Geraniums in the Window

Ever since I was a little girl I always loved the idea of flowers in the kitchen window, in particular brilliant red geraniums. 

 Referring back to my love of vintage (doesn't vintage sound better than old?) t.v. shows like Bewitched and the Waltons. Samantha always had the bright red geraniums in her kitchen window while Olivia Walton had a softer white flower on her sill.

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 But for the last ten years my kitchen windows have always had a lot of shade due to the beautiful maple that once stood about 25 feet from the back of our house. And since we had the shade I've always used impatiens, which I do love, in the boxes off of the kitchen windows. Well thanks to Super Storm Sandy last fall, I now have an abundance of afternoon light which will be pouring in through our kitchen windows this spring and summer, most of it being the stronger afternoon sun that I know geraniums love. So today I was on Pinterest and started pinning different ideas of geraniums in and around the house...here is some of what I pinned.

This final pic is from the Designer House Tour last spring in Bucks County Pennsylvania. Click here for the complete garden tour.

Aren't these all amazing ideas? Geraniums are simply a classic as far as I am concerned.

Although I am going to seriously miss my beautiful trees in the back, I am kind of excited about new flowers in my boxes! 

(Maybe even some new window boxes too.)

Have a great day!

XO

 Feel free to re-pin these pics from my board but not from here, I wouldn't want the owners of these photos not to receive proper credit. Just click here to re-pin.

Freshened Up Kitchen Table and Chairs

For the spring I decided to recover my kitchen chairs as the material on them previously had taken quite a beating, most especially the kids chairs. And you know me...if I am going to change one thing I usually have to take it one step further and change everything!

At the beginning of last fall my table and chairs looked like this...

Then I stripped and re-stained the table top about mid-fall. It looked a little better but I knew I was going to be changing the material on the seat cushions in the not to distant future, if not for any other reason than to match them better to my new buffalo check curtains.

So with a little chalk paint, a Minwax protective coat, and some remnent fabric I bought at a local fabric and upholstery store, my dinette set went from this...

To this...

Remember my little purchase from yesterday???

How does it look filled with flowers?
Click here to see what my container it really is!!

I hope your day is filled with beauty!!!

XO

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Fall Filled Farm Basket

 

Since we have been having so much in the way of rain recently, I haven't been able to start working on refinishing my kitchen tabletop. :(  So today I worked on another little project for the kitchen.

 

Now I am sure you all have seen the pretty ornamental grasses which at this time of the year begins to change color just as everything else. We have this grass around our pool area and it is so pretty that I thought I'd cut some to use in an arrangement for my kitchen.

 

 

When I brought the grass into the house it looked like this...

 

 

Kind of pretty I thought. But then after a few days it changed...and I love what happened to it. How cool is this??

 

 

It became fuzzy and turned from a purpley red to almost lavender in color.The texture of it is simply phenomenal!!!

 

 

So using my new farm basket I purchased last week at Home Goods for only $10, I placed in it the grass in a carafe along with a sugar pumpkin, a few faux pears and faux hydrangea to create this arrangement. I also poked in some freshly cut grass, you can see how much the grass changed! 

 

 

 

 

This was the easiest dang thing to do and I love love love how it came out! The color combination is so naturally beautiful...just like the colors appear in nature herself.(I also love shooting my photos in the natural light as well!!)

 

As I reveled earlier, this arrangement is going to eventually be in my kitchen...just not sure if on the table or the island. The powers that be are predicting that this period of rain we're experiencing should clear out of these parts by Friday, so I am really hoping that I will be able to at least finish sanding the tabletop and put a coat of Minwax on it. Then I will have to wait a couple days before applying the protective polyurethane. 

 

Hope you enjoy a wonderful day today!

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Arranging a Stunnning Window Box....Here's How

Do you ever wonder how people are able to create gorgeous, interesting and full looking arrangements in their window boxes? I just love to see them spilling over with an assortment of beautiful flowers and foliage. Take a look at some of the stunning window boxes I found on the Internet.

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This next window box may look a wee bit familiar to you...it is actually a window box in Cong, County Mayo Ireland.  I snapped this pic during our trip through the north of Ireland a few years back.

As it turns out I found this awesome website called Flower Framers and they have a wonderful tutorial on how to select the right flowers, place the window box correctly under your window, and how to plant and maintain healthy boxes. You must check it out for help in answering just about all of your planting questions. But for today I want to touch upon how to successfully arrange your window boxes.

Many people including myself, have made the mistake of placing the flowers in a row giving the arrangement a bit of a uniformed appearance. Kind of like a little boy's army men all lined up on the kitchen floor ready for battle. This doesn't do much in the way of making your flower box look very interesting or as if it is brimming over with beautiful plants. 

Below is a diagram from Flower Framers showing you how to place your flowers in the window box.

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They use a zigzag pattern and it is this pattern which will ensure that as the plants grow they'll have a much more bountiful and lush appearance. Also you need to place the plants in a graduated pattern.

Here's the simple recipe...

Start with the tallest plants in the back row, the bushier plants in the middle rows, and then the trailing plants in the front row. This will give your box that overflowing look which is so appealing.

For my window boxes I decided to go with a mix of foliage and flowers. My boxes are located in the front of the house which faces east so I get the full morning sun. The one problem I've always seemed to have run into in the past, is that as the summer months move along I begin to get less light in the front, and the sun loving flowers I typically plant in my boxes begin to fade. So this year I selected  a mixture plants which will keep their vibrant color even when less direct sunlight is available to them.

The plants I chose include Potato Vine, Coleus, Lantana, Lobelia, Lanium and Licorice Vine. The Coleus is the tallest plant I am using so it is placed in the back row of the box. The middle row has the Lanium and Lantana, and in the front are the Lobelia and Licorice Vine. The Potato Vine is both tall an trailing so I used it on either end of my box.

and...

Since I used several of the same plants as in this fabulous window box below from Better Homes and Gardens, my hope is that when the plants get larger my box will look something theirs.

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Window boxes are a wonderful way to add beautiful color and personality to your home. And having large lush plants taking over the boxes is to me, simply stunning.

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