Plants

Spring is definitely here. The clocks have changed, the daffodils look lovely, and the trees are starting to wake up. All this green and new growth gets us at Embar Pottery thinking about this years plants.

We usually get and grow a selection of plants for making our stand at the shows look nice, and also for planting in some of our pots. Its amazing how a few plants can change a pot.

(apology in advance, I got a bit carried away with the photos for this post!)

So I have planted some Gazania seeds, which according to the packet will have orange flowers and are currently this big...

 

I like to grow orange flowers to decorate our table with, as our colour theme for the stand is brown/cream, so orange looks really good.

I am also nurturing some baby spider plants, which provide a bit of spiky structure to our plant life

Here they are being admired by one of my chickens!

The potter has been busy making some new style planters which have a bowl at the bottom, and then in the middle there is a raised platform with a small bowl at the top, to give a layered effect to the plants.
This is the planter in progress, it will have the same sandy texture as our green men, after it has been fired.

 

The planter came out of the kiln this week, so is now ready for planting up. Last week, the potter and I went plant shopping and came home with these....

They are all rockery/container plants so they should look and grow beautifully in our new planter. The project for this week is to plant them out.

One planter that I have already planted out, as the plants are really quite little at the moment, and need to grow before they will look anything (bear that last comment in mind when you look at the pictures!) is the wall mounted green man planter.
This is a tall planter with a small bowl at the back, for trailing plants to grow out of the top like hair! and a small bowl at the front. Both bowls are connected to make watering more convenient (water the front and it flows through into the back as well!).
At the front this year is a geranium (which looks a bit lonely at the moment as it is so small, and the trailing plant has yet to make an appearance! but trust me will look fab when it has come on a bit)

This planter has four holes in the flat section beside the face, to screw to the wall, and looks great in the summer with hanging basket plants. As the trailing lobelia is not tall enough to grow out of the top yet, I have taken a picture of the back of the pot for you to see as well.

This planter will get to live in my greenhouse for the next few weeks, and I will put it up against something flat, to encourage the lobelia to grow up and over the top.
I will update you with more pictures of these planters, once the 2 bowl planter has been planted out and the green man wall planter has grown a bit!
Both will be coming with us, to the first fairs of the season, and hopefully will find homes that love them (so I get the opportunity to grow some more!)

The first show of the season is almost upon us The Framlingham Country Show 12th-13th April at Framlingham College
http://www.classicfestivals.co.uk/#!about/c1enr