Cluelessly Planting: Update!

If you recall my first 'Cluelessly Planting' post here...I was experimenting with different plant recommendations for indoors and outdoors. This update won't take long; none of them made it. Yes, it's true. I really do have a black thumb!! But I'm not ready to give up yet. And I'm 99% sure this bad boy on the right would have made it if my husband hadn't tampered with it...

The Ivy - Variegated Large Leaf Periwinkle/Vinca did awesome and lasted through the winter (although it was a mild one), but the Perennial - Mary Ann Lantana died (as expected), which was fine because I wanted to see if it would come back like it should. Well my husband wasn't aware and took it upon himself to replace the Perennial with another flower and stuck another plant in there as well. However, I didn't know he had added the plant because it looked a lot like the Ivy I had in there. Eventually his flower died too and his plant took over (killing my Ivy) and started growing upard, giving me a clue something was up (literally haha). All that aside, I would have to say the Ivy - Variegated Large Leaf Periwinkle/Vinca was the best as far as low maintenance and staying alive and all!

Although my plants didn't make it, I did learn some things. Mostly what not to do, but at least it will help me in the future. You have to start somewhere! A couple lessons I learned were; having my indoor plant where I would remember to water it was good, but I think I watered it too much and I found out my front yard is not such a good spot for potted plants because it gets direct sunlight all day long.

Side note: I thought you might be interested to know the red pot (remember how I spray painted it here) and the yellow pot (pictured at top) chipped when I had them outside (I moved the red pot outside after the Ivy died). They did not stand up to the weather. I was surprised because the red spray paint was for indoor/outdoor use and the yellow pot was from Marshall's. I guess I'll have to be more careful when choosing painted pots for outdoors? Any tips?



{A little less} Cluelessly Planting Round 2!

Spring and Summer have sprung (I'm a little late with this post) and so has our plant collection! This time I set out to Home Depot hoping to save a little $ and just sort of dove in without any expert advice. And it's really nice because they have everything laid out plain and simple so it's easy to understand. For example; which plants need shade, sun, part sun, house plants, etc. So here's what I came home with:

The two on the ends were potted already so I just stuck them out there to look pretty. The one in the middle I potted myself. The pink and purple flowers are Annuals and the yellow flowers are Marigolds. The lady at the register told me once the Marigolds die, you can snap the tops off and they will grow right back! And from what I've seen so far, she was right! I love Ivy, so I thought I would try a different kind. I came home with English Ivy. I loved it and saw it on display at Home Depot so I wanted to give it a try. I used their example to get some ideas. The English Ivy says "partial shade", but they had theirs in direct sunlight so I tried it out in the sun. Well, a couple weeks later it was starting to turn yellow and wasn't growing so I re-potted it and put it in the shade. Now it is thriving!!

                    May                                                  July

Here are some updated pictures of my pot o' flowers after removing the English Ivy. It is doing great!

                   May                                                  July

                                    
I am glad to have some good news for you! And wait...there's more!

Coleus:






















Another plant I decided to try is Coleus. My SIL highly recommended it and said it is very low maintenance so I was sold! I love the bright colors...from what I saw you can get them in green, purple or both (like mine).

Here's some advice if you are going to plant Coleus...they are very tender so be careful! I was telling my Dad about buying some and he said "Oh are those the really tender ones?" and I was like "I don't know?". But after planting them, sure enough, one of them just snapped right in half. If you look closely, you can see in the above picture how a big chunk of leaves is missing from the top-right plant. I planted it in hopes it would grow back or maybe the other two would flourish and no one would be able to tell. Grow back and flourish it did!!! Check out the difference a few months makes! This picture was taken recently. I guess they bloom this time of year...you can see two sprouty things (yes, that's the technical term) at the top if you look closely.



Even more good news! Looks like my SIL was right!:-)