Container Gardening.

Not vegetables.  Flowers.  A growing passion of mine for the last several years, attested to by the now over 60 pots, boxes, and planters now surrounding our house.  

There are many plants I've put on the two sides of the house and the front and back hills to rebuild our landscaping over the last nine years.  Once in the ground though, these plants get watered by our automatic sprinkler systems and groomed by our gardner.  The containers, however, are largely hand-watered, fertilized, dead-headed, and ultimately replaced each Spring - the annuals and others I lose - by me.  I keep adding more perennials and small plants each year to bring down the annual costs and labor to get things up and running again for the summer.  It's an ongoing learning process, but so rewarding to see the blooms come pouring over the edges of the planters each time something I've jammed into a container takes - and takes off.  I plant a few things in the ground in the Fall, but the containers are left to do battle or go dormant during the full eleven months following my April planting ritual.  In another month or so the annuals will start to wither.  I'll wave goodbye to several short-term friends, trim and shore up several perennials in hopes they make it through the winter, and eagerly await next Spring when several new friends will come aboard and add to the symphony of color that plays all summer long.  Can't wait to play with dirt and hand shovels again next year. . .

the papaROYzzi