Deal of the Day- Planters from Ross

Today, I stopped by my local Ross store on the hunt for summer tops. Instead, I found this great trio of planter pots. The larger pots have a 10" opening and were $7.99 each, and the smaller one has a 5" opening and cost $3.99. My store had a pretty large assortment of pots from different makers, in different colors, patterns, and materials- all for about half of what I would have paid at the hardware store or nursery. These three were all stuck with a label that said "Hand made in Thailand". These will go well with the neutral color palette that I want for my patio- and the existing terra cotta and white planters already out there. I am a stickler for drainage holes in my plant pots, and these three all had them! If you're on the hunt for some plant post for either inside or out, check out your local Ross store to see what they have. Now I will have to get some more plants to fill them.....Oh darn!

Patio Before and After

When I moved into my place over a year ago, I knew that I wanted to do a little makeover to the patio area. One half of the area is dirt (now dirt and weeds!), and the other half is a cement pad. There was a woefully mismatched fence surrounding it, and nothing else. I started out thinking that I would just put some plants in/on items that I already had from my antique dealing days, but changed my plan somewhere down the line. The privacy/sound/ugly factor made covering and unifying the fence my priority. I am happy and proud to say that the cement pad end of the patio is now "done". I will be adding to my potted succulent garden, but the fencing issue has been solved, I added decorative rock to the border of the cement pad, painted a dining set and put that out there, and planted a little bowl of succulents to dress it up. For as little as I spent (under $150), it made a HUGE difference. I now enjoy looking out my slider, and I know that I will be spending more time outside in the nice weather...because the cats demand it!

I posted about the rocks I used in an earlier post. The rattan fencing that I used was also from Lowe's ($4.47 for a 6" by 15' roll), as was the terra cotta bowl ($9.99). I think the next step for this space is just to till up the dirt, weed, and plant grass seed.