Plant geek: container hits and misses

Earlier this spring I posted about my impulse buying of plants. I have finally recovered from the sunburn from the marathon planting session and have been enjoying watching the new combinations of plants fill out nicely. Here are some of my hits and misses for this year.

This vintage washtub is one of a pair we found at an auction near Alma. They flank the garage bay where my husband parks and are some of my favorite containers in our yard. I always struggle to get the right mix and have become bored with the usual spike plant, geranium, and vinca vine combination - sub in some asparagus fern sometimes. A great classic combination, but this year I wanted something a little different. This location gets a lot of sun.

The focal point is an ornamental pepper plant with alyssum and another bedding plant that I can not remember. I faithfully kept all the plant tags for the first hour of so of planting and then it all went out the window when it got down to crunch time.
This is one of many concrete planters we have accumulated. Concrete planters can be added to the list of things we collect by accident.

This combination of the ornamental pepper plant and the dusty miller - one of my new favorites! It has to be the colors side-by-side that just energizes me. Add in the small purple flowers on the pepper plant and I am over the moon!
Our porch has more concrete planters, including the big urns. I tried something different this year for these, too. I put in the usual red spike to play off of the door (bright red - sorry the photographer didn't show that flashy door) and then added the vinca vine for some drape. My big decision was what to put in as the filler - the base of the arrangement. I settled on the yellow flowers with this really cool foliage - again lost the tag!

The smaller planters have a mix of a lot of different plants - each selection trying to have at least a little bit of red.

Ummm....you might have noticed the broken tile that had been used as a coaster for the planters. Yeah, those got busted this Sunday when my husband (my hero) disposed of a huge black snake on our front step. That is a story for another time...

I can not in good faith show you all of my "hits" in the container world and not show you some misses. This grouping is another of my favorite concrete planters - love them! The plants are some coleus and a lot of weeds! Embarrassing. And, these sit closest to the well-traveled road by our house.

This is the same grouping of pots when I finally got so embarrassed that I pulled the weeds to see what is actually still living. Weekend project: replant, replant, replant.

Oh, and there are more - some that got too much water. Some that got too little. It's time for some container intervention.