Friday, August 4, 2006

On the Move ... Again.....

Remember a few weeks ago I posted a pic of the long container filled with yellow callas and said that I usually have it as part of a larger arrangement? Well, right after I finished scrubbing the floors, I went out to the deck to play. I moved things around and now I have an arrangement more to my liking. (I just don't care much for one container in a straight line.)

The callas are almost finished just as the butterfly bush has come into bloom. I centered the callas with this huge bush in hopes they would bloom together and am happy that they are, even if it is only a short time. I anticipate the Buddelia (butterfly bush) will overhang the deck a bit more in the days to come. If all goes as planned the big flower spikes will tumble right down over the railing to replace the spent callas.


I had to play around with a few different containers to get a grouping I liked.


Hopefully, you would never know it's made up of little "yawns" like these!
By the way, when I call these "yawns", it is not a terribly negative term. I plant yawns on purpose because they are a necessity if you plan to arrange and re-arrange as I like to do.


Since I used many of the plants from the arrangement I changed last week, I had to bring in other plants for that space. Now it is almost all red and purple.
As soon as that canna blooms, I think there will be a burst of orange. I hope it's the spotted orange canna, but I can't remember at the moment. I was very excited today when I spotted a bud almost ready!

I know some of you are interested in calla lilies and are thinking of growing them. I took this picture to show you how they look as they begin to wither and die.

The flower gets heavy with the seeds developing inside and they turn green and just flop on over. I don't care about gathering the seeds, so this is the point that I cut them down. They do not rebloom.

If you take a little time to plan your container (or grouping as I do) you can enjoy the spotted foliage for weeks to come. I underplanted with a few impatiens and last year's purple petunias decided to make a welcome come back. By placing the long container where I did, it becomes the underplanting for the Buddelia. You see there is method to my madness!

7 comments:

  1. Zoey you yawns look very pretty and I love the red and purple together. Is there a secret to growing callas? I have never had any luck with them. I took your advice last year and put them in our crawl space (I had never thought of that) they took off when I brought them out in the spring but not one bloom :(
    Pat

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  2. Pat,
    do you have them planted very deeply? Mine are only a couple of inches under the soil.
    The bulbs also need to be about two years old before they bloom.
    I bet if you put them in the crawl space this year, they will bloom next year!

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  3. I bet that is whats wrong. They were blooming when I bought them and when I repotted them I know that I planted them deeper than 2" Oh well I'll try again next year. Thanks,
    Pat

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  4. One more thing I forgot to tell you, Pat. They like a LOT of water. In their natural habitat they grow in shallow bogs, so it's almost impossible to overwater them. Mine get watered every day at least once.

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  5. You're an absolute whizz with potted plants, Zoey. I could definitely get some lessons from you there. My pots struggle and suffer from neglect which is such a shame as I have a wonderful deck on which to display them.

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  6. Thank you, Alice.
    Yes, you should get out there and enjoy your beautiful deck!
    I know you have hundreds of potted plants! What fun you would have arranging all of them!

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  7. Wow! Such a lovely deck & beautiful potted plants & flowers! Such a beautiful sight to look at this morning! Thank you.

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