PrairieRose and I have a bunch of plants in containers and hanging baskets around our patio, pool and yard. This is where we plant most of our annuals since I've been converting our yard to perrenials. I've also starting planting some peppers, tomatos and cucumbers in some this season to give some of my garden spots a rest. We love 'em. Some other things we have planted are portucola, herbs, sedums, spider plants, succulents and a few others. Our favorite is our Alice DuPont mandevilla....absolutely gorgeous. One other thing you may learn about me is that my spelling and typing "stinks"!! Have a great one!

Gripey, you might tell these folks how old our oldest asparagus ferns are. I can't zactly remember......we winter them over every year in a little shed we have in the back yard and some of them are HUGE.

ok you two, you're putting me to shame! ;)

Seriously, sounds like you guys have a handle on your planting. Since moving from Canada to the US (7 years ago) we decided only to do potted containers on our deck (lots of them) and I usually stick to red geraniums and spikes in the middle. I do have quite a few hostas out in the front garden (love them and boy are they easy) but mostly stick with my pots and hanging planters. We have deer here that eat everything in sight but they can't get to my deck pots so those are safe. :D Funnily enough, they've been pretty good about my hostas too. I find I stay with red geraniums and spikes because I just love the simple look (especially near evergreens when I used to have larger gardens) and also I find them the easiest to grow.

Hey Gripey, don't worry about your spelling/typing - you can't be good at everything! LOL

Nancy

I love having plants in containers especially since I've always lived in apt's & now a duplex, they are easier to "pick up & move" lol. I have 2 flower beds in the front {one on each side of my front door} but last spring the landlady took out all the old dirt & beauty bark & found out why nothing will grow in them :( , there is a slab of concrete at the bottom :mad: so she put a bunch of medium size rocks in them & I got a bunch of planters from a friend of mine and planted bulbs {Freesias & Ranunculus} in them & placed them in the garden then last week my friend brought me over more plants.{Winter Mums, a strawberry plant & some other ones I'm not sure yet what they are} One of the plants she gave me is in an old water pitcher that was her mothers & it looks so nice in the garden.:cool:

I love mixing container plants and "in the ground" ones around the yard. I haven't got many this year though. I have a spider plant (or airplane plant depending on where you are from) that i need to divide again! It lives in my bedroom window. :) "he's" very happy there lol. I have an asperagus fern that has doubled in size this summer.

Gripey or PraireRose.....what do you need to do to overwinter an asperagus fern? I can put it in the garage to keep it "inside" but my friend said it needs to be in a clay pot to survive. I have it in a plastic one with a brick in the bottom for weight.

Melody our asparagus ferns aren't in clay pots. They are in metal (witches cauldron things), plastic and those foam/clay looking things. We just move them into to the shed and water them every now and again. They get to looking really ragged before spring but then we repot em, cut em back to nearly nothing (if they look really bad) and fertilize. (notice I keep saying "we".....actually it's "he") :cool: They are pretty hardy and easy to keep alive if you don't let em freeze hard.....Gripey feel free to jump in here and tell how "we" do all this stuff!

ok, PrarieRose (or Gripey) how much do you cut one back? Regular houseplant fertilizer? I am taking notes. ;) Thanks

I had two half barrels at our old place that I put geraniums and spikes in at the end of the road but that was all I did as far as containers.

Here I have lots of them. The previous owners left some "interesting" containers so I use them. I have three containers along our walkway as you walk up to the house. I also have three large white containers around the pool that I fill with flowers. And the rest I have here and there around our property....different every year it seems.

I'm really liking planting in them. For around the pool last year I had two new galvanized pails, medium size so I planted cosmo seeds in them. There were beautiful, I kept taking cuttings from them for the house and they kept blooming away. I had them as centrepieces on side tables.

Mel, we cut em back to eliminate most of the dried, brown stuff.....We usually leave about --- hhhmmmm 6-10 inches of growth from the dirt up. "We" use miracle grow....(ahem....Gripey does the fertilizing). These old ferns are just gorgeous and we always get remarks on how big and beautiful they are. I swear they get bigger every year, even after being cut back so hard and looking so ragged during the winter in the pump house.....