Container Gardening - potting up and planting out

I can honestly say that I have a new found love of gardening! I spent Saturday enjoying the dappled sunlight and warm weather, potting up new plants and rearranging our courtyard garden with the hope that some plants will grow well this year! Being out in the fresh air, getting mud under my fingernails and handling little plants made me appreciate the joy that gardening brings to your life and it made me really happy...gardening is a great chance to escape and think...

Having spent last week looking longingly at the plants I bought the previous weekend...Saturday finally arrived and I got up super early to start gardening!! I started the gardening by getting things tidy...I swept up the clematis petals and pollen stamens that have now all dropped into our courtyard...

I arranged all the empty pots in one space so I could work out what I should plant in which pot. With lots of plants it was like a jigsaw getting them all potted...I'm sure some will need to go in to bigger pots in a few weeks according to the planting advice!

To add to our collection of plants I bought a range of herbs, vegetables, fruit and a few flowers to grow in our courtyard garden, these included - sage, chives, fennel, curled parsley and rosemary. I planted these into a wooden container...

To start the 'edible' summer garden I bought a few vegetables and fruit to grow in our containers, including a few different tomato plants, strawberry plants, a chilli pepper, a pepper, patio peas, french beans, mixed lettuce, little gem lettuces and a small rocket plant.

The courgettes I grew from seed in March, were moved into the greenhouse a few weeks ago and survived! I had six courgette plants that I had grown from seed and have planted them out in a temporary container to see how they get on. I know that courgettes can grow quite large so I may need to re-pot them in a month or so depending how they have got on.

I love having flowers in the garden (I'm still waiting for my lillies to bloom!)...so for some instant colour I bought an osteospermum (daisy type flower), a lavender plant and some red and yellow nasturtiums that will flower over the next few months.

One of my favourite containers didn't have a drainage hole at the bottom so I drilled a few holes...the perfect container for my new lavender! Doesn't it look so lovely next to the bay tree and one of our willow planters!

With the planting done I spent time a lot of time moving the containers into their new homes. I spent time over the past few weekends observing where the sunlight falls in our space so I could plan where the plants could get the best light. I realised that I hadn't been utilising the space near our back door in the most productive way. I have a huge willow vegetable planter that I haven't got anything growing in at the moment, so I moved this out of the way, moved the metal garden seating further along the wall and had space to create an arrangement of pots and containers near our back door.

I've started to use the window sill for one of the pepper plants in the hope that the sunlight will help it grow really well.

I have a mixture of containers and pots as you can see, they all look quite nice next to each other. I have a bit of an obsession with pots...my bright blue pot is a new favourite! I'm already eyeing up my next purchases to add to the collection and also have a few lead-look window boxes on my wish list too! Back to the gardening...

Using some decking squares we had and some bricks I elevated a space in the corner so that I could stagger the plants to make the best use of the light and space.

I'm thrilled at what I achieved and our new look space. I just hope that things will grow and not get eaten by slugs, snails and other bugs! I will really try hard to care for the plants and the space as much as I care about the inside of our home.  I vow to water the plants and not forget about them and to keep an eye out for slugs!

Now that the space is more sorted I will try and add a few things to the courtyard over the summer months, get some more flowers growing in window boxes and pots. I'm thinking about planting red and white geraniums in lead-style window boxes and maybe creating a container with some wild flowers...I need to do a bit of planning first but I'll let you know how I get on and keep you posted on how my garden grows over the summer. Keep checking back for updates!