Tuesday, May 12, 2009

I Love Spring

The weather has been so nice the past few days, I have taken a break from my quilt to work out in the garden. DH and I spent all day Saturday, spreading mulch over all my beds. Boy was I sore on Sunday!!!
On Mother's Day I was able to get my pots planted with the help of my beautiful daughter C.
I made these pot holders out of old porch posts I found in someones trash last summer. They are actually quite ingenious, if I don't say so myself.

It is amazing what you can construct from the plumming isle of the home improvement store...The posts are hollow, so I bought some PVC pipe to fit inside the posts, cut it about 3 inches longer than the posts and pounded it into the ground. I also bought a cap for the pipe with a threaded hole on the end and a 4" threaded metal pipe that screws into the cap at the top. I assembled these pieces then slid the porch post over the PVC pipe.The threaded metal pipe sticks out the top of the post, and the drainage hole in bottom of the pot fits perfectly over the pipe. The PVC pipe keeps the post standing straight, and the small metal pipe at the top holds the pot on the post.

I white washed the terra cotta pots to make them look old, add some impatients (my favorite annual, and great in the shade under my crab apple tree) and DONE!!! It looks like the pot would blow off in a strong wind, but they have actually stayed there through straight line winds that pulled some siding off our house!!!

I love the hot pink and green together.
My perennial garden has seen better days, a lot of my stuff has died in the past year and I'm not sure why. But my sweet woodriff has spread like crazy and is more beautiful than ever. I love the tiny white flowers atop the interestingly shaped leaves. It is one of my favorites - beautiful in the spring but also a great ground cover the rest of the summer.
Now I am going out to spray paint so garage sale treasures I got this weekend (since we finally have a day where it is dry and not too windy). I will show you some "before" and "afters" later.

2 comments:

Lori McDonough said...

OMG, you are a freakin' genius...seriously, Martha Stewart's got nothin' on you. I'm in LOVE with the porch posts and the pots....lov-er-ly!!!!! Hey I got your texts, but 2 wouldn't open and I don't quite "get" what I'm seein'. U will have to explain better.

Anonymous said...

Ditto to what Lori said! I totally love,love,love the porch posts & pots~ You are so clever! Girly, you have been a busy bee.