Kicking up the winter garden

Pansies. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I'm just tickled pink to announce that my post on repurposed rainboots is now live on Home Depot's Garden Club blog. The Garden Club blog is a fantastic resource for gardening advice, decorating tips, and recipes. In fact, last summer's Bucket Garden post began as a Garden Club project.

Check out my post on recycling my little girl's outgrown rain boots and let me know what you think. The Garden Club blog is focusing on stories that extend gardening from fall through spring, actually my favorite time to garden. I know, I know, giddy summer annuals and homegrown tomatoes are thrills, I guess what I mean is No Bugs and No Weeds. I'm looking forward to writing more stories for the Garden Club Blog ~ look for another story late in December~!

Pansies and violas on the porch

Autumn containers on front porch steps. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

You may recognize these unique, hand-painted containers from a summer gardening project with the girls ~ buckets from The Home Depot, painted and personalized and filled with flowers. Near the end of September, the summer annuals were really past their prime, so I went to my favorite plant places and gathered up some wonderful cold-weather container plants like violas and pansies.

These purple pansies really caught my eye ~ I couldn't let these to go to another home ~

Purple pansies. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I think violas are the happiest flowers in the garden. Here, they're mixed with variegated ivy, to spill over the edge of the bucket.

Violas and variegated ivy. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

While I shop for plants, I use my smartphone to take pictures of pleasing arrangements on display. When I get home, I have a visual guide to replicate the design. I liked this combination of baby bok choy and creeping golden jenny. I set if off with violas and some variegated ivy, following the formula "a thriller, a spiller and a filler." The thriller is the focal point, usually giving height, the spiller trails over the edges of the pots, and the filler adds color and texture to the bulk of the container.

Autumn container plants. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

"Arctic White" flowering cabbages pair well with the variegated creeping fig and purple pansies, adding a cooling element against my red house. The containers are displayed on my front porch steps, so they are viewed from above and head on. As I walk down the steps, they look like giant unfolding roses.

 

Autumn containers. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

 Text and images copyright 2013, Lucy Mercer.