Big French Urn Planting Recipe

We bought these two urns earlier this week.

I planted them exactly the same using these plants:

and one Tropicana that I removed from one of the 49 planters we brought out yesterday. Yes, I stored 49 planters over the winter. Here are three of the larger ones--I removed the Trops from the round one.

They all have either dahlias, cannas or calla lilies.  Just imagine all the money I saved by  not having to rebuy these plants!

 Here is the free Tropicana that I used to begain this combination planter.

Here's my Thriller, Filler, Spiller recipe:

1 Tropicanna - Free (would cost about $20 to buy one Tropicana from a place like Home Depot) - Thriller- you have to use your imagination as there is no thrill yet...Give it a few weeks and the big striped leaves will begin to fill the area.
1 Purple Fountain Grass - $5-filler (also a mini thriller in my humble opinion)
1 Asparagus Fern $1.88-spiller
1 feather-leaf coleus $1.88-filler
1 Purple Heart  $1.88-filler
1 Sweet Potato Vine - 'Bright Ideas Rusty Red' - $5.00-spiller - (I splurged on this because I have never seen this variety. I could have used 'Blackie' for $1.88, but I like the rusty red of this one)
1 Trebbiano Dahlia Tuber - $7.50-filler
1/2 bag of Miracle Grow Potting Soil - $5.00

This is the feathery coleus which had no name on the container:

I really like it intertwined with the asparagus fern. 

I hope it survives. I have a lot of plants in these containers. It will be survival of the fittest!

Here is a close up of one planter, which looks nothing like what I envision them to be.
See the big bare spot in the back?  That's where the "thriller" plant is.

Very soon that little shoot will look a lot like this:

The dahlia is in front of the Trop and its starbrust flowers are nearly black:

The dark dahlias should be wonderful against the bright orange Tropicana blooms. 

 This is the container (from a few years ago) that I removed the Tropicana from.  I had Purple Fountain Grass next to it that year, too. Yes, that little clump of ugliness in the new planter should blossom into these big sprays of squirrel tails swaying in the wind (that is what those soft fuzzy blooms remind me of)


Yeah, it really does take a ton of faith to be a container gardener on the cheap!

Ye of little faith--just wait until you see these in late July. I am pretty sure they are going to have at least four feet of gorgeous foliage/flowers reaching toward the sky.  At least that's my plan............

I had a few Bells of Ireland seeds left over, so I stuck some in both planters.