Celebrating April

Oh; how this Spring of love resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April day!

Which now shows all the beauty of the sun

And by and by a cloud takes all away.

......................................Two Gentlemen of Verona ~ Wm. Shakespeare

Today started out chilly and still quite windy but I was out in the garden early. Yesterday's quick stop at Wal-Mart (ugh!) for veggie burgers (yum!) took an unexpected detour through the garden section where these fresh and fabulous Confederate Jasmines and Mandevillas, along with two cute Hostas, and a really sweet little trailing Ivy, somehow ended up in my shopping cart! My DH was trying to figure out why on earth I needed a cart in the first place....just for veggie burgers, hmmm!!

So here they are on the front porch welcome mat - but by the end of this afternoon all were in their new homes. The Jasmine is blooming and smells wonderful, and one of the Mandevillas has pink buds ready to open - this one will be trained to climb the porch.

When buying my vintage treasures at SuzAnna's last week I also found these two really nice pale green iron planter baskets. Of course the plastic fern pots wouldn't fit through the top so I bought flexible fiber liners and replanted the ferns in those. They look much nicer this way.

OK, remember I asked for assistance on this purchase last week!

The very green potting table spied at SuzAnna's - sitting there as bold as brass (or perhaps more like grass!) in the middle of a huge conglomeration of garden stuff in the outdoor section of their wonderful shop. Several of you wanted it for yourselves, others thought it a good buy at $120 and said go for it -------so I did and it was delivered FREE, along with some other things I'll show another time, by Susie and Anna themselves - lovely ladies. We had a cuppa with raspberry scones - and they did the house tour to see where I'm using all the neat things I've bought from them. This afternoon I had a fun time placing odds and ends on the table - now there's not much room remaining to do any actual potting - but I want to use it more as a serving piece anyway. I had no idea that I already had such a collection of this shade of green pots and things, even that neat round candle. On the lower shelf are some of my collection of old English stone crocks. The iron urn I've filled with shells - the plants will be moved to garden beds soon and I'll get pots of annuals for color, along with herbs for the small terra cotta pots.

Will be recovering the cushions in the gold/brown French zoo toile soon. Another plan is to hang an old window from chains above the back of the table - will copy some botanical prints onto the glass panes first. I'm debating painting the porch ceiling a very pale blue - this was apparently a usual thing in days gone by - and I think the chandelier would show up better against a color. What do you think?

Thanks all of you who encouraged me in this purchase. I'm really thrilled with how this has turned out. Although the porch is small that end was not being utilized so the table is fine and still leaves room for three wicker chairs and a small round table. This window is my dining room - it's so pretty looking outside, like an extension of the room.