French Urn Container Planting begins to Make Me Happy

This container is full of nasturtiums that I grew from seed and planted not knowing what the color would be.  It turned out that the golden yellow is just the right color (there could still be other colors as I just randomly stuck seeds in)

 Purple Shield,  and Purple Heart (unknowlingly overwintered from last  year), are three of the plants taking top honors right now in the urns flanking my garage.

 I had hoped there would be at least three yellow calla lilies, but so far only two and one is about finished.

I love how the Purple Heart grew down the front like that with the Creeping Jenny behind.   I wish the Purple Shield behind it was at least a foot taller.  Maybe it will take off soon.  I am not sure what dahlia I planted in this urn. I will know soon as buds are forming.  It's fun watching these urns change almost weekly as new flowers bloom.

I still can't believe it looked like this in mid-May:

In case you are wondering, I moved that grass over to the side. You can see a bit of it in the first picture.  It is still quite small, but I am expecting it to grow a lot bigger. I remember thinking that the tiny little piece of Creeping Jenny was probably not enough. I can't believe how it filled out so quickly.

Friday morning I was admiring how the sun highlighted these striped canna leaves and calla lilies on the deck:

Also on the deck, my second whiskey barrel of coneflowers has begun to bloom. This is the more common purple echinacea and is on the opposite side of the stairs from 'Hot Papaya'.

I am so happy that my containers are going crazy just as my main gardens are finishing with  the majority of blooms for this year.  Except for watering there is not much work to do on the container plantings. I can spend the next two months just enjoying them.

I have a lot of dahlias just beginning to bloom, too. I will show you those later this week.

Right now I have to get some work done while dinner makes itself in the Nesco.  Now that's a colorful meal!

I have had this NESCO for years, but rarely used it.  With this year's heat wave, I have started to use it so I don't have to heat up the kitchen.  It is a 4-quart -- perfect size for two people.