“Growing” Flowers and Summer Blooms Around The Potting Shed

Happy Monday, I hope you had a good weekend! We enjoyed a Red, White, and Blue Ridge Getaway for the 4th of July holiday, and now I’m playing catch up in ‘the garden of weedin’.

In addition to the weeds growing, the Limelight hydrangeas burst into bloom while we were away.

I have 5 Limelight hydrangeas planted around the Potting Shed. ‘Limelight’ is a paniculata hydrangea with panicle-shaped flower heads that grow 6 to 12 inches long. Unlike other hydrangea varieties, they are drought tolerant, preferring part to full sun. The creamy-chartreuse color flowers transition to a burnished pink-bronze color in the fall and make beautiful dried flowers. Limelights bloom on new wood, so they should be pruned in late winter before new growth begins.

Are you sold yet?  ;)

I was relieved to find that Mother Nature showered everything with for us while we were away. Before leaving town, my hubby helped me haul pots and containers to the shady areas and/or where our irrigation runs to help them survive the 90+ degree temperatures.

Wild morning glory is growing like the weed it is, sprouting up everywhere. In addition to using a bottle tree as a trellis for the morning glory, I’m letting a vine climb up the birdhouse post to enjoy some of the blue flowers.

Morning Glory Philosophy: If you can’t get rid of it, celebrate it ;)

You can practically watch morning glory grow here in the South, where it thrives in the summer heat and poor soil. It will bloom until the first frost, usually sometime in November for us in North Carolina. To help prevent it from re-seeding, remove any spent blooms as they fade.

I found a fun and pretty bottle to add as a bloom on the bottle tree.

A bottle of Gerard Bertrand Cote des Roses Rosé at World Market, ideal for summertime sipping!

The pretty rose detail on the bottom of the wine bottle makes it fun to recycle and use on a bottle tree. You could go a step further and paint the bottoms of the glass bottles so the rose details show, wouldn’t that be fun?

I relocated the painted/screened floral bottle to a bottle tree stake in a planter. The planter is blooming with verbena, petunias, million bells, and white lobeila. Dusty miller adds some silvery gray accents and the foliage of Persian Shield adds some purple color.

Many of you asked about the painted bottle. It was a Prosecco, Cavicchioli 1928. My local Harris Teeter grocery store stocks it, carrying several varieties of the Italian sparkling wine with pretty floral bottles. I found the Flower Leaves Bottle Stake at a local nursery back in early May, the manufacturer is Border Concepts.

The mandevilla vine has grown since it was planted in April and I attached some garden twine for it to climb up and grow around the windows and up the shutters.

And since you can never have too many flowers, I *grew* some flowers to embellish a watering can.

Here is the watering can before the addition of the flower magnets. . .

And after, using the small metal flowers leftover from my Repurposed Door Knob Hose Guards.

I removed the flowers from the metal wall art, here, and used some silicone adhesive to glue the magnets to the back of the flowers.

The magnets stick to the galvanized watering cans for an easy and fun, blooming embellishment!

How is your garden growing this summer?

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 Metamorphosis Monday