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The Purple Bear
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The Season's lies
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Classics & Up to the Minute Trendy 7 cr ;
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POP IN DURING OUR
Container gardening
is a hot summer
landscape -trend.
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800 N. Old Woodward,15irmingllam, Mi +8009
(2+8) 203-7770 Mon-rri 10am-6pm & Sat 10am-jpm
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Fine ceramics, art and gifts.
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How Does Your Garden Grow?
W
ding annuals hugging the boxwoods.
hoever said summertime
But container gardening aficionados
living is easy must have
click
off the advantages:
been a dilettante —
It's convenient (less time waging
blind to the blunt realities during what
war against the thistle), a great value
should be the most sanguine of sea-
(pots can be used season to season)
sons, a respite from the other nine
and portable (to change the
months of tumult in our lives.
look, move the pot, not the
There's that whole first-
beds).
time-in-a-bathing-suit thing, not
"This isn't just for the patio
to mention finding creative
or
front
porch," explains David
ways to keep the kids engaged
Calcaterra, vice president of the
for weeks on end. Travel plans
15-store Thrifty Florist shops,
go awry, while sour skies make
with locations including
unplanned visits and dampen
ED NAK FOOR
Birmingham, Huntington
carefully orchestrated back-
COLUM NIST
Woods, Pontiac and Ann
yard fetes.
Arbor.
Even the garden, that bucolic spot
He added that the pots, usually 10-,
we eagerly plotted when snow still
12-
or 14-inches in diameter, can be
covered the ground, can be a source of
shuffled throughout the property all
anxiety: endless weeding and watering
season long, while new ones can be
— and those ravenous chipmunks and
added well into July to fill in areas still
hares making meals out of the bego-
looking a little sparse.
nias and heirloom tomatoes.
If you're afraid the burnt orange
earthenware
will clash with your
FOR EVERY POT ...
home's
exterior,
today's terra cotta ves-
Formerly the provenance of space-
sels come in assorted washes and col-
starved apartment and condo dwellers,
ors. And if you'd rather not risk shards
container gardening is fast drawing
of pottery strewn about, say after a
fans among homeowners as a way to
storm or visit from a mischievous feline
enjoy the season's blooms without the
or errant baseball, a new generation of
muss and fuss of planting — and tend-
planters made of impermeable foam
ing to — traditional flower beds.
can
withstand the elements and occa-
Traditionalists may argue it's not a
sional
tumble.
garden without row upon row of bud-
Continued on page 30
JNPLATINUM • JULY 2005 •
29