Good morning from the garden!

Today I thought I would share how my various summer containers have turned out this year.  There were some hits, but also definitely some misses.  I have a list of things I want to do again next year, and also a list of things I wouldn’t repeat again.

Let’s start with my galvanized boiler pot window boxes.  I have one on the carriage house, and one on the potting shed and I think it’s safe to say that both of them were a bit of a fail this year.

Let’s start with the one on the carriage house …

That crazy pink flower is the Truffela pink gomphrena from Proven Winners.  I was trying to recreate the look I got from a different variety of gomphrena last year …

and the Truffela pink totally missed the mark.  It grew way too big.  Not only that, but the color was all wrong next to the red carriage house.  I definitely won’t be putting that plant in any of my containers next year.  However, I also put some in the ground interspersed with perennials and it was perfect for that.

I also had a Superbena, a bacopa and a Voltage White Osteospurmum in there and none of them performed particularly well, despite lots of regular feeding.

Ditto for the one on the potting shed …

I definitely need a new plan for these next year, but I have all winter to think about it.

In the meantime, after taking those pictures I went ahead and yanked out all of the plants.  I had a small pot elsewhere that was planted with Little Ruby Altermanthera and Sidekick Lime Improved Ipomoea (or sweet potato vine), so I borrowed that and popped it into the planter on the carriage house.

Then I filled in the empty space with some cut Annabelle hydrangea flowers.  It’s certainly a temporary solution, I know the hydrangea flowers aren’t going to look good for long, but this will hold me over until I’m ready to put some fall flowers in.

I also filled the boiler planter window box on the potting shed with hydrangeas, but that one I kept simple with just Vanilla Strawberry flowers.

Next up is the bed planter in front of the carriage house.

I filled that one with coleus and ferns.  I feel like it gets an ‘OK, but certainly not spectacular’ rating.  It filled in nicely, the plants are all healthy looking, but the colors on the coleus are all a little dull.  This planter sits in full shade and I think those coleus need a little more sun to bring out their color.  I much preferred the caladium that I used in this planter last year, so I may have to go back to that next year.

This year I decided to accept the fact that the two rusty urns that sit on either side of my deck stairs are no longer in full sun (the trees on the other side of the driveway are throwing a bit more shade).  So I chose plants that would thrive in part shade for them this time around and I’m very happy with the result.

That’s a Black Taffeta Heuchera in the center, with Summer Wave Torenia and a variegated ivy trailer.  I would definitely use this combo again.  By the way, that heuchera is one of the $5 ones that I found in the clearance aisle at Gertens last spring.

It has performed quite nicely in a pot.  It’s a zone 4 thru 9 plant, so I can’t leave them in the pots over the winter though (you need a plants zoned for 2 zones lower than your normal zone for it to survive winter in a pot, I’m a 4b, so I need a zone 2 plant for that!).  I’m not quite sure yet how I’m going to try and overwinter them.  I can either pull them out and put them in the ground somewhere, or I may try to put the pots in the carriage house and take my chances (the carriage house is not heated at all).

I repeated the combination of caladium with double impatiens in a couple of planters in my shade garden again this year.

I liked it so much last year that I thought it bore repeating.  They looked great again this year, although I preferred the pale pink impatiens from 2022 and could only find white ones this year.

A little later in the summer I added more rusty pots of caladium and ivy to the garden too.

I’d probably have caladium absolutely everywhere if it weren’t so darn expensive, and also so susceptible to the cold.  It will die back at the merest hint of cold weather which means we have to wait for nights above 50° before putting them outside in the spring, and they are usually the first to go in the fall.

You may remember that I tried to overwinter my caladium bulbs last year.  I never reported back on that because it was a bust.  The bulbs were all dried out when I pulled them out of the basement this spring.

By the way, that bright lime green foliage in the foreground right is the Sun King aralia that I put in after seeing it everywhere on the St. Anthony Park garden tour.  So far it seems very happy in that spot.  As it gets bigger it can fill in all of that space and the pots can be moved elsewhere in the garden.

I have a little trio of rusty urns up on the deck that get enough sun for some full sun annuals.

By this time in the season they are looking a bit shaggy for sure.  Especially since I also put that Truffela Pink Gomphrena in the tall one.

It is pretty, and it performed fantastically.  But it’s definitely too large for my urns.  It totally buried my one-winged angel, remember him?

I really enjoyed the Stormburst Superbena and the Indigo Mini Vista Supertunias in those pots this year though.

Both of them have performed quite nicely.

As have the succulents that I planted in my vintage newspaper log roller.

I already shared my disappointment with my front window box back in mid-July.  Shortly after that I ended up pulling out the Amstel Netja Dark begonias and replacing them with a white caladium.  Then I also removed some of the Streptocarpus Ladyslippers™ Deep Blue Vein.

I then added in some Rockin’ Playin’ the Blue salvia from Proven Winners.

I was actually really surprised to find that it did really well.  I thought for sure that there wasn’t enough sun for it in that box, but it looks great.

The Dark Eyes fuchsia also did extremely well in this north facing location.

The Dusty Miller and Dichondra Silver Falls also both did great in this location, but I didn’t love them.  As I’ve mentioned before, I’m just not a big fan of that powdery look.

I would probably not repeat either of those plants, but that’s just a personal preference.

Last, but not least, my herb garden did really well this year.

I grew basil, chives, marjoram, lavender, lemon grass, rosemary and parsley and they all did well.  I had to cut back the basil and lemon grass frequently as they really wanted to take over, but everything else did great.

Now, if only I knew how to cook with some of them.  To be honest, for the most part we use the chives on a baked potatoes, and the basil on caprese, and that’s about it.  I just enjoy watching the rest of them grow.

As for the parsley, well, the other night while I was watering I noticed this guy …

Apparently he is a parsley caterpillar and ultimately he will turn into a Black Swallowtail butterfly.  Now, on the downside, he’s probably going to eat a lot of my parsley in the meantime.  But what do I care?  We aren’t doing anything with it, I’m fine with letting him have it.

So, how about you?  Did you have any stand-out containers this year?  Or any real dogs?  If so, leave a comment and let us know!