the shrub verbena.  They have these multi-flower heads that start with little folded up pillows that gradually pop open into a bulb of little flowers.  One of the hanging planters actually has one (with purple flowers), but right now it doesn't have any flowers on it.  The yellow planter on the ground has a shrub verbena with bright yellow flowers, and one of the brown planters has a shrub verbena with flowers that start out yellow and then mature into a bright peach color.

I forbade myself to buy any more plants, so hopefully I can now sit back and enjoy as everything grows bigger and better.

Little bit of digi news

I have two little bits of news.  Little in the larger scheme of things, but kinda big for me.  First off, I entered a layout in the California State Fair again, and I placed!  I got second place for this layout:

I'm really excited to get 2nd place.  I was hoping for 3rd, having picked a layout that I thought the judges would like (based on the winning entries from last year).  I'll get a big ribbon, and I have a couple complimentary tickets and parking pass for the fair, as well as winning a little money - enough to compensate for the entry fee and printing the layout, so that's really nice.  My layout will be on display at the fair, July 12-29.

My other news is that I've landed a guest spot on The LilyPad creative team for the month of November.  Last summer I won a guest spot there by completing their monthly challenges, and it was a really fun month.  I'm excited to have the chance to participate in their store/forum again.  This was the "layout" I submitted with my application to show off my creativity.  It looks like a lot of work, but I actually recycled photos and extracted paper spiders from other layouts.  The little "drama" that I wrote out was new, though.

Love+Grace charity collab, Whole Wide World Alpha by Rachel Young, Free Spirit Alpha by CD Muckosky;

Talk to Me Labels and Hi Hello Patterns by Miss Tiina;

That's all the news.  Now The Goddess is scheduled for an "airplane adventure" with The King. I don't think the spiders are coming along, thank goodness. So, I must depart. Bye!

Could I have a green thumb?

I've still been scrapping away, although I haven't posted here in several weeks. And I'm still working on my little patio garden.  Apparently, gardening is addictive.  I've got it really bad.  I can't go anywhere without looking at plants and wanting to buy them.  Yesterday I planted the last of the plants I've bought, and told myself, "No more!"  I can play with my seeds, but no more buying plants.

Right now I'm playing with some grass seeds.  I put cat crass/oat seeds in some hanging planters, I have some wheat grass that I'm going to use to fill in some areas of my herb planters.   And I have some blue fescue  that I read is a decent option for indoors.  I really want some more indoor plants, so I hope this grass works out.

There is so much to learn about gardening.  I have trouble even with the terms "annual" and "perennial."  It's the word annual that throws me.  Annual ... yearly ... oh, it must come back each year.  That's how I want to think.  But I think I have to go more along the lines of: Annual ... once per year ... oh, it just grows once. 

So much to learn, and I have learned a little.  One of the plants I started from seed (I think it was from a seed pack called Butterfly Flower/Swamp Milkweed) was starting to get yellow spots.  I did a little reading, and decided to try some fertilizer on it.  I did, and after a week or two the yellow spots started to go away! Boy, was I proud after that.  I have now fertilized all of my pots and planters and plan to keep doing that once per month.

Here are some pictures from my little patio garden.