A Couple of Awesome Garden Tips...plus some pretty pictures

Garden Tip #1 - Big containers look great by a gate or your front door, but it takes a lot of soil to fill them.  Most annuals have fairly shallow root systems, though, so save yourself some soil (and money) by filling the bottom third to half of large containers with something besides soil before adding potting mix.  Good "fillers" include rinsed detergent bottles (with the lids on), chunks of packing foam from appliances or electronics, or non-biodegradable foam  peanuts. (Two exceptions are tomatoes and basil - these both grow well in containers, but they need a lot of moisture to produce well, so you're better off filling the entire container with soil.)

Garden Tip #2 - Layers a plastic bag inside the coco fiber or sphagnum peat moss liner in hanging baskets will help keep your basket from drying out too quickly.  Be sure to poke a few holes in the bottom so plants don't drown, though.

The Columbine is in full bloom right now.  My plants aren't very big, but I have 3 or 4 of them scattered around my perennial bed.

My Knock Out Rose are blooming also.......I have one on each side of our "Triangle Garden"
 

I've got some more gardening to do this week......dig up an ornamental grass that's dying and I'm going to replace it with some new daylilies that I bought.  I also need to divide and transplant some of our Iris.  Once that stuff is done, then I can put down new mulch, but I think I'll wait until next weekend to do that.

Hope you're all enjoying the outdoors and digging in the dirt!