Wordless Wednesday – 04/10/13

Yankee gardening

I’m a Yankee by birth and a Yankee at heart – I was born in New England, and I repurpose, recycle and reuse in preference to buying new.

So, this spring I decided to see if I could keep my expenditures for annuals down to $0. For a person who gardens obsessively that was a daunting challenge, but I do love a challenge.

I had started seeds for Alyssum, Marigolds, Lobelia, and Zinnias. I had also overwintered my Geraniums so I had a good basic start for our many wicker planters and pots.

But, I needed more so I decided to use some of our many perennials. Perennials are work horses, but who said they couldn’t be show horses. I mixed Hosta in some pots, put Chives in front of the hoop house that had vegetables, and used a mix of perennials including Astilbe, several different Coral Bells, Lungwort, and Bishops Weed in other containers. But, I failed to take pictures of those containers.

Hosta planter

Hosta plantings after a couple of weeks in the container

Chive planting

They looked great all through the summer growing season. The pots were full and lush.

Once temperatures started to drop at night, however, they started to fade dramatically. Since I wasn’t going to purchase any Chrysanthemums, I needed to move something into those planters because the perennials were put back into the ground to live to see another gardening season.

There were some big, beautiful Marigolds in the vegetables gardens. Why not dig them up and repot them? If they could look great in the vegetable garden why couldn’t they look as good in the many containers.

Front entry urns

Entry planter

Porch Planter

Side porch planter

Planter

Swing planter

I’m happy with the results and feel quite a sense of satisfaction with saving all the money that normally goes to pay for annuals that I dig up and compost at the end of the growing season.

Will I do it next year? Probably. But I will start more seeds in the early spring and will sink pots of Marigolds that can be just lifted out of the garden.

It was also a good lesson for my grandkids – life is full of choices. Reuse or buy new. I reused and saved some money that I could spend on them – much more fun.

So just for conversational purposes…

Wordless Wednesday – 07/11/12

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Linked to A Rural Journal’s Tuesday Muse