Finishing Touches

You would be surprised at what a little paint will do to brighten up an area.  Just like in your indoor areas, painting an object can make the difference in bringing life to an otherwise dull area.  The photo is from Fine Gardening . . . I would have painted the terracotta containers to match the little table and the plants.  I love using coleus in the landscape to bring color into the garden . . . it is one of my favorite plants.


Click here for an article from Fine Gardening about finishing touches . . . it does make a huge difference in bringing our outdoor spaces together in a festive way.  One of the things I love to do is bring lots of red into the outdoor areas.  The boldness of the red against the greenery of the plants is just awesome.

This is a sign that I made in a section of my garden that was designated for cuttings and a place for me to get away when I didn't want to be bothered.  Appropriately named Hermitville . . . it was my place to relax.  Anyway, the point I want to make with this photo is how the red pops against the foliage.  A new thing I have started to do is paint most of my containers red . . . if they don't have a red background, the painted flowers are red.

read more

Using color contrast in the garden

One of the things I love doing in my garden is using high color contrast in mass plantings to make a big impact.  Black eyed susans, as shown in the above photo, is the one plant that provides that contrast I love and so easy to grow for my area.  I love plants that tend to become invasive by spreading their seeds and pop up everywhere . . . I pull them up like weeds and relocate them to create a mass planting.  I purchased seeds once and never had to make another purchase . . . my kind of plant.

Another way to provide high contrast in the garden is to utilize those plants with unusual leaves.  One of my favorite plants to use for this purpose is shown in the above photo . . . Florida Beauties.  Their leaves are white with green specks and look awesome again green foliage.  

Crotons and aucubas are more favorite plants that provide a high contrast through foliage for my climate (zone 9).

read more

Paver borders and walkways

This wide border framing a perennial garden 

 comes from Toledo Botanical Gardens.

The use of pavers in the garden is one of my most favorite things.  It leaves a clean and natural line that serves as both border and a walkway.  

I love wide paths and walkways that leave plenty of room for a wheelbarrow or a large garbage can to make maintenance and moving around the garden more efficient.  Many of the paths that I put together many years ago were designed in that manner for ease of maintenance and we will be utilizing the same paths in our future garden design.

The design of the border, placing pavers in a pattern also brings another dimension to the total look of the garden.

Photo credit: Michelle Gervais, Fine Living Magazine

read more

My new home page

My home page is back!  Now you can keep up with all of my blogs, websites and places on the web in one place.  Click here to go to the blog, where you can follow via Blogger, Google Friend Connect, Networked Blogs, my new Facebook Fan Page or through RSS feed via your favorite reader or email.  You can also follow me on Twitter where all my blog posts are automatically tweeted.

For my Adgitize and Entrecard blogging friends . . . within the next couple of days, I will be setting up Adgitize and Entrecard . . . so you will have one more place to click!

My apologies for not being around as much . . . there are not enough hours in the day for everything I have been working on, but I should be back to "normal" soon.

Hope you are all having a wonderful weekend!

read more

Our Paradise . . . past photos and some inspiration

The gardening season has arrived in Florida and The Captain and I are still cleaning up, making plans and repotting plants for the new garden.  

We plan on making our own pavers out of concrete and painting them as I have done in the past . . . although the paths are still there from the past garden design, there are many areas of the garden that have not been paved and we are planning many little paved patio areas.

Here are photos of our Paradise in the past, before freezing winters killed most everything and neglect took over . . . it was like a lush tropical resort . . . but we are planning bigger and better things for our Paradise this year.  

The Captain has finished the fence and the property is now completely private!  What a great start to the new season and the new Paradise :)

Our Paradise Past

I've been getting design inspiration from so many gardeners in Bloggerville.  Kathleen's garden is one of them.    I love the lushness of the plantings she has selected for the backdrop and the deck portion is so inviting.  To see more of her garden, click here.  

Kathleen's Garden

read more