Week 25, Year 3: A Prickly Disposition

I've never been a rose girl. Too prickly, too high maintenance and too short of a blooming season. But, my mom loves them. And, when I planted her garden, she begged for beautiful climbing roses like we had when I was a kid at our old house. The only problem with that is I've never grown them and I had no idea if it would work in a pot. So, we struck a deal. She would get basic roses in a container and I would use this summer to experiment on growing a climbing rose in a container.

My Mom's White Roses

This year's lucky winner is called a "Jacob's Ladder" climbing rose. I planted in a large plastic container by itself and gave it a little bit of support with a metal frame. Planting it was indeed prickly, but we managed to fit in the frame and pot without bruising its fragile stems too badly. It's the only plant I actually wear my gardening gloves to prune. I didn't use any special fertilizer nor did I look up any amazing tips on how to garden climbing roses in a container. So, I pretty much just got lucky when the first blooms appeared.

 

  

 

 

And even luckier, when the tiny buds opened up into these stunners ....

Unfortunately, the blooms only lasted a couple of weeks. We had plenty of new growth, but no buds. I thought perhaps it was just a short bloomer, but my mom's rose still had buds and I've seen plenty of roses blooming around town. So, now, I may be forced to do my research. However, this morning I was excited to spot this little guy. I also bought some special rose fertilizer and will have to give it a shot to see if it speeds things along. Only time will tell if this experiment was a success (and I have no idea how we are going to winterize this baby), but so far it's been a lot less painless than I feared and I have to say roses were not nearly as scary I as I thought.

The Flora and Fauna of Greece

A brief segue from the usual gardening entries (and also an explanation for the lack of posts), this post offers a glimpse of the beautiful flowers and vegetation of Greece.  We spent the last two weeks of May traveling between Santorini, Crete and Athens. We were amazed by the beauty and variety of plants -- from tropical palm trees to expansive bougainvillea to thriving household geraniums to succulent hybrids -- Greece had it all. Rather than try to name each species, I've posted photos of my favorites at each location.  We'll be back to regular posts this week, but enjoy the beautiful flora and fauna of Greece in the meantime!

Santorini - once devastated by a volcano, the island's vegetation certainly thrived from the resulting terra.

 
                   

Crete - The land of King Minos. Characterized by rolling dry hills with vegetation exploding with color. 

Athens - birth place of ancient civilization and a true mix of the Grecian vegetation has to offer.

A true mix of evergreens, palms and every other kind of tree you can imagine

Week 21, Year 3: Container Party

This week I had the pleasure of attending a container party. A fabulous concept discovered and put together by two wonderful gardening co-workers. The idea is that each person is assigned a thriller (i.e., flower), trailer or filler and brings enough of that one item for each party go-er. It can be helpful to specify color themes - e.g., purple or pink thrillers, etc.  At the party, everyone brings a container and plants each item.  In our case, we had eight lovely ladies and seven great ingredients:

 

Everyone brought gloves and their own pots 3/4 filled with dirt.

 With ingredients in hand, we got down to planting. 

The result? Seven beautiful conatiners all using the same seven ingredients. Despite the identical ingredients, each container turned out differently, proving that every garden and gardener is unique.

 

 
 

 p.s., homemade mojitos (with fresh mint from our host's garden) make a great addition to any container party!

Week 20, Year 3: Combinations and Color

 The 2012 garden is all about color and combination. In my first years, I focused on learning how to grow and mostly stuck to mono-pots with just one or two flowers sharing a home. My favorite color is purple and my garden also reflected that preference. This year, things are different and I'm ready to take the next step -- design.  As containers have grown in popularity, container design has also become a trendy topic.  Typically, combination containers are all about varying height, color and length to draw the eye to something spectacular, and of course, finding the perfect pot to set it all off.  The challenge is having a good eye and of course planting things that play well together in the same pot and have the same general preferences (e.g., sun, shade, lots of water, little water, etc.). 

A semi "succulent" combo at my Mom's

This year, I experimented with seven combo-pots for my garden and a bunch more for my Mom's. For my garden, I replaced some of my crummier large plastic pots with fun new plastic pots that both shape and style.

 In each pot, I tried to pick one focal point and then plant complementary pieces around that point, using various items from the Mother's Day weekend gardening spree. Height is important and I tried to either put the taller items in the back or middle (depending on the focal point) to make sure the shorter plants had room to shine.  Color is also key and I tried to use complementary colors in both flowers in foilage.

Some fiery combo's at Mom's --

My biggest concern is whether these comboinations will be good together. Truth be told, I probably focused too much on design and not enough on basic plant demographics. So, I'm fairly sure I have shades with full suns, pieces that are short now but could grow to overshadow the rest, and succulents and water lovers. So far, I'm happy with the first draft, but the fun will be in figuring it all out and learning along the way.