DH Does it Again

The deck floor always looks amazing right after he stains it.

He helped me fill the new whiskey barrels with potting mix and then I planted them all in purple.

The white shoot in the back is 'Tropicana'. There are at least five 'Trops' in this one container, so it won't be long before their huge purple/red striped leaves give it the thriller plant it needs.  In late July the huge orange 'Tropicana' flowers will bloom. I planted both of these barrels with the same plants. They can be seen from the sliding glass doors in the family room, so I wanted something that looked good with my new green furniture. :) Yes, I do try to coordinate for my inside/outside summer living.

That is all the planting I did today. For my old age deck gardening, I plan to have just six of these big barrels - 2 flanking each entrance (there is another side to the deck that you cannot see in this pic).

Since I am not yet in my "old age" years, I still have a ton of other planters that we just brought out. See that long one? It must have at least 3 dozen yellow calla lilies in it. The wood is rotting, so I will be removing all of them and integrating them into other containers.

I will be working on these planter combos for the next couple of weeks.  I think the most fun with container gardening is planning the containers and the plant combinations.

I have some new ideas for this year.   After spending slightly over $100 each for my big urns last year, I decided there must be a less expensive way to get my new container fix.  Once again I "shopped" my basement and found three wooden crates that my father-in-law made years ago.  I decided to splash a little paint on them in the same colors as  my other deck furniture.  Cute?  I think so and they cost me nothing but a little time as I already had both of the paint colors.

I plan to fill all three with a pink and red dahlia combo.

As my 80-yr old work friend always says, "What's life without a little fun?"  I hope all of you are having a fun Sunday!