Creating a Summer Flower Display

I wanted to create a tall flower display in a urn as you walk up onto the porch.  The pot is in the sun all day long so I needed plants that could handle those conditions.  Adding a variety of types of plants in different heights and textures makes for a pretty planting arrangement, whether in a pot or in the ground.

I bought four types of flowers:

• a hanging geranium pot with three geraniums in it
• one Spike plant
• two vinca vines
• a plant labeled Strawberry Shortcake that had three plants mixed in it:  bacopa, calibrachoa, (both of which I had never heard of) and verbena....it is a mixture of light pink, dark burgundy,  and white flowers

Let's start with my new gardening gloves...Aren't they great?  They are from Target's Threshold line, which I absolutely love.  They were no more expensive than other gardening gloves and I think having special "tools" makes the job a little more enjoyable.

Now onto designing my flower arrangement:

To add height, I wanted the spike to stick up high in the display.  I began by putting a clay pot in the center of my urn and pushed a stick down through the pot and into the soil so that the pot doesn't tip over.

Then I planted the spike plant.

Next, I added the Strawberry Shortcake plant in the front of the pot.  I want it to grow and trail down the front of the urn a bit.

I added the vinca vines on both sides of the Strawbery Shortcake plant because I want them to also fall over the side of the urn.

Finally, I added the three geraniums around the sides and back of the urn.  The plants will fill in as they grow and hide the clay pot I added.

And my design was complete....The arrangement doesn't really photograph well here after I first planted the flowers, but it should look great once the geraniums start growing together.

And here is the pot a few days later:

Ignore the wooden pallet in the background, please!  It is for an upcoming project.