Port Potager

For years I was working with a very limited palette for the flower garden that wraps around the house: all white, with a few touches of red in spots . This was very elegant, but now that we’ve begun painting the house yellow, I’ve found myself leaning toward orange and blue plants. I love the yellow-orange-blue color combination, and we were really happy with how our swath of orange tulips worked with the new paint color this spring . As is always the case with a flower garden, plants don’t live for ever. This year when I went shopping to fill in some holes, I reached for some more colorful plants to mix in with those white ones. They’re not all blooming right now, but here are a few that have opened for a sneak peak of next year’s color palette: These apricot blanket flowers actually have orange centers, but it’s hard to tell in this picture. That makes them blend well with the little orange petunias I have sprinkled along the very front of the border: Since I have ...

This week I've been self-medicating my winter depression with flower seed catalogues. We are just a couple inches away from breaking the record for the snowiest winter of all time here in Newburyport, but I've been thinking about color instead of white. My second stop for seed shopping was at Johnny's Seeds  (my favorite). These pictures (obviously) are all from their catalogue.  Florist Blue Boy Cornflower Apricot/Peach Mix Strawflower Covent Garden Market Baby's Breath Sun Ball Drumstick Flower Arena III Apricot Lisianthus Chinese Forget-Me-Not Animation Mix Snapdragons Johnny's Sublime Formula Mix Larkspur I really can't wait to get these started. It's like planting hope.