Hey Flower Floozie! WOW, you have a lot of pretty plants! The AVs are amazing! I love the succulents best. But you're right, the cutest flower is Ava. LOL

How do you keep all those watered in the summer? I try really hard to stay away from potted plants. It's so hot and dry here (probably like there). We can go two months without rain (and I never have time to water). The plants in the ground hang in there, but I always lose the potted plants, except the succulents, which I have an entire room full of right now. They're sooooo tough!

When will your husband accomplish his PhD? Will y'all get a house with dirt then? I just love my little lot. I ripped out all the grass and planted ornamentals everywhere. No Mow Grass is my motto. If you gotta mow it, it don't belong here. LOL

Amanda,
You've a wonderful garden. When I lived in an apartment, I wanted very badly to garden, but we had no sunny area at all.

Do you use any water absorbant crystals in your potting soil? I am going to try that this year for my potted plants.

Hi everybody! Thanks for your kind words. My husband will be finished with his PhD this school year; mechanical engineering. Hopefully wherever we move has room for all my plants! ;)
I've actually never used water absorbant crystals. I probably should! We don't get too hot here, even in the summer, but we also get not a single drop of rain for about 7 months straight-- April-October. Can't tell you how many hours I put in, especially in the summer, with my little watering can! Yup, that's right- I don't even have anything on a timer or anything. Oh well; I'm not amazing, just obsessed *lol*. It does give me a chance to visit everything every day. I don't water everything everyday, but it takes me 7 days in rotation to get to everything! I'm in so deep... ;)

Amanda 'romando'

I love your garden and some of the pictures look like something you would see in a gardening magazine. Thanks for sharing this, it's great for some like who's just beginning to see that the possibilities are endless!

Wow! Kitchen_phoenix, you made my day! Thanks for the kind words! I wanted to email you, but you don't have an address listed. Sometimes I feel clausterphobic when I go outside, but then again, I always seem to find 'just one more spot' for something else *lol* I completely cannot wait until I move into a space with more, well, SPACE, but I will forever have fond memories with my patio setup! I've learned so much, and will always always always keep some things in containers from now on! It's really amazing how many things you can grow in a container! I noticed earlier this week that my wisteria (yes! I have a wisteria) is budding for the first time ever! I've had it 3-4 years now (can't remember now) and it's setting its first buds. I'm beside myself with glee. Some people actually recommend wisteria being in containers, to keep it under control. Of course, that's not why mine's in a container-- I just wanted one and don't have any real ground! The things in my photo album are just the things in bloom (so they're spanning several months in time), so you don't see everything that I have at any given time. I also have clematis montana 'broughton star', mandevilla 'alice du pont', tons of tall bearded iris, lots of glads (I'm a first time glad grower this year!) and I actually have (gasp) 21 brugs. Only my Charles Grimaldi has bloomed yet (it's the biggest plant-- all started from cuttings this year). Of course, I am ill. Got it bad. Don't even ask my husband what he thinks about it all...(I don't *lol*) I think we'll have some heads butting come graduation time for him-- he just the other day said he doesn't want to take everything with us when it comes time to move. I mean furniture! He wants to leave our furniture here! Oh man, I think I'm gonna have to stand my ground about the plants... I have a feeling that if he doesn't even want to take our FURNITURE, he's sure as heck not gonna want to move plants! (But I know better... hehehehe) Anyway, I'm rambling... (I guess I go overboard with everything-- talking, typing, gardening, etc.)

Point: there's not much you can't do in a small space! In a way, I think it forces you to be more creative, which then spills out into other parts of your life. Go for it!

Amanda 'romando'