Oh my sweet husband has been busy this spring. Building raised beds. A duck house. Digging out weeds that have found their way into the garden in earnest. And he also made a fabulous potting bench.
I’ve always wanted a potting bench. A place to store hand tools, soil, pots and a nice stable surface on which to pot plants.
Tygh made this dream a reality last weekend by designing and creating a large and aesthetically pleasing bench for us. He even added the antique window I’d found a few years ago. It had been tucked away in the shed waiting its opportunity to shine. He added a galvanized roof that matches the new raised beds. It’s gorgeous. And functional.
Since the photo was taken, he’s added a heavy-duty rubber top and a lid with a bin underneath. The bin is an old recycling bin we’ve had sitting around forever. It’s large enough to store plenty of hand tools and even the rubber kneeler I carry around with me as I weed.
On either end of the bench, we placed 2 whiskey barrels and planted starts from my mom’s beloved Cecil Bruner roses we removed from the yard last year. We love those roses too. It’s nice to give them a new lease on life. The ones my mom had planted as a screen were out of control. They were causing neighbor issues for us. And it was painful to try to keep them in check. And felt like a losing battle.
We plan to let these guys grow up and over the potting bench. But we also vow to keep them in line and not let them take over. They have a tendency to want to do that.
Just for fun, we potted up a start of an existing Viburnum last year. I really didn’t expect it to take root and survive. But here we are a whole year later and it leafed out and is even flowering. So it found a spot in our shrub garden. It’s only about 8 or 9 inches tall this spring. I can’t wait to see how it does this growing season.
I’m becoming very interested in propagating plants. We spent hundreds of dollars at the nursery last year. What if we could replicate many of our favorite plants in our garden by starting them ourselves? I like the idea.
Stay tuned…I think there will be a fun new hobby this year.