Summers garden review

Yes I know, I should be thinking fall. but not just yet. I guess it must be something about growing up and being from the Pacific Northwest. While many of you breathe a sigh of relief when the cool fall weather arrives, I don't.  to me, it must be that here in Oregon, fall signals the start of a long gray rainy winter where the days are shorter and no hope of really seeing any sunshine until late March (if we get lucky). Spring can be slow to arrive and the joke is that summer never really arrives until July 4th. We also do not experience high humidity so hot summer days are tolerable. I am a summer girl, and nobody can force fall on me!

So I savor September as another month of glorious summer. You won't see anything related to fall on my porch until late October when I finally give in and accept the change of seasons. But I do use the month of September as a time to reflect and note what worked and didn't work in my garden.

My front porch hanging baskets were my prizes this year. Early spring I purchased large peat pots  with a special loop metal hanger for each one rather than the wire or chain hangers. This gave the plants plenty of growth room since my goal was to have baskets that lasted all season without being root bound half way thru the season.

I purchased 6 inch pots of already mixed combos of annuals. That way I didn't even have to think about the perfect composition of flowers to each basket.

This chair planter sits on full shade, impatiens planted in an old hard hat worked well this year.

Back in the cottage garden, it was glorious until the hollyhocks, mallow and queen annes lace came out. Note to self: more color in the middle that blooms longer, And no more of that mulit color Alyssum, It got ugly early. I scrambled to fill in some holes with a few of my flea garden finds bringing in a little color

The chair back was in the re-purpose pile for next year, but it found a temporary home for the rest of the season.

 My granddaughters placed their little watering cans on this chair, keeping them handy for when they help in nana;s garden.

This little garden vignette is not new, but I do like to share it. It is simply a watering can hung off a shepards hook over a little bird bath. When you have visitors, put a few big chunks of ice in the can and water will drip as it melts out into the bird bath. Quite a conversation piece as folks try to figure out where the water is coming from!