I've got the garden itch!

I am itching… for Spring time sunshine in my garden!! I really loved the past two days of sunshine here in the Pacific Northwest. I have been day dreaming of my garden - thinking about it on the sunny ferry ride home, before I go to bed at night, and while browsing the web for patio and garden ideas.  The other night, I was so tickled to get home with just a bit of sunshine left in the evening.  I was practically running home from the bus, anxious to throw my garden jeans and get outside to do some garden work.

So off I went, working with my new goodies from Clear Creek Nursery's big sale last weekend (which lasted the month of January), where just about everything was 50% off.  Because everything was on sale, I was able to get some extra special flower pots and plants that I normally wouldn’t splurge on all at once!

I love big flower planters, especially when a few are grouped together. But, my goodness, they can be expensive.  I decided on one larger copper colored pot with a mix of some brown and red tones. It’s really interesting and will go with just about anything out on our patio (furniture, flower colors, future fire pit, etc.). In it, I put my mini-Christmas tree (note: I removed the red glitter garland you see below) I previously had out on our front porch, and then separated plants from a planter I got at Costco a few months ago. Check it out:

Before:

After:

This flower pot will stay on our backyard patio.  For now it’s all alone on the patio, but hopefully in the next few months we’ll be adding outdoor furniture and some type of arbor sticking out from the garage, along with some extra pots to keep it company and get the grouped look. In the future I hope to add some bigger pots to our front and side door porch entrances, too. 

I also got a very sweet little turquoise colored pot that I am in LOVE with. There was a larger size as well that I was tempted to get for my big flower pot purchase, but I thought since it had more of a distinct style and bright color, it was better in the smaller size.  In it I put a new plant I also got at the sale, the Hellebores. I am in love with these romantic white flowers, and think it looks great in this pot.

This is a photo of the Hellebores plant from the Clear Creek Nursery Facebook page taken earlier this week: 

And here is the one I purchased in my pretty new pot.  Unfortunately, these were taken in the dark since the sunshine had left me (thank goodness for our patio light, I could garden all night!):

You can see it's kind of a champagne colored flower, white with hints of peachy pink colors towards the center. LOVE!

At the nursery sale, I also got a Clematis plant! I have been in love with Clematis plants for some time.  I love anything with vines, I just think the climbing and draping effect is so pretty.  I think the Clematis flowers are really romantic, and so I couldn’t wait to find one at a good buy that I could use against our garage by the patio.  Plus, after doing some research online, I found that the flowers are fragrant and attract bees, butterflies and birds. The one I got at Clear Creek Nursery is the evergreen variety, so even when the flowers fade, I'll have those deep green leaves throughout the winter.

I am glad I got it so early in the year, because it will have some time to start climbing our garage before the summer time.  I plan on adding some chicken wire to the side of the garage for it to grab onto, and will be keeping an extra close watch on it to be sure it doesn’t climb up too far and go under our rooftop.  I am going to plant it on the side of the garage that is closest to our house windows in the living room, so we can enjoy it from the inside, too, once it grows a bit more.

I haven't planted it yet, so here is a photo I found here as a sneak peek at what our climbing white Clematis flowers will look like:

On top of all these goodies, I got a big HUGE bag of potting soil from Costco.  My mother-in-law suggested I get it there because it’s such a good deal, and my goodness, she was right! I got this huge 25QT bag for about $12. Not bad! 

If anyone is hunting for some big flower planters, I would definitely recommend waiting for another Clear Creek Nursery sale. You can “friend” the nursery on Facebook to get the monthly ads, and it’s truly worth the wait for a higher ticket plant or flower pot.

Anyone else do any gardening this week?  Or enjoy the sunshine some other way?