Winter Garden.........

Hello Friends!

When winter rolls around~it's often hard to say good by to all the beautiful colors that once graced your yard, porch and deck areas.

Just because all that goes away doesn't mean that you can't create some wonderful winter displays in those same areas.

Here ,I am sharing with you what I do on our back deck area.

Since we have french doors that lead out from our dining room ~ this area is very visible and I always have it loaded up with containers and baskets in the summer months.

Once winter gets here, it gives me the chance to do something different!

This year I chose to utilize all my specialty pumpkins instead of tossing them into the compost pile just because Fall was over! (If you did that, you can probably still go rescue a few!)

I wanted a natural look and something E*A*S*Y and low maintenance.

I started out with this adorable handmade small wheel barrow. I had petunias in it (you can still see one in the front) this past summer. I pulled out all the dead stuff and left the dirt as a base. I started with the pine and stuck some of the branches right in the dirt to act as an anchor for the other pieces on top. After the pine I added the super cool white kinda flat white pumpkins (real) and the huge pine cones (fake). I like the look of mixing the real and fake stuff. In this case it's what I had on hand and I thought it looked great!

This was my $10.00 real Frasier tree from the North Carolina mountains that only cost me $60.00 for the tank of gas to pick it out! Every year I always like to put a tree out there for the birds. I usually have little suet ornaments on it but they had wiped me out before I took these pictures. Yes.....we have other trees in the yard and yes I put feed in those bird feeders (Mr. OTM likes to point out this fact every year.) BUT...I like that this is closer to me on the deck and I can see the birds better while I am eating my breakfast.

I've got it sitting in an old galvanized tub surrounded by more pumpkins, pine cones and statuary.



Not alot of effort needed to pull this look off. Just work with what you have and watch the scale of size.




See this little concrete cat? I just saw one in an antique mall yesterday for 150.00 bucks. If this one is missing off my deck I am going to come get you! lol!

My rosemary is still goin to town so I didn't have the heart to yank it out to make this arrangement balanced. Who cares right?

I am lovin it anyway.

If I could have white pumpkins to decorate with all year round , I think I would.

They have got to be the cutest little things and I love the color.

Eventually all these will start to get mushy, but until then I look forward to being able to enjoy them for a few more months.

This particular pumpkin is nestled in a pine bough nest inside a big old wire birdcage. Sorry for the lack of a full on shot of that but it's easy to picture it. You could easily get this look on a much smaller scale using a standard size birdcage with the small white pumpkins.

I hope this inspires you to create some winter beauty for your outdoor spaces. The only thing that is lacking for me is a beautiful dusting of snow. A good 16-24 inches worth.

What's that?

You think I've lost it?

What can I say......I'm and Ohio girl!

Enjoy your Winter Garden!

*this post is linked to the wonderful WHITE WEDNESDAY over at Faded Charm!

JUNK PLANTS!

Hello Friends!

I did something a little different this year when it came to decorating my back deck with plants and flowers.

This year I used ALL JUNK PLANTS!!

{If you listen to them at Lowes they have a bit more class and selectively call it the

Distress Cart.}

Oh do I LUVVVV the "distress cart!"

How could I not? It's totally in my nature to give things a second chance. When I see many of these plants just basically needing a good dead heading , a little cut back and healthy dose of fertilizer I grab one of the BIG flat carts and load up!

I wish I would have thought to take some before photos of all these. Little shrunken messes they all were, just dying for a drink all withered and sad..........and cheap.




Have I ever mentioned I *LUV* cheap?



It's funny who you meet back there too ...at the junk cart.

Whoever you do meet you feel like you've know um all your life.

You start chatting about how cheap you both are and how you love seeing the plants come back to life and what you found on it the last time you were there (yesterday) and how sometimes it's fun to by a "mystery" plant and see what happens and what's the best fertilizer to use and how you really don't NEED any more plants or flowers and so on.....








These were my "mystery"plant. I knew they were petunias but not the color!

I was tickled pink!

Garlic chives. Twenty five cents.

Sweet potato vine is one of my all time favorites. You can't beat the color and the impact it has.
Plus it gives you tiny potatoes!

The tall chippy metal piece is actually the top of an old post lantern that I turned into a candle holder.

My little concrete garden angel was bargain too. She was only 2.00 because she had a broken foot. We made a deal. I asked her if I would find her foot and glue it back on, would she grace my garden and nurture all my junk plants. We shook on it. She's doing a fantastic job by the way.

So tell me.....how many of you go diggin in the junk cart?

Ain't it fun? If you've never done it....you are missing out!

The only problem is , once you start , you can't stop and you wind up spending perhaps more money than you want to. I look at it this was....I am saving a life.....a little tiny plants life. I am giving it a chance to bloom and grow and be all it can be. To one day leave the nest and go to college , then get married and have a family of it's own. LOL!

Let me know what you find when you go.

Don't say I didn't warn ya!! *wink*