It’s flower season! It can be overwhelming walking into nurseries and seeing rows and rows of beautiful flowers.
Which ones to pick?? When we were first married, I bought a 4 pack of flowers at the grocery store for 99 cents along with a plastic pot. I scooped up some dirt from the empty lot next door and added the flowers.
They were dead within a month. I would buy cheap potting soil at the grocery store and could not figure out why my flowers weren’t doing well.
Soil is key! Invest in some good potting soil! My favorite is this one:
It’s very forgiving if you forget to water sometimes and has fertilizer mixed in.
Another favorite trick is to buy a hanging plant like this from the grocery store for $7.99 and split it up among 2 or 3 pots. You can also just plop the whole thing in a planter and be done.
Last year, I split up one hanging basket of pink vincas among 3 pots, added some sweet potato vine and look how they looked in August:
They fill in beautifully!
They fill in beautifully!
Some of my favorite hardy, full sun, hard to kill flowers:
* sweet potato vine: above in pot. Grows very quickly, fills in pots.
*vincas! full sun, heat resistant deadheading not necessary.
*calibrachoa (also called Million Bells~yellow flower below) ~ they are heat tolerant, deadheading is not necessary, and they are resistant to disease.
Geraniums: (pink flower above) you do have to dead-head, but they are pretty hard to kill.
Geraniums: (pink flower above) you do have to dead-head, but they are pretty hard to kill.
*petunias: very low maintenance, inexpensive, and drought resistant, bloom all season long.
Do you have some favorite/proven winners that are pretty hard to kill? We would love to know yours..
Thanks for the flower tips. I love petunias in pots.
ReplyDeletePetunias are my fav as well but I've been looking for some variety; thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteMelissa, I loved seeing your flowers...makes me ready to get planting at my own house!! I would add begonias to your list of easy to keep flowers. They do well in sun. When they look like they need watering, you can bring them back (rather than they die. :) ). I brought my pot from last summer in last fall and they have done GREAT in my east window. I'll move them back out soon...but I'll probably wait until after Mother's Day as I live in Central Missouri. I'm not sure we are out of the frost time yet...even though it will be 80 today. Crazy!
ReplyDeleteThank you for the list and pics!
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ReplyDeleteI can see that we are the same kind of gardener! I appreciate your list of favorites because it is so hard to know what will work in Virginia's climate.
ReplyDeleteI am in KC and I would think it would be safe to say that we generally do not get another frost after mid-April. I planted all my herbs close to a month ago and they have been outside and thriving since then.
ReplyDeleteI love impatiens for mostly shade areas. They grow like crazy all summer long. They work great in the ground or in planters. And they come in a lot of colors.
ReplyDeleteMarigolds! You have to deadhead, but there are lots of different varieties. Also, save your deadheads, and you have seed for next year!
ReplyDeleteCan you imagine that after reading this post I want to copy every pot and row you've shown up there? :) I have to wait a couple more weeks where I live (you know how feel about that) but yours are SO pretty!
ReplyDeleteHey thanks for this Melissa, I needed this! Also, if you have any ideas for shady areas, I'd love to hear!
ReplyDeleteOoooo. I love flowers! (I actually work at my family's local garden center.) Some of my favorites for full sun are Diamond Frost Euphorbia, various varieties of Proven Winner Petunias, Ross Moss (excellent drought/heat tolerance), Verbena, & the tall green spikes for mixed containers. :)
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