I didn't get the blues
Patriotic Disaster!
Debbie Teashon
I love planting my own hanging baskets. I usually stay away from petunias. The rare times when I do plant them I go for one color and toss the plants when they get to the point I don't want to deal with them – around midsummer. Yet for this basket, I planted a patriotic color scheme for a hanging basket. The petunias grew well!
Then they began to bloom. Unfortunately, my hanging basket turned out not so right in color. Ya, the lavender petunias were supposed to be a deep blue. Tag mix-up? Seems strange as all three of them were lavender.
Maybe I wasn't so patriotic after all. I tried to salvage the mess.
First, I thought just live with it. And I tried, but every time I walked by the red, white and lavender, I would avert my eyes. Pastels with jewel tones together give me the jitters, like I was having a color hangover.
No, no, no, I couldn't put up with the color monstrosity any longer.
I pruned the lavender petunias to the soil line. Problem became apparent that being so late in the season by the time I got around to it, the whole basket was a flop. I mean flopping plants of red white, and gaping holes.
I took it down and carted the whole mess to the compost heap. I'll stick to creeping gloxinias (Lophospermums) in my hanging baskets and containers (see the one in the pic?) in the future, and be ruthless in editing out a disaster earlier in the season.
Gardening for the Homebrewer: Grow and Process Plants for Making Beer, Wine, Gruit, Cider, Perry, and More
By co-authors Wendy Tweton and Debbie Teashon (Rainy Side Gardeners)
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