Easter Flowers

I'm a little late posting this, considering Easter was four whole days ago now, but bear with me! Easter is one of my favorite holidays to celebrate. The sun is shining, the air smells like spring, and beautiful pastel colors are everywhere. In celebration of Easter (and pastels) I made some simple flower pots to share with my family members, and now I'm sharing photos of them with all of you out there on the internet.

Happy belated Easter to all who celebrate!

The Month of March

It appears that I've neglected my blog for nearly a month! Don't worry, I have plenty of excuses for my lapse in posting; plus pictures for proof!

March is my busiest greenhouse preparation month. And, as you can see by the photo below, the Schmit Home Solutions greenhouse is nearly full. Regardless of how much space I have (the greenhouse doesn't get bigger from year to year) I always feel that it's necessary to get MORE varieties of flowers and vegetables each year, thus resulting in MORE plants. I panic around this time every spring, because I don't know where I'm going to put everything! Yet, somehow I manage to find some magical left-over space for my plants that previously didn't exist, and then I think, "Whew! That was a close one. I'm never ordering this many plants again!" (Yeah, right...)

The seedlings have really been enjoying the spring sunlight. And, as a result of that sunlight, they have grown and grown! Here's an updated look at the baby gerber daisy's I was showing off a few posts ago. I can't wait for them to start shooting up blossoms!

I also made the decision to grow ALL of our vegetables from seeds this year. Typically, we order tiny seedlings of most plants, and then transplant them into larger pots. This saves a lot of time, but I don't get to select as many different tomato and pepper varietals. So, because I've started them from seed, I get to offer sweet red and yellow peppers along with the typical green variety; Rutgers, cherry, and Roma tomatoes along with the usual tomato line-up; and an assortment of chili peppers like cayennes, pablanos, and anaheims. The itsy-bitsy sprouts below are Roma tomatoes (it's hard to tell who's who at this point in the tomato life-cycle, they all look alike as sprouts.)

And, for my final greenhouse photo, I'd like to leave you with a little spring beauty to get you through this cold and blustery day. The first bloom of the season opened up this morning, and it belongs to a gorgeous white tuberous begonia!

Flowers Again

Just another quick post full of shameless bragging about my flowers - the alyssum in this pot is really workin' it right now! I love its firecracker-like appearance.

I used the "thriller, filler, spiller" rule for this container - and it turned out pretty darn good! Twisted arrow juncus, tuberous begonias and white alyssum. 

The End of Spring Greenhouse Season

The greenhouse is empty (with the exception of a few dried up pots I haven't cleaned out yet). It was a lot of work this spring, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little lonely without my flowers. Sure, I have a few to comfort me planted out front of my house, but it's not the same as looking into the greenhouse every morning and seeing thousands of smiling flower faces looking back at you. I took a TON of pictures while they were growing. Here are some highlights from this season:

Coleus - Kong Red

Fuchsia Dark Eyes - Seriously, the brightest flower known to man-kind

The ever popular gerber daisy in my favorite shade of orange

A pretty in pink tuberous begonia

And another tuberous begonia (because they're my favorite) this one in a sunny shade of yellow

Wave petunias in a hanging basket, basking in the sunlight

Now, I can't wait for next spring :)