Are you ready for Spring gardening? If you are still gathering plants, seeds, tools, containers, accessories, etc... take a tour of what's on my gardener's potting bench this Spring to give you some ideas about what you may want to add to your list of gardening needs and wishes.  

New bedding plants are always high on my gardening list, and blue lobelias are at the tip-top of the plant list every year. But that is only the beginning of my gardening list and of what is on my potting bench this Spring. 

Magnolia Garden Ideas to Make Your Own | Part 2

In Part 1 of this series of garden ideas from Magnolia in Waco, Texas, PLAN and WALKWAYS were the two ideas from Magnolia Market's gardens you can study for ways to use them in your own garden. Those were just the beginning of so many garden ideas you can make your own. 

Once you have a plan to organize your designs, and walkways to define your garden areas, you are ready for the fun part ... adding plants. Part 2 looks at the different ways Magnolia Market created a beautiful garden filled with a variety of plants and containers. 

🌿 Garden Idea ❸ : PLANTS  

Flowers, vegetables, herbs, and fruit trees are all part of the Magnolia gardens with great design ideas anyone can copy in their own gardens at home. 

Magnolia Garden Ideas To Make Your Own | Part 1

Sometimes the best ideas come from unexpected places, when you are not looking for them. To get gardening ideas is not why most people go to Magnolia Market at the Silos in Waco, Texas, but much to my delight on my visits there I discovered the Magnolia complex is a blueprint of gardening ideas. 

There are so many great garden ideas gathered from Magnolia Market, I am sharing two of them, PLAN and WALKWAYS, as Part 1 in this post and will share more ideas in additional posts. 

This series of posts will help you create a garden of your dreams. Who better to learn from than a woman, Joanna Gaines, who made her dreams come true? 

🌿 Garden Idea ❶ : PLAN  

At the main entrance to Magnolia Market is a site map to help visitors find their way around. The map also illustrates the first great garden idea: PLAN. 

Winter Porch Another View

Another View of the Winter Porch 

with a request for input from my readers. 

Click on the white ARROW to begin the slide show. 

Then click on the box in the lower right corner to enlarge the photos to fill your entire screen. 

The previous post on Botanic Bleu was Winter Porch Plants with standard photos and text. The above video/slideshow is another view of the Winter Porch in a different format. 

Recent articles in the virtual world indicate videos are preferred over the written word by most people viewing information on the Internet. 

1]  Is the video/slide show above appearing on your computer, mobile device, notebook, etc...? Are there any glitches? 

2]  Did this post load at its normal speed or did this post load slower than usual? 

3]  Which do you prefer? The original Winter Porch Plants post or the video/slideshow version with music? 

4]  Would you like a blog post with the video/slideshow at the top followed by several paragraphs of text? 

5]  Or would you prefer the video/slideshow with just ONE short paragraph? 

6]  Why do you like the version you chose? 

7]  Any tips or suggestions?  

I will continue to experiment with different versions of slide shows and videos this year, but most posts will be in standard format with still photos and text. I will be looking for a better way to show  slides and/or video. 

Thank you for giving your feedback in the comments below. 

* * * * * * * 

A quick update on real-time life and why there have not been any new posts for a couple of weeks...  I had a good visit with my brother out-of-state followed by a trip to California with my sister, the professional florist. She had a floral job for 40+ centerpieces at a dinner in the San Diego Hilton Hotel, and I went along to help (a little.) Of course, since we were in California we had to take a few days vacation before heading back home. We missed almost all of the frigid temperatures at home while in San Diego where we had balmy 70°-80° days. 

My sister and I will be traveling to spend time with our brother in the days to come. Future blog posts may be irregular. Right now I am trying to get caught up on everything here at home. There is the small matter of a broken water pipe from the freezing temperatures, but fortunately the pipe is outside the house between the house and garden shed. The cut-off water valve works as designed and allows us to have water in the house. No pressure to get the outside pipe to the garden shed repaired means it may be a few weeks before I tackle that. Then there are the mountains of laundry and usual household bills that need attention now.  

Thank you for reading. Keep cozy and warm as we dream of spring. 

Winter Porch Plants

B r r r r ...  1 3 ° 

the low on the porch this winter ...  so far 

Even in winter, there are several plants to enjoy on a porch.  

In north central Texas, winter weather is usually mild enough to enjoy porch living for many of the days during winter. Part of enjoying the porch is having evergreen plants, and an added bonus is having blooming flowers.