It was definitely a water-your-pots-and-planters-every-day type of summer. I only fell down on the job one day, and boy were my plants unhappy. While I was pretty convinced my Sunpatiens and zinnias had wilted beyond repair, they did indeed rally after a good soaking and about 6 hours of pouting.
My husband built me some beautiful planters in early June. Because it’s finally safe to grow regular impatiens again after an industry-wide growing issue with “impatiens downy mildew” about 10 years ago, that’s what I wanted to put in these new planters. Impatiens cultivars that are resistant to that disease are becoming more readily available, and this year was the first year I bought impatiens from a garden center in a long time.
While it’s not the flashiest color, ‘Tidal Wave’ petunias have never disappointed me, so I made sure to fill a barrel with them this spring. I also partnered them with a few ‘Raspberry Ice’ Opera Petunias.
And those ‘Raspberry Ice’ petunias looked great on their own in a pot! Usually by now petunias start to wind down—pooped out from blooming all summer. But not these petunias. I took this photo last week. They are still going strong in September!
I love to take photos of my petunias when they peek out of the other side of the lattice:
My hands-down favorite flowers to grow in containers this summer were Preciosa zinnias. I don’t think I had a single spent (done blooming) flower for at least 6 weeks this summer . The drought helped with that because the flowers never got wet, and I always watered at the plants’ base.
These gorgeous zinnias grow 10 to 12 inches tall with 4-inch flowers in shades of yellow, orange, red, white and pink.