Patio Plants
Enjoying our patio
Our patio by the house is a well used part of the garden. Throughout the gardening season this is where we enjoy early morning coffee, Green Thumber lunches, summery cool drinks, and numerous dinners. Potted plants add colour and soften the patio hardscape.
The hardscape of our patio is surrounded by trees.
The pioneer crabapple tree (to the left) is dearly loved for its blossoms, its shade in summer and its winter silhouette.
The first tree we planted at Keppel Croft was the patio ginkgo tree.
The magnolia is our mortgage tree, planted to celebrate that last payment many years ago.
The birch tree flourishes near an old well.
Bill grouped a variety of pots to suggest gardens on either side of the entrance to the patio.
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Some tall plastic waste paper bins, bought for 50 cents each and painted blue, have some concrete added in the bottom to keep them stable.
We buried pots of geraniums in the soil of these containers and planted cannas and annuals around them. In the fall the potted geraniums and cannas are pulled out and put in winter storage.
On the edge of an above ground fish pond a blue ceramic pot with begonias does well in the shade of the nearby birch tree.
Bill puts pots of shade tolerant plants on the top of the rock walls surrounding the patio.
The western access to the patio is framed by potted frost tender ferns, cordylines, ginger and palms.
The traditional Japanese store entrance curtain offers us some privacy at our back door.
The hundred year old crab apple tree shades the pots of palms and clivias at the south end of the patio.
We put the pots on to a bed of English ivy-an instant garden that requires no weeding!
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We make good use of the patio through the warm months of the season. Friends have held their wedding celebrations on the patio.
Numerous local organizations have held lunchtime meetings here.
We invite garden visitors to enjoy their own picnics here.
We had unexpected company on the patio when the summer flock of sheep (all 19 of them) joined us unexpectedly one afternoon in August.
