FALL ON THE FRONT PORCH

Welcome to the...

FALL PORCH TOUR

This year' porch is a celebration of fall's glorious colors!

Pumpkins galore and so much more. Come and join me on the porch...

SUMMER PORCH PLANTING

Every year in the cold month of February I start dreaming about summer flowers! 

My thoughts turn to planting the pots around the porch... a wonderful diversion from the frosty, windy weather outside!

This year's theme and flowers are VERY different than anything I have ever done...

This weekend I planted ENDLESS BLOOM hydrangeas in my newly painted urns. Look for an upcoming post about painting a pot to look aged.

The theme for this year's front porch is SOUTHERN BELLE.  I want a porch that bids a big southern welcome to all who visit... even thought I am a northern girl!

Hydranges are my pick for the porch this year!

For some reason these showy old fashioned flowers remind me of the grace of the south!

Endless Beauty is an everblooming hydrangea... it should bloom from spring right through autumn.  The flowers can change colors too... from pink to blue.  I am keeping my soil a little on the acidic side so the blooms will stay blue. I think blue will look pretty against the Pennsylvania limestone facade of StoneGable.

Hopefully, the plant will fill in the pot and big moppy headed blooms will spill over it...

Right before the first frost I'll take them out of their urns and plant them in the garden. Next spring I can put them back in their urns on the porch... at least that is what our very reliable garden center employee says!

The spring forsythia wreath will be replaced today with a summer wreath with a more southern belle feel!

Here's one more glimpse of the forsythia wreath...

I'm excited to see how these urns look as summer progresses!

Come back tonight and join 

TUTORIALS TIPS AND TIDBITS
show up and show off your creativity... any little tidbit will do

FALL ON THE FRONT PORCH

Decorating my front porch for fall is like a musical crescendo.  Fall decor starts quietly on the front door and over a month builds and builds....

Next, urns of fall flowers are filled... then pumpkins are added to the door transom...

And finally the full symphony of fall finery appears...



This year I decided to decorate just around my front door.

I exchanged the sunflower in my arrangement for a couple pumpkins and a gourd.

Early fall....

Now...

The urns I planted a month ago have really filled in.  I also added a couple of pumpkins here and there.

You can learn about what I planted in my urns by clicking HERE.

Early fall...




Now...

The left side of the front door...

The chair on the porch belonged to my great grandmother and I painted it black years ago. I took it from my kid's bathroom and stacked pumpkins on it!

On the right side of the porch I added a bushel basket filled with grasses, sage, Black Eyed Susan's, thyme and other fillers.

The lanterns have battery operated candles on timers. They throw off a soft glow at night.

My front door welcomes fall... and YOU!

Next week look for my fall decorated potting bench on the back porch!

OVERFLOWING WITH CREATIVITY

THE SECOND FRONT DOOR

It is the most glorious day here at StoneGable. Sorta like living in San Diego today! You know those days... warm, breezy, sunny, low humidity, birds singing...lawn edger whirling, trucks up and down the driveway,   voices of hearty men wafting through the open windows, men heaving mulch everywhere ... wait!!!... what?

The mulch men are here today! I am not complaining because for the last two years we have not mulched our gardens ourselves, thank goodness. I am very very grateful for that

Here is how the mulch men fit into today's post...

My original posting plan was to take photographs of some pretty vignettes around the porch and gardens this morning. The camera is so kind in early morning light. The flowers are blooming, the pots are full of blooms too! Did I mention, it is a glorious, San Diego type day at StoneGable?

But, the mulch men are here. Throwing dirt, grass and mulch all over everything... including my pretty vignettes! And now the soft morning light has taken a harsher late morning turn!

One of the safe places this morning is my front porch. Did you know that I have a second front door?

Not a main door, but a door that goes to my study and the second stairs and the guest suite?

It is set back a little from the main house, sorta tucked away.  It does not look like an important door, so it is not often used by anyone other than family.

The flowers in the foreground are Annabelle hydrangeas.  Their big moppy white heads will soon be making a showy appearance around the front porch!

This summer I decorated the second front door with a basket filled with white annuals. I have used this basket for year. It is quite textural and sturdy! The white flowers look so delicate next to it.

The basket hang by a rusty brass hook because the basket is so very heavy and nothing else will hold it! The brass hook suites the door. If you look under the window there is a small brass plate with our last name on it. It has gone with us to every new house for thirty years.

Petunias, Snowstorm and  White Helitrope fill the basket. I think they will be happy on the second front door!

I have some fun garden surprises to show you next week! We are putting up a couple new birdhouses in the veggie garden today!

I hope you are having a San Diego day wherever you are!

I am participating in:

SEASONAL SUNDAYS

FRONT PORCH FLOWERS

I look forward to THIS weekend all year! I think about it in the cold and dreary winter months... and as the time approaches the excitement builds!

This is the weekend Bobby and I go flower shopping! We peruse our local greenhouses. I want to hit every Amish greenhouses dotting the countryside!  Bobby is really there to lift and carry... and watch me as I dance down the isles filled with all sorts of plants, lost in a floral frenzy...

I LOVE deciding what I will plant in all of the porch planters at StoneGable.

I even have themes for each year's designs... A SALUTE TO OUR MILITARY ~red, white and blue, the year our son enlisted... BRIDAL BLUSH~ soft blushy pinks and frilly whites, the year our daughter got married,  CACOPHONY~ a profusion of whatever I felt like planting that year.

Cacophony 2009

I called last year SHADOWS AND LIGHT~ a mix of purples and whites.

Here is a glimpse of  just a couple of pots planted last year.

Last evening I (well, Bobby and son Christopher) filled the back of my car with some of this years flowers.

I was out in my pj's early this morning taking these pictures of the back of my car. Can you see the direction I am going this year?

Last year's mix of purples, whites and greens worked so well with my front porch. I think I will do something similar this year... just with more white.

This years theme is...

WHITE BLISS

Now I am off to find more frilly white flowers! I hope those Amish buggies don't slow me down!!!!