Posts tagged outdoor urns

Two Gardens, Two Countrys, One Gardener

August 29, 2012 · Filed under Barbados, Canada, container planting, design, Travel, tropicals · Tagged , , ,

Not that I really have two gardens, although I do have a terrace, and a balcony, and lots of pots, that counts as a garden, doesn’t it? And I am certainly in two countries, and do not have any help in the garden, (except the lawn cutting, and I only do that as I know the bylaw officer would be around if I didn’t).

Sometimes I feel stretched very thin, it would be a lot easier if my large garden was where I was most of the year, and my smaller pot garden put up with me for the other 12 weeks, but it is not to be.

Instead I come home to this,

Yikes, hard to see all my freshly applied gravel

twice a year, and spend 4-6 weeks on my hands and knees weeding. It certainly looks great when I go back to this,

where I lounge around by the pool, tee hee, and then come back to this,

again.

Now, I have even more pots as I have added a lot of herbs.

I am tired just thinking about it.

How about you? Any other two garden gardeners out there? Any gardening in two different countries like me?

Advertisement

Comments (15) »

Potscaping at Keppel Croft

December 16, 2011 · Filed under garden visits · Tagged ,

I have always had a love affair with pots, (not that kind of pot, people, please), but I started out small. Waaay too small! Trust me, when it comes to pots, bigger is better.

At my first house, I used to have a few pots on my front steps, and they were tiny, probably a mix of 4″ and 6″, they dried out in a heartbeat. And there were never enough plants in them.

Then I started working at East of Eliza. We specialized in pot planting, used to change a lot of customers seasonally. And my pots at home got larger and larger, and fuller and fuller.

I was very sad when I could not have any pots at Kilbourne Grove, with no one around to water them on a regular basis, they would be toast. But one day…

When I visited Keppel Croft,I found a kindred spirit, someone else who loves pots as much as I do. And I got sooo many ideas….

Love the row of agaves.

Love this last one, I could buy a new (and expensive) hosta, leave it in a pot like this all summer to bulk up, then divide it and plant it in the ground. Oooh, I can’t wait.

If you missed reading my first post about Keppel Croft, you can read about it here. Missed the art installation post, read it here.

Comments (13) »

Hunte’s Gardens, Part deux

July 12, 2011 · Filed under Barbados, garden visits · Tagged , , ,

Now the really yummy (for me) part.

I am sure that anyone who reads my blog knows that while I love plants, I am a huge, huge fan of decorative objects in the garden. If money was no object, I would have a few of these…

urns,

statues,

I have a spot all picked out at Kilbourne Grove for this,

Anthony Hunte also has a lovely nursery as well, if I only had a garden,  I am sure that I would have spent quite a few dollars,

I would love to be able to bring back a couple of these as a souvenir of my time in Barbados, hopefully they don’t weigh too much, ha ha.

If you missed part 1, you can read it here.

Comments (28) »

High Praise for Summer Urns

September 20, 2010 · Filed under garden visits · Tagged ,

One of my favourite jobs at the very first flower shop I worked at was planting customers urns.  It was a joy to go into the garden centre, wandering around and round, getting inspiration for their new scheme. But once it was planted up, I usually never saw it again, at least never in its glory. Sometimes after a frost, the customer would call us and have us plant them up for autumn, but those times were few and far between.

But last week, I got to see the summer urns at the Toronto Botanical Gardens at the peak of their summer beauty. We have not had any cold weather yet, so they are still full and fresh, and I mean very full…

These were my favourite, they were on either side of the front door.

Love the pink and red combination.

I have a Tigers Eye sumac, and they are supposed to sucker (although mine has not so far), when it does, I will do this,

or maybe this,

Another great pair of urns, either side of the doors to the Courtyard,

These two are beside the greenhouses.

I liked this one better last year,

And for all you urban gardeners,

Veggies can be very ornamental.

I am glad that I visited the TBG when I did, summer is over, and there are some cold nights to come, perhaps next time I visit, the urns will be in their Autumn wardrobe. If you are interested in seeing the 2009 urns, you can here.

Comments (36) »

Toronto Botanical Gardens-Fall Containers

November 3, 2009 · Filed under garden visits · Tagged

TBG 069 OK, you are probably sick of the Toronto Botanical Gardens by now.  But look at this urn, it is all pumpkined up. How can you not want to see these.

This will be the last post on it for quite a while. The snow is coming and everything will be covered. So enjoy this while you can.

TBG 067

Love this, the cabbage with the stick of corkscrew hazel in it. Very graphic, linear line.

TBG 068

If you have an ivy topiary in your urns, just change the planting at the base for fall. The ivy can take quite a bit of cold.

TBG 070

And the same with your boxwoods.

TBG 081

Or you can pull out the more tender, frost sensitive plants, just leaving your cordyline. It looks lovely surrounded by grass.

TBG 083

Look, behind the planter, aren’t they cute?

TBG 084

A bit more traditional. You can add berries to the urn, just stick in a branch of crabapple, rosehips or bittersweet.

TBG 093

Love the echo of the white birch in the background.

TBG 096

You can use shrubs in your urns, like this hydrangea. If it is a cold area, like this part of Canada, you would want to plant the shrubs in the ground for winter.

TBG 097

Another shrub used in a planter.

Comments (26) »

« Previous entries
Next Page »