Dragon's Orchid Garden

Most of the plants in our garden are in  terracotta pots.  Potted plants can be moved around until they find their happy place.  We're still working on making planting beds which is a lot of work in this sandy Florida soil.  It's much easier to find a pot, fill it with medium and put the plant in it.  I used to mix my own planting mix using top soil, manure, some peat moss soaked in water and vermiculite, but now I'm lazy and just buy bagged potting mix for all but the orchids. My handy husband, Wayne, is a yard sale meyven and has, more than once, found a bonanza of clay pots at a sale.  We have them cleaned and stacked in a shed and under the orchid tables waiting for just the right plant. Recently, our favorite family run nursery, Duncheon's , ran a "buy one get one free" sale. Wayne went there every weekend for the month of the sale and picked up at least two beautiful pots each time, mostly glazed in cobalt blue, my favorite color.  Here are s...

Almost everything in our garden is junk.  Junk is good.  Junk is mostly free or very cheap.  Throw nothing away.  It can almost always be used for something else.  Our kitchen scraps become compost to feed the plants, banana peels are tossed into the hanging stag horn ferns.  We use water from a rain barrel.  We are not too proud to pick up neighbors trash.  Well, I'm a little shy about that, but I'll tell Wayne about the clay chiminea a neighbor has sitting out for trash collection and he trucks right down there to ask her if he can have it.  It had a chip out of the top.  It's just amazing what people will toss. We put the little chiminea out on the patio with an orchid sitting on top and a candle inside.  Someone else's discarded baker's rack is now a plant stand.  Orchids sit on an old chair. I've found lots of great ideas in Garden Decoration from Junk by Leeann MacKenzie.  One idea we've put to use is to hang old ...