MY LITTLE GARDEN

When you live in a condo, basically your patio becomes your garden.

Background:  Several years ago we were driving by a house where the owner was out watering his lawn.  At the curb was a bird bath with a sign on it, "FREE".  We asked him, "really?" and he said if you can lift it, it's yours.  It was a heavy sucker (solid concrete) but we were ten years younger (than now) and so into the boot it went.  Off to our abode we returned with our new treasure.  (Actually, I might have been a tad more excited than dad.)

The only place I could put it (legally) was on our patio but let me tell you, keeping a bird bath full of water on your patio is not very practical.  You have to unwind the hose from its little home, drag it across the patio, wash out the old water (yuk), and refill it.  Messy, messy, messy.  After a couple of years, that got pretty old.  Solution:  Put some potted plants on it.  Reality:  Looked kind of forlorn.

About a month ago I visited an outstanding nursery in our area and saw a great idea I could copy.  Their planter bowl was about 3 feet across with gorgeous succulants in it.  I asked them how they planted it and she told me to just mound the soil in a peak and go from there.  I'm confident that in a few months when mine fills out, it will be a show stopper.  Now I really love my
re-purposed bird bath. 

As an aside, my cymbidium orchid (back wall on the left) has 3 spikes on it and will blossom in another week or two.  It will be spectacular!

These yellow cymbidiums are similar to mine except mine are white with purple centers.