Plant of the day-Gomphrena globosa

Globe Amaranth/Bachelor Button
Gomphrena globosa

Globe Amaranth is a fun little flower that can add a bright pop of color to your planters. It's a mounding annual, attracts butterflies and is very hardy.

They need full sun and are drought tolerant (although they're a fan of regular watering)

These are a long blooming flower so if you put them in during the spring, you can enjoy them all the way until fall. As a bonus, you can dry these flowers and they'll look basically the same as they do while they're blooming. I have a purple specimen featured here but you cal also get red, white, lilac and pink flowers.

Fun facts

• On Brother's Day, in Nepal, sisters may use the flowers for a garland for their brothers which represents protection.  
• The seeds are used as a food source in some parts of South America and can be used to make flour and beers.
• The flowers have been used to make a tea thought to treat gripe, coughs and diabetes.

When life gives you lemons, landscape!

Last year, one of the winter storms here took out part of the old cherry tree in the front yard. It was one of those early season snows that came before all the leaves had fallen off. A number of branches broke and by the time we pruned back the unhealthy parts, the tree looked pretty bad so we took down the last sad little branch and were left with a stump.

 

This was the cherry tree, last year.

I decided to throw some pots on the stumps because why not. This was a remarkably easy DIY planter. All you do is find some planters (I recommend terra cotta or another porous/semi-porous material because you'll want really good drainage up here. I attached 4 glazed terra cotta pots because they were pretty and at Tuesday Morning, the most expensive pot was 10 dollars. Make sure they have a drainage hole in the bottom or you'll have to drill one yourself.)

Then, all you need is some bigish screws and washers. Make sure the washer is larger than the drainage hole, this is what will help keep your pot in place if you have particularly slanty angles like I did. You can drill a starter hole in the stump first (if you want to make it a little easier on your drill) then situate your pot, put the washer on the screw and put the whole shebang through the drainage hole on the pot. Tighten so the pots are secure but not so tight that the pots crack. Then you're ready to go!

 

Ta-da! Now you have an interesting, eye catching fixture in your garden and you didn't have to go stumpin'!

I'm sure this isn't for everyone but I absolutely love the way this looks and how easy it is to transform the planters. Above I have it filled with daffodils that had started to spring up all over my garden. Since then, I took the daffodils out (saved the bulbs of course!) and put some annuals in the pots.

This is what it looks like now

Adventures of Garden Girl

Didn't I tell you I suck at blogging? I used to be better at it. That was before life hit me with a litany of to dos that I don't usually want to do. Like laundry or having a job where wearing my sheep jammies are looked down upon. Not that I don't like my job or having a job, I just like working at home because everyone there says my jams are awesome.

What I have been up to however is gardening. I've always liked it but more as a passerby. A few tomatoes in the backyard, some planters on the poach. This year however, I went balls to the wall. Go big or go home. Since I'm already at home I'm not sure where I'd go. Maybe inside to take a nap.

Anyway, I started a lot of seedlings and build a ton of raised bed gardens (full disclosure, I supervised the building because I probably would have just started them on fire if left to my own devices) and have been planting like crazy since the danger of frost has passed.

I've also gotten involved in the transition gardening movement. I'm not worried that the world will end or anything like that (I'd be drinking a lot more if this were the end of days, not planting corn) but I do like the idea of eating things I've grown. Like a mother hamster. And I like the idea of harvesting and processing my own herbs and what not. Or just growing them. I'm not really sure how far I'll go with all this. It's possible I'll just be a helpful resource to others because I do know a great deal about herbs and what they can do so yay.

I'll be documenting all the things in my garden so here's a preview of the flower part: