Design

I really enjoy my containers, especially the glazed terracotta ones. They survive our winters well (not chipping like regular terracotta) and provide an attractive array of colors in my container medleys: 1) near the potting bench and 2) near the bird feeders. This container, with relatively young plants of Spanish lavender, evergreen thyme, and silver thyme, survived last winter nicely, and looks cheery in the evening light.  And since I've cropped some stray winter annuals out of the photo, it looks even nicer!

A tremendous thunderstorm in the North Carolina mountains last night was a surprise. It wasn't in the forecast, but the rain was welcome there. June was dry in the Piedmont and mountains, and the lush spring green is starting to look crispy around the edges. The mountains are doing better than we are in the Piedmont, however; we haven't had any rain here for about 3 weeks, with temperatures well over 90°F for some of that time. Coming down the Blue Ridge Escarpment towards home today, I was wondering how my vegetable garden had fared. Happily, the tomato and pepper seedlings in flats in the shade were fine, thanks to a friend checking on them yesterday on a 'emergency' basis, and everything was OK, although dry. The brutal drought years of the last decade (and especially the last three years) have made me wary of planting anything that's not drought-tolerant, and able to withstand hot, dry weather without visible stress. But, now even the deep-rooted meadow plan...

I like to keep something green in my containers throughout the year. Perennial herbs, herbaceous perennials with rosettes, Sedums and succulents; all of these are fun and easy to use. Of course, I also don't want to be tied to watering all the time in the summer, too, which means drought-tolerant plants. But that still leaves lots of great plants to use, creating wonderful contrasts of textures and shapes. This summer's containers aren't quite as spectacular due to our drought here in SC, but some of them are quite nice.