A good dose of the blues

I am (finally) getting around to doing some planting and outdoor sprucing up around here.

By the time I went to the local nursery to get my plants, things were rather picked over, the selection variety was a bit slim, and they were starting to get a bit leggy and pot-bound.

There were still a few good things to pick from and I came home with a truck-load.

For the past several years I have gravitated to pinks and whites because they are cheerful, cooler, and stand out at night a bit better.  However, this year, these burgundy geraniums seemed to be calling out to me.

So, I picked up a flat of Dusty Miller

and some rosemary for the little urns outside the kitchen windows,

and several of the burgundy geraniums to use as a bit of a filler, a half-flat of white petunias to use as a bit of a spiller,

and one of my favorites of all time to use as the thriller - blue salvia.  I got a flat and a half of that.  There were a couple of other stray plants which made it into my cart as well.

I have always loved this stuff!  I love the deep green foliage.  I love the blue spires of flower heads.  I love how it bushes out and stands up.  I love the sage-y fragrance.  Mostly, I love that it is a blue flower because I am truly a blue lover!

I had them in the flower beds at my past two houses and they would sometimes come back the next summer.  I haven't had them to come back at this house, yet.  So, they are probably all going into pots this year.

I also picked up a flat of purple-y-blue petunias to cascade over the side of pots to add another dose of blue.

I plopped all these into my blue-and white pots and my black pots that set up on clay feet

and the pairs of concrete urns I have in the back yard and in the clay pots I have at the front porch.  I also planted some in the square pots that climb up the retaining wall.

Many of the petunias seemed leggy and pot-bound when I transplanted them from the flat.  So, I simply cropped them back to short little stems and am willing to be patient and wait for them to return to glory with more bush-y-ness.

I didn't have the heart to clip some of the petunias back even though they needed it because they had buds ready to pop open.  So, they will get a trim next week.

I also didn't have the heart to yank out the few pansies that have burst into bloom after all the rainy weather we've had.  So, they will remain till it gets just too hot for them and then out they will go as well.

I've been sweeping away the leaves, dust, and dirt left from the fall winds and winter snows and everything at our outside rooms seems so much fresher and cleaner.

Just like every other room in our house, I feel like I've given our outdoor ones a good dose of the blues!