A sunnier day

Figuratively speaking, as yesterday was clear, cloudless and gorgeous while today's sky has been a bit overcast.

Nevertheless after some homemade sort-of bellini's last night (sparkling white wine and peach schnapps), and a solid night of sleep, I feel far better.

DH and I went out for breakfast and to view the floral offerings of three local stores for our garden. Spring having sprung, we figured it would be prudent to go get our plants and get them in the ground sooner rather than later.

This is our third attempt at the patio garden, last year having been a marked improvement over the previous year. We still have perennial plants in the ground doing well - esperanza in one bed is growing so much that I have to prune it back and the plumbago in the other bed looks terrific. The rest of the beds and the planters are always filled with annuals.

So now, we have a colorful heap of annuals awaiting their new homes. The beds need to be cleared and raked, the patio needs to have the weeds removed from the cracks and we need to get all the liners back in the hanging planters.

We're going off of last years successes, still trying to figure out precisely what should go where, but in the plumbago bed, we are planting a climbing jasmine (if it doesn't work out, we'll go ahead and do another morning glory, to our neighbor's disgust). We border all the beds in dianthus, and we have more of it to go in this year - all purples, pinks and whites. The plumbago has green-yellow leaves and produces powder blue flowers in clusters. It's really grown to small shrub size, and will produce through to the fall, once it starts blooming anyway. We are adding 5 smallish lantana plants - 2 gold (golden yellow), 2 Texas flame (red and orange and gold) and 1 tangerine (gold and orange). There will be baskets of yellow and orange marigolds hanging nearby, as well as purple and red petunias in nearby baskets and likely a large planter with red-hot mama salvia near as well.

The esperanza bed is filled mostly with the esperanza which do fantastically down here. A yellow-cluster flowering shrub which can approach tree porportions if left unchecked, it loves full sun. In that bed, along the fence, we hope to grow more morning glory, but it may be sketchy, as the esperanze may not give it enough sun. We added it late enough last time that the morning glory had already taken off. There will be another dianthus border as well as lovely red verbena between the border and the esperanza. Beside that, in the shade of the tree and in front of the AC will be red and white impatiens. Normally these are in pots (and such will be the case again this time as well) but they can do well in partial shade and God knows the wild impatiens bushes that magically sprouted this winter have done well near there.

The final bed will house 2 cherry tomato plants, basil and rosemary, as well as a hanging basket of marigolds and the everpresent dianthus border.

The remaining scattered planters and hanging baskets will have petunias (purple and red and lemon yellow and white) and impatiens (red and white).

This all makes me so happy. It's colorful and pretty and peaceful. And DH, because he loves me, does most of the heavy labor, allowing me to simply tell him where they go. Though I do like to get my hands dirty too, so it's not all on him.

We did say last year that we figured I'd be pregnant when we did this stuff this year. I feel a pang that I'm not, but hey. It's ok. It's going to be lovely, regardless of anything else and give us months of beauty and happiness.

This is the first time in years I haven't grown from seeds, but I just couldn't deal with the hassle. But I think it will all work out anyway. And I love my plants, however they come about. It amazing to see what happens from just a tiny little seed or a tiny little plant - the beauties that come, it's simply overwhelming and hopeful, you know?