I've devoted several blog posts to the edibles in our backyard/grow room but haven't mentioned much about the other fun stuff. I now keep all my flower beds filled with perennials. That's just much easier for me. But, I do still fill lots of pots with fun annuals. I so look forward to this trip to the garden center each year! Little boy accompanied me and pointed out his favorites as we carefully planned our purchases.

And Girl 2 helped me with the potting. She mostly enjoyed getting dirty and wet, but she also asked a lot of questions about what things are called and why we were grouping them together and such. It was a lot of fun to have her working alongside me.

This is our pot we made for the front porch this year. It has some of my favorites from our trip to the garden center. Because I am going minimal and only having one pot on the front porch this year, I wanted to put some of the things with the biggest impact in this pot.

Here's what it contains. The Cordyline is the tall, spiky plant. It is perennial, so it should be reuseable from year to year. I love the foliage of the New Guinea Impatiens. The green of the Margarita Sweet Potato Vine is always a favorite of mine. And, we threw in some classic impatiens as well (because I know from years past that they love this particular spot on the porch).

And, yes, I do realize that I've mixed Sun plants with Shade plants. I've done it in the past and things have gone fine for my pots. Am I sure that these combinations will be great in the locations I've put them in? Absolutely not. But, I think the only thing that you can be sure of in gardening is that you will learn. So, I've kept a log of what I've planted where and will keep up with its success or failure and use that info to guide my decisions for future pottings.

I love this little grouping on the back porch. It's hard to see in this pic because it's set against the green of the grass, but the tall, purple-flowered plant in the largest planter is a real show-stopper. It's called Senorita Rosality and is a version of the Spider Flower. Also, in the big planter, the lime green color of this "tickly plant," as my little helper called it, is mimicked by the sweet potato vine in the bottom left pot. And all three pots have a plant or two of red verbena to visually unify the grouping.

Some plants from the big planter.

The smaller left planter.

The smaller right planter. I love Dusty Miller. It's just such a different shade than all the other foliage. It really creates contrast.

Also in these pots are some perennial grasses transplanted from last year's pots and some ivy that I grow in-ground in the front yard to use in pots each year.

Ahhhh, sweet lavender! I absolutely love the smell of lavender. If my little boy was much older, he probably would have been embarrassed by how many times I just kept picking it up out of my cart at the garden center and smelling it. This plant smells so strongly that when I had it sitting in the garage when I got back from the garden center, one of my kids asked what that smell was as soon as she'd walked into the room.

I placed this pot next to my double-chaise (my most favorite place to sit ever!) so that I can enjoy it's lovely fragrance as I relax. (Yes, I do relax sometimes. :)

I apparently didn't take a picture of its contents, but it's just the large lavender plant, some Impatiens, and a Dusty Miller.

If you can't tell, I'm into height this year for my pots. This pot gets its height from the Red Riding Hood grass. My helper then added Dusty Miller and Imptiens in a pattern of "flowers then leaves, flowers then leaves" all around the edge of the pot.

The three plants in the pot. I hope this grass does well because I love its purple color.

This pot was nearly full of things that had survived from last year. So, in hopes that it would do the same again this year, I just added the Lilyturf (which is also perennial) for height (of course ;). Oh, and we threw in one Impatiens that we had leftover after we'd done all other pots.

Lilyturf used in this pot. I love the variegated shoots.

Not pictured, I always hang ferns from the front porch. I love the way they swing in the spring breezes. And, we potted another hanging basket for the back porch that's just full of pink begonias.

We had a few Begonias left, so I rewarded my helper with her very own hanging basket that she hung from the playhouse. :)