Geranium Love

I can't tell you how happy I am this year pottering about in my little  4m x 4m back yard, prettifying it for the summer. It really is the tiniest of spaces but it feels cosy and manageable and gives me just enough outdoor space to play in without any tremendous responsibility. It is somewhere that I can sit with a morning coffee, crochet a little, chat with friends, play with Little B, grow flowers, sip a chilled drink on a sunny weekend afternoon with J and hang my laundry out to dry. And really, that is absolutely all I require from an outside space. Open greenery and a view would be lovely but at this busy time in my life, truthfully I am glad that I'm not burdened with hours of garden labour. Small and easy suits us just fine.

So I've got this collection of old pots which have been cleared of weeds and dead things, waiting to be planted up with summer colour. It's exciting! For various reasons I'm without a car so I can't indulge in any major garden retail therapy at a nursery or garden centre. Instead I am trickling in a few pots at a time when I can manage/remember, picking them up from the market or with the supermarket shop and carrying them carefully home with the groceries.

This year, I am mainly filling my pots with cheap and cheerful geraniums. I love these humble flowers very much, love that they don't mind a bit of drought, and that the substantial local mollusk population don't seem to like nibbling them either. In short, they are resilient and that suits my rather slap dash approach to gardening.

But most of all I love the colour of geraniums. I absolutely adore the bright and bold shots of red and pink dancing above all that greenery, it just makes my heart sing a happy song!

When I bought these plants, the flower buds were very tightly closed and so I only have a vague idea of what colour they will turn out to be. The plants all had labels so I was able to leave the white ones behind, picking out the reds and pinks, but I am still waiting for them to bloom....

...ooooooh, I am really looking forward to seeing this one open fully, I think I may swoon a little at that delicious red/pink petal combo!

Back in the Springtime before geraniums were really on my mind at all, I happened to catch sight of a pretty geranium mosaic on Facebook, made my the talented Felicty of Just Mosaics. There is a whole bouquet of mosaic flowers that you can choose from on Felicity's website, and you may remember that I already have a vase of tulips here in the Attic. That's her beautiful studio up above there look, where she creates her mosaic pieces, isn't it lovely?

Well, I loved the original red geraniums design that first caught my eye, but decided to write to Felicity and ask if she might possibly make me my very own picture which had both red and pink flowers in it. I also asked if I could maybe have my sky background just a little bluer please, if at all possible, and sorry to be so demanding, please, thank you! Bless Felicity, she is the kindest and most accommodating person, and she assured me that I could indeed have flowers in two colours, and a nice blue summer sky.

An extra-special thing that Felicity also did was to email me little progress updates as she was making my picture. Such fun! I watched each day as the flowers bloomed (in red and pink!), and then as the stems and leaves grew. I saw the terracotta pot arrive, and then the most gorgeous blue sky surrounding it all. And then, oh, what the heck??!! I got to see a mucky mess!! I think Felicity really got a bit of a kick out of sending me that particular progress report, naughty thing! But then finally, the finished picture was there on my screen and I was absolutely thrilled. It was just as I had imagined it in my mind.

The real deal is very much more beautiful than the screen images, I have to say. The colours are beautifully vibrant in real life, and of course it is all glossy and shiny and bounces light around the place which adds to the colour intensity of the tiles.

I can tell you (cos I just this minute counted) that there are seventy six individual pieces in this mosaic. I just love thinking about things like that, like wondering how many thousands of stitches are in my crochet blankets. I love handmade things very, very much. The talent, the time and the love that goes into designing and making handmade things is incredibly inspiring and a little bit mind boggling.

I've hung my mosaic geraniums in my kitchen, above my kitchen sink. Sorry I can't show you them in situ but my kitchen is rather small, dark and dreary and it's very hard to take pictures in there. I tried, but they all turned out fuzzy and pretty rubbish. You'll just have to imagine it, and know that it makes me smile many, many times each day.

Now tell me.....what are your favourite summer flowers for growing in pots?? I'm going to visit the plant stall at the market tomorrow and wonder what would look terrrifc with oodles of geraniums. Marguerites? Petunias? Marigolds? Go on, throw some floral ideas at me!

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ps if you like to bob about on Facebook, do go say hello to Felicity {Just Mosaics}, her page is a riot of colourful creativity ♥

 

♥...more little snippets from the Attic...♥

2012 :: Year End Review :: flowers

Open Studio :: June 2013

Comments

[sooz]

I love Livingstone Daisies the most! You could probably fit some strawberry plants in your pots too!

[Deb]

Lobelias are fantastic and come in a range of blues, they would look fab next to geraniums ;-)

[Jay]

Geraniums always say summer to me but by my front door this year is white marguerites and white lobelia, in two white pots.

[Pamela]

My most favouritest! flower of all time is the peony HOWEVER!! it flowers for such a short time, blink and you'll miss it:) So maybe some cosmos which I also love. :)

[Lynne]

Geraniums are a favourite of mine too. I love the colours, the easy growing. It's simple to take cuttings as well. I especially like that the snails don't like them. This year I've been growing pansies too. But I noticed that the tops were all being nipped off. By what though? The culprit was caught on camera, a little mouse. Naughty thing.

[Gillian]

I love geraniums - they're so versatile. There are lots of other flowers you could pot up too. Lobelia is a good idea, snap dragon and dahlias are gorgeous. I have to admit to actually counting the number of stitches in some of the blankets I've made!

[marge]

Paint the wall! Paint the wall! …………. or ask J very very nicely to paint the wall - then you'll really get the seaside vibe

[Carine07]

Your mosaic is wonderful, and certainly brings cheerfulness in your kitchen.
Maybe gaura http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaura (pink or white) for their long stems with flowers until fall.

[K Parkin]

How about trying some scented geraniums such as orange fizz (these have pink flowers too) together with some delicious variagated lemon balm? Every time you brush past you get an uplifting smell.

[Nicole]

Well said Christina above! There are so very jealous people in the world unfortunately. Now onto niceties :-)

I like primroses because they come in so many colours, but lobelia is also really good for dangling out of hanging baskets.

Fuchsias? If you get hardy ones they'll last and they have beautiful flowers!

[Isabella]

I like yellow nasturzi!

[ilka]

fuchsias!

[Christina]

To "Emma" who posted earlier. What are you doing wasting money on internet access when you could be sending the money to Oxfam or a UK food bank?
It's ludicrous having a pop at someone for spending their own hard earned cash on something like flowers. She's not trafficking old ladies or growing heroin. Butt out and instead of complaining about the plight of poor people do something about it.

[Pat Yates]

Pansies in deep purple and crimson.

[Jackie]

What a lovely cheerful post and I love your mosaic.
I too love geraniums in pots but also fushias. How about some lobelia in a gorgeous blue to trail down round your geraniums? I've done that with my fushia this year.

Jackie x

[Joy]

love your geranium mosaic. Royal blue and pale blue lobelia are a must with the vibrant reds and pinks and they bush up and will fill the bottom of your pots xx lots of love Joy xx

[Adele]

Gazanias are long lasting, good value and slugs/snails leave them alone. However I can't remember if they only come in yellows and oranges - too much of a clash? x

[Jo in Jersey]

Gorgeous, Lucy. I too love the colour of hot pink geraniums, and I plant mine in big aqua and blue pots with some light blue trailing lobelia round the edges, which fill the gaps and give lovely contrast, just spilling down the sides. My roses are delicious at the moment too - wish I could send you a picture! Love, Jo x

[Rachael]

I have some accidental flowers in the allotment that I love. Marguerites seem to come back every year, there are some massive 6ft spikes of purple flowers that are as yet unidentified and some achillea. The ones I really love (and the insects do too) are the veg that have gone to seed. At the moment we have a self seeded parsnip with yellow umbelifferous flowers and soon, no doubt my artichokes will flower with bright blue thistle like flowers. They are very impressive when they bloom. I suppose I should eat the artichokes really but they are such a faff, I think I'd rather enjoy the flowers.

[Angela-Southern USA]

Such fun, playing in the dirt! (I've been in it this morning, transplanted 40 tomato plants.) Geraniums are beautiful, I especially love the neon bright ones, and the ones with variegated leaves. Petunias is a must for my hanging baskets every year, and so many colors to choose from. A no fuss vine to grow and has the deepest color of blue and purple would be morning glories, easy to grow from seed too, they'll even re-seed themselves for next year. :) A beautiful mosaic! I've done a few, the last one was daisies on a basket lid. Happy gardening!

[Sapna]

Hi Lucy,

Greeting from other side of the Atlantic. I love geraniums too. My favorite being pink with white streaks, called peppermint.

I love marigolds, fuschias, nasturtiums , zinnia and my absolute favorite alyssum as they perfume the whole place. I am not a fan of petunia, as they stop flowering if you dont pick the spent ones. I have started loving dahlias as you can store the tubers in a plastic bag in winter in a cool, dark place and plant them in pots in spring. My dahlias are 5 years old now. Lovely as cut flowers for a posy.

Have colorful summer,
Sapna

[Linda Ball]

Lovely! Haven't dropped by in a long while, but was so thrilled to see you mentioned in a magazine recently and now you are really a hooking celeb!!! Love everything you write about and your creations are inspiring-made me put down the needles and pick up the hook!

[Susan M]

My favorite flowers are sweet peas!

[Carol Partridge]

Just been looking at this....cloudappreciationsociety.org
Maybe you should join, Lucy. Some unbelieveable formations.

[Cherie Chudyk]

I too love geraniums always plant a few in pots in my garden. Amazing some of them survived the winter outside this time. Also have fushia's in pots that survive the winters. Love lavender, wonderful scent when it blows around. Have fun with them, making a splash of colour. x