Last Recap of the Creative Container Plantings for 2011

The cordalyine/Sedona/Kale container when planted around the 1st of June:

and now:

The Sedona coleus really took over, smothering out the blue salvia and the orange Gazania.  The Purple Heart survived, though I wish it had grown a bit larger. I would love to see it sticking out from the coleus.

Nonetheless, I really like this container.  I have kept the Sedona coleus flowers cut off all summer, but now that the end is near, I am letting them bloom.

Here is one of the garage urns when I planted them (that arrow is showing the where the Tropicanna is).  Do you remember that I said many of you would be surprised to see these urns in August?

 You have to admit, they look a lot different--from the front, you can barely see the urn today.

I want to see a bit more of the urn, so I went out and cut off some of the gorgeous Ipomea 'Rusty Red'.  I highly recommend this ipomea.  The outer leaves are rusty red while the under leaves are bright purple.  Cool!

The big striped leaves are what became of that little sprout in the first picture.

I nestled a pot of dahlias in the container where the black dahlia didn't grow.

I like the dahlia color with the Tropicanna leaves.  I am about 80% happy with these urns.  I wish the Trebbiano dahlia had not died out, but I think it's a bit too tall for these urns.  Next year I will probably plant something shorter.

Here is the big cobalt blue container that I was so gaga over when I planted it.

Unfortunately the big Tropicanna 'Gold' in the back (which you can't see in the pic above) did not get very big. So that was a huge disappointment. The entire color scheme was based on those striped leaves.

Luckily I happen to have a big pot of Tropicanna 'Gold' to show you what I had planned.

Aren't the leaves beautiful?  You can see that this container is about to flower. As with all the Tropicannas, the flowers are an orange shade.  Anyway......

If I put this container behind the cobalt blue container, you get a good idea of what I wanted this planting to look like.

I also expected more out of the yellow daises--taller and wider. There is some blue salvia in there, but it did not do well either.

What I did NOT expect was that the gorgeous yellow/green filler plant I chose ( Duranta erecta Golden Dewdrop 'Gold Edge'  ) would end up producing these 2-inch needle spikes!  I kid you not -- these things are sharper than my quilting needles! Ouch!!! As lovely as the foliage is,  I won't be using  Duranta erecta Golden Dewdrop 'Gold Edge'   again.

All in all, I am not all that gaga over this container.

Remember this sorry sight of the deck rail container with yellowed nasturtiums last week after it had no water for 4 days? 

 I cut the yellow off and in just a bit over a week's time it looks fairly decent.

Are nasturtiums known for yellowing of leaves?  It does seem that I have a lot of them on all of the nasturtiums I grew from seed this year.  I am forever picking off yellow leaves. 

I hope you will all visit Jean today to see what everyone has for Blooming Tuesday and Tracie at Cottage Flora Thursday.