My low-energy pot garden

Some of my pot garden plants: geranium, nasturtiums, mariachi
peppers, rosemary, gerbera daisies and some anemic basil. Never
have much luck with basil for reasons that elude me.

Ah, the Fourth of July weekend, often the laziest and most sultry weekend of the summer here in the Upper Midwest. It's a good weekend for watching birds and bunny rabbits, eating strawberry shortcake, reading a book in the lawn chair, and admiring the garden.

I used to have a big garden with vegetables and herbs. It had a fence around it and everything.

However, I don't have the energy for that any more, so I garden in porch pots. I used to be a snob about using only clay pots, but, frankly, those things are heavy to move around, and they suck up a lot of moisture from the plants. So as they busted, I started replacing them with plastic.

Anyhow, you can arrange the pots around the porch steps in an artful variety of color and greenery, moving them as needed to get a more or less sun. I get a kick out of watering, trimming, and sitting outdoors admiring them. But they don't require the daily care my big veg and flower garden used to.

I also inherited some flowering perennials from friends, and these make a nice display without a lot of effort. The periwinkle I planted as a border around the house keeps creeping further into the lawn (less to mow). And I planted a trumpet vine on one side of the pergola and bittersweet on the other. They kind of meet in the middle.

My trumpet vine full of "witch fingers"

ready to blossom!

I've always been partial to trumpet vines. When I was little, we called them Witch Finger Bushes because we would pull the blossoms off and put them over our fingers to make "witch fingers" a la the Wicked Witch of the West ("I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog, too"). The bittersweet is highly invasive, so I do have to prune it a lot, but the orange berries are really pretty in the fall. And, yes, they are poison for people, so don't be thinking about jam or anything.

I have some lilac bushes that are kind of scraggly, and I keep thinking I'll tear them out. But the smell of the blossoms wafts through the open window in the spring so I let them live. Maybe if I prune them back severely they'll look less like something out of the haunted forest next summer. A couple of rose of Sharon bushes attract hummingbirds in the late summer.

Meantime, I still have some kitchen herbs in a raised bed. I usually let the oregano and thyme flower, so they attract butterflies. And I've let the wild raspberry bushes take over the hedge. The songbirds and bunny rabbits like those.

Anyhow, this weekend, I'm enjoying the restorative power of nature. I'll be back with more ET related news soon.

Until then, happy July! Be well!