A Muggly, A Window Box and a Wheel Barrow
This is the last in my Pots and Container series. You can certainly see from this series just how much they have added to our garden. All of these planters except the little window box still reside happily in our yard. We are always on the lookout for things that we think will add charm and whimsey, and isn’t that what gardening is all about?
This pot is called a Muggly; you can purchase it online or at various garden centers. It doesn’t have a lot of room for soil so planting it is a challenge. But I try to find something every year because it is just so cute. The window box with window and mirror was on our front porch beside our front door for several years. We planted it every year, usually with begonias and a trailer, and we thought it added a lot to our front porch. When we redid the front of our house, and our front porch, we reluctantly decided not to use it anymore. It did drip water and we are trying to stay away from that. These two photos are of the same planting, just a month or so apart.
We have had a couple of old wheel barrows that, when no longer used, made good planters. This one is along side of our driveway. The one with all the pink flowers is from last year; it was very pretty. The tall plants in the back are gomphrena, a plant I had never used before. It was very pretty and I will plant it again. The dark plant in the center is burgundy oxalis, a plant I would avoid like the plague! It is incredibly invasive and is almost impossible to get rid of. I planted it first in my fairy garden. Mistake! It wanted to take over everything. I am still trying to get rid of it. I thought it might be ok in the wheel barrow planter because it is a pretty plant, and can be contained. But no. It has hundreds of little bulbs and it is almost impossible to get them all out of the soil. So now I am putting them in the trash when I dig them up. Too bad; it is pretty. But so invasive! The next photo is of the first wheel barrow we had in this spot. It is full of two varieties of lantana, a plant that tolerates dry soil. As you can see, it did very well here. The last photo is the same wheel barrow with a planting that, while it grew well, didn’t turn out very well. The black eyed susans obviously grew exuberantly, but didn’t add much to this planting.
Last but not least is our mailbox. The pot is cement and I painted it several years ago. The mailbox is painted with a copper paint and then sprayed with a greenish paint to look like it is oxidized. The daylilies in the first photo are Happy Returns, a rebloomer; they are still there but we have moved them up in front of the fence. The next photo shows a pretty wave petunia from a couple of years ago. We have a ground cover juniper planted behind the pot; easy care. The last photo here shows the pot full of pentas. There are a few other flowers in the container, but the pentas sort of took them over. They looked great so we left them.
Final thought:
If you find a container that touches your heart, by all means put a plant in it and add it to your landscape. It can make you laugh out loud, as my Muggles planter does!, or bring back precious memories that relate to where or when you bought your special container. Just one more level to the glory of a garden.