This one's for my mother

I got my love for gardening from my mother and we did a lot of it together over many years. She would often come out here, usually in the spring, and help me with my planting season. I would go out to Kansas most years at spring planting time and together we would work in her yard and plant many containers full of flowers. She had a lot to take care of after I left, but container gardens mostly just need watering and she enjoyed having a reason to get out there every day (sometimes to twice a day in the summer in Kansas) to water everything. 

Something else we shared was the tendency to sit around in the winter think up ideas for next year's garden. We were known to fall prey to gimmicky planting things we'd see in magazines and catalogs. It was some new variety of something, miracle seeds, or some kind of planter that always looked amazing in the magazine, especially when viewed with winter weary eyes. We would order them anxiously, and were very excited when they arrived. Our results never quite matched the advertising photos, but that didn't mean that we wouldn't try the next great thing that came along the following year. Remember the hanging plastic bags that were shown filled with flowers that grew so thick and were so full of blooms? We had those. She had some success with those actually, but they would always peter out as the season progressed.

This year it wasn't a picture in a magazine or catalog that got me, I'm pretty sure I saw this on a Facebook ad. It even has a gimmicky name - "Mr. Stacky"- a five tiered plastic potting structure, each level having four spots to fill. I debated what to plant in it, but finally settled on marigolds, which are hard to beat in terms of color and dependability. I am reasonably certain it will be beautiful for a while, but the challenge will be keeping those containers moist enough in the summer to keep the marigolds alive in the full sun location that they need to thrive. But hope springs eternal this time of year. 

I like it sitting atop this Japanese garden seat but I'm afraid it's too top heavy to be stable.

This thing falling over in the wind would be an absolute disaster.

I'll play with the location until I find a spot that works for it.

This is a metal sculpture that my sister sent me at Christmas. I'm liking it on the wooden sunflower on top of the garden seat. But I'm also thinking it would be cool to combine the sculpture with a vining plant. My planting may be done, but there's still things to do out there. I still need to get the fountains going too.

It was drizzling a bit as I was working outside today, but I still had some company.

Della and Tilly played a bit.

The pups wanted to get involved too.

Tilly is really earning her keep around here by puppy sitting now.

Tippy has someone coming to meet her on Sunday.