There was a sale on the mulch I use and I missed it. I kept meaning to go out and pick some up, but I had the flu during the sale and then I was just busy trying to get my house back in order. You know, life. I ended up ordering it online an hour after the store closed on the day the sale ended. I wasn't sure if I would still get the sale price, but it worked! I then had four days to pick it up. I decided to actually go the next day and just get it over with. While I was there, I saw flowers and I just love flowers. They cheer me up. I decided I would go get some for my window boxes. They didn't have much to choose from, but I still managed to get too many. Look at all the pretty flowers sitting in my passenger seat.
I planted annual dianthus and sweet potato vine in baskets under my kitchen window. They only had two vines to chose from. Sidekick sweet potato vine and a shade vine. I found out the last year I had used the shade vine. I bought a pack of full sun flowers on clearance sale in June for container planting and it was petunias and geraniums and this shade vine. The vine shriveled up and died pretty quickly, but the rest of it did fine. Now I know I didn't do anything to the vine, it was just not meant for full sun.
Facing west:
Facing South
Aren't they pretty? Is one vine enough? I'm not sure how these will grow.
I can't wait for these to fill out the basket.
You may have noticed that I had more flowers in my van than I put in the boxes. The front of my house doesn't have much color. I have already planted pink phlox under my mailbox by the road to replace the pink perennial dianthus that did not survive our brutally cold winter. They are hardy to -10/-20F and we got down to around -15/-20F. I wanted to plant something near the front door though. My house faces north so the front is a little shaded. I planted impatients last year and they didn't flourish. They stayed about the same size and looked dried out a lot. My front walk gets at least 6-8 hours of sun in the morning, so there wasn't as much shade as I though there would be. This year I decided to try petunias. They are really pretty and I love the big flowers so hopefully they fill in nicely.
I also needed to prune back some shrubs. Since it was a new build 10 years ago, fast growing shrubs got planted and they are still around. I'm hoping to take out the Burning Bushes in the front. I have 2 windows to the left of my porch that are only 3 feet off the ground. Burning bushes quickly grow to be 10 feet tall and 15 feet wide. Are you seeing a problem yet? I have 3 planted in a spot only 15 feet wide. The amount of cutting I have to do to keep it from blocking my window and not chocking out my front porch is ridiculous. I have 2 other Burning Bushes in little 2'-3' areas to each side of my driveway. The only one that really bothers me is the one next to my front walk way because 2-3 feet is not enough space for a Burning Bush. I also have what I think is a type of Juniper. It also grows too fast and I have 5 in a 15 foot row in front of the Burning Bushes.
This is a before/during picture, I already planted a begonia before I thought to take a picture.
Here is what greats you when you come to my house now. Much more inviting. Can you see the Evergreen shrub is only planted a foot from the walk?
I also have a fushia hanging basket. It is so bright and has lots of flowers.
This is what it looks like from below
The smell of mulch fills my van
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