I honestly don't need more plants. But does that stop me from bringing plants home nearly every time I visit a garden center? Of course not! There's something about spring that compels me to bring home, if not every pretty thing I see, at least a good number of them. When I visited Roger's Gardens last week, my goal was to find plants to fill a large terracotta pot in a partial shade location. Well, as I confessed in
last Friday's post, I brought home plenty of plants but nothing appropriate for that pot. So I went to my local garden center and came home with more plants!
This time I started with a specific vision in mind, inspired by a pot shown in White Flower Farm's spring catalog.
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This is a pot in the Hummingbird Annual Collection that inspired me (photo source here) |
I didn't recreate White Flower Farm's pot but I let it guide me. Here's my version:
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I wanted foliage and flower color that would complement the plants in the adjoining bed, including the Grevillea alpina x rosmarianifolia and Agonis flexuosa 'Nana' |
The plants are all still small but I'm fairly pleased with it. The
Fuchsia I used,
'Gartenmeister Bonstedt', has orange flowers and should handle the morning sun in this location. Instead of using a lime-green sweet potato vine (
Ipomoea batatas) like the one in the inspiration pot, I selected a lime coleus and a chartreuse-flowered Euphorbia, which my experience shows will hold up better under my conditions than the potato vine. I filled in with more coleus, a mirror plant, and a shrimp plant.
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Clockwise from the upper left, the pot contains: Fuchsia triphylla 'Gartenmeister Bonstedt'; 3 coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides) cultivars, 'Campfire', 'Indian Summer', and 'Salsa Verde'; Coprosma repens 'Evening Glow'; Euphorbia 'Dean's Hybrid'; and Justicia brandegeana |
All of last week's purchases from Roger's have been planted as well.
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The Lisianthus (Eustoma grandiflorum) plugs are outshone by the foliage of Pelargonium 'Oldbury Duet' here but they should settle in quickly |
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The orange and red Freesia planted in the bed alongside the fountain have been traded out for the blue varieties I bought last week. I moved the orange and red flowered varieties to a more appropriate location. Maybe I should start buying my Freesia in bud from now on to ensure my color choices... |
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Salvia 'Love and Wishes' found a sunny spot in the back border (which required digging up and dividing a large clump of society garlic, Tulbaghia violacea) |
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Scabiosa 'Fama Blue' evicted a couple of poorly performing plants to nab another sunny spot |
The annual California poppy and Ageratum plugs were also tucked into the garden and, with everything I bought last week now planted, I'm feeling rather virtuous. Now, if I only can avoid going crazy at the Cactus & Succulent Society sale scheduled this weekend at the local botanic garden...
All material © 2012-2018 by Kris Peterson for Late to the Garden Party