Our Raised Gardens

One of our first projects last year at our new house was installing our raised garden beds. My dad so graciously build them for me. We installed four garden beds that are roughly 4 feet by 10 feet long. Awhile ago I a saw a photo of in ground beds with pavers in between them and I loved the look. We decided to use that as inspiration and installed pavers around our garden beds.

We dug up the sod and put down a layer of class five gravel. We then started laying the pavers. We purchased these from Lowe’s. There are no pavers directly under each garden bed, only the border. I have absolutely loved having these pavers. It makes mowing so much easier. It is also nice to walk in-between them. Weeds are very minimal. I spray a homemade mixture of salt and vinegar to keep weeds from growing between the pavers.

Once the pavers were in done, we set the raised beds in place. We used the sod, extra branches and grass clippings to fill the bottom of the beds. We filled the remaining portion with garden soil and compost.

These raised beds have made gardening so much more enjoyable. They are easy to maintain and I was able to plant as soon as the weather allowed this spring. Our plants are flourishing, especially the tomatoes. I have never had tomato plants as large before! So many of my neighbors have asked about them and my dad has even had orders placed for raised garden beds as a result!

Window Box

Ever since we started building our home last year I imagined a window box on our front window. I searched the internet for the best window box and came across flowerwindowboxes.com. When searching for a window box I was looking for a well built, 7 foot window box in white. This was surprisingly difficult to find as many of the options available at different retailers were either shorter than 7 feet or made out of plastic and had to be assembled with glue upon delivery. Flowerwindowboxes.com was the clear choice after much searching. We ended up going with the Charleston series as I loved the traditional style of it. I also ordered the self-watering insert. This has been wonderful asset as our window box is located on the sunny south side of our home. I only have to fill the self watering feature every other day and my plants stay nice and moist!

Here is the before photo. You can see what such a difference the window box full of flowers makes and adds such curb appeal and the finishing touch to our front garden!

When ordering, I selected the brick/rock mounting hardware kit. This came with everything we needed to mount the box to our existing stone. With some help from my amazing dad we were able to mount it ourselves in less than an hour! Great detailed instructions were included. Flowerwindowboxes.com also has videos on their website that are helpful to watch before installing.

The construction of this window box is absolutely beautiful. They are handmade by craftsman in Georgia and shipped fully assembled which is a huge plus. Once shipped, it only took a few days to ship from Georgia to Minnesota. Everything was packaged nicely and arrived on-time with no damage.

I could hardly wait to plant once it was installed. I was able to plant a couple hours later once the silicone caulk set up. I filled it flowers to match my front containers in purples, pinks and white hues. I used variegated vinca vine, raspberry swirl petunia, white bacopa, white calibrachoa, supercells doublet love swept calibrachoa, white geranium and Angelonia.

Container Gardens

Warm weather is finally here! That means it is planting time!

This was my first year designing containers for our new house! I used the fiber clay pots from Woodlodge and love how they turned out! They are low maintenance and can stay outside during the winter. This year’s color scheme was pinks, white, and soft purples.

For the front of our house I used purple fountain grass, Superbells Double Love Swept calibrachoa (I love these!), white bacopa, headliner raspberry swirl petunia, angelonia big purple bicolor, variegated vinca vine, Supertunia Vista Bubblegum petunia and a light purple verbena. I am hoping they fill out as I had envisioned as right now they look a little bland.

I love how our black patio containers and hanging baskets turned out! In my containersI used Gulliver blue bacopa, white bacopa, Americana salmon geranium, Supertunia Vista Bubblegum petunia, Superbells Double Love Swept ccalibrachoa, Angelonia big bicolor purple, a double ball Eugenia, and goldilocks. Originally I had planned to plant licorice vine instead of goldilocks, but I ended up going with my go-to goldilocks. I like that the lime green color brightens the shady patio area. I will have to try licorice vine next year as it was sold out right away this year!

In my hanging baskets I used white bacopa, Superbells Double Love Swept calibrachoa, Americana Salmon geranium and Supertunia Vista Bubblegum petunia.

I picked up all of my plants from Gertens and Pahl’s Market this year. As always I was so impressed with the quality of plants and selection at both nursery’s. I cannot wait for all of my containers to fill out as the summer progresses!

Best,

Rachel

#Containers #Gertens #ContainerGardening #Woodlodge #Flowers #Pahl039sMarket