Let’s just admit it, garden hoses are not attractive. And neither are those plastic little garden hose holders you attach to your home or sit on your porch.
Wondering how to keep your hose close, yet hidden? How about a hose pot from Good Directions. These new products we are including in our summer catalog are a great decorative element too. You can even store other outdoor things such as firewood in them.
Entry ways are the fastest spot in a home to get cluttered. Everyone comes in the door and feels the urge to drop any and everything! One way to combat entry way clutter is with a boot tray!
A new addition to our outdoor living products are these copper boot trays from Good Directions. The three different patterns are sure to match your home, now it’s just figuring out how to use it! There are four ways to use Boot Trays, read on to find out!
1. Use a boot tray for shoes. Obviously this isn’t rocket science, the main reason you’d use a boot tray is for shoes and an occasional umbrella.
2. Add pebbles to a boot tray. This is a simple way to add a more natural element to your home, it also allows the dirt and water to sink to the bottom of the boot tray. It’s best to rinse it out occasionally.
3. Use a boot tray for plants. Position the boot tray on a dresser or ledge and create a mini garden in your home. What’s great is the tray will catch all the water that runs out from the bottom of the flower pots when you water them.
4. Use a boot tray to simplify your pet’s food, water and toys. This will keep Fluffy’s eating area tiddy – also easy for clean-up! PS why do dogs and cats always spill their food?
Fire Pits and Fire Bowls are a great conversation piece for the patio or deck that provide a brilliant glow and heat up any outdoor gathering – gather your friends and family around the fire this summer!
New for this summer we’ve added Fire Bowls from Good Directions to our selection of Outdoor Heating products. Check out our favorites below!
Looking for the perfect tunes to play at your next backyard get-together? Not only is the perfect sauce essential to a successful BBQ, but the right music is also key to a good time! One of our suppliers for our outdoor heating products, Blue Rhino, created the perfect grilling playlist based on a nationwide survey, titled Music to Grill By. Check out these top 12 grilling tunes, and download the playlist on iTunes.
1. “Bad to the Bone” – George Thorogood & Delaware Destroyers
2. “Ring of Fire” – Johnny Cash, June Carter, and Merle Kilgore
3. “Light my Fire” – The Doors
4. “Smoke on the Water” – Deep Purple
5. “Fire” – Jimi Hendrix
6. “Let’s Get it Started” – Black Eyed Peas
7. “Disco Inferno” – Tina Turner
8. “Love Me Tender” – Elvis Presley
9. “Another One Bites the Dust” – Queen
10. “Burning Down the House” – Talking Heads
11. “Born to be Wile” – Steppenwolf
12. “Burning Love” – Elvis Presley
We also came up with some extra songs that you could add to your playlist that would be perfect for grilling, bbq-ing, and sitting around a fire during a summer evening.
“Set Fire to the Rain” – Adele
“Up in Flames” – Coldplay
“Sparks Fly” – Taylor Swift
“Iko Iko” – Belle Stars
“I’m on Fire” – Bruce Springsteen
“We Didn’t Start the Fire” – Billy Joel
Do you and your friends have a favorite outdoor grilling song? Share it below in the comments section!
PS need a few new grilling tools? Check out this grill set on sale.
Obviously the age-old way to garden is to garden horizontally, on the ground – no one even thinks twice about that one. But what if you changed the way you gardened to a vertical format? Oh the possibilities!
New to our selection of products this spring is a vertical gardening pouch from Esschert Design. This pouch is an easy way to grow herbs or flowers in a small space and in a condensed way. Plus, the pockets are made of tarpaulin, which makes them extra strong and holds water well.
Along with this new vertical gardening method, we’ve also been thinking of other ways to create a vertical garden. Here are some of the creative ideas we found…
(Source: Pinterest)
(Source: FytoGreen)
(Source: A Beautiful Mess)
(Source: Pinterest)
(Source: MiCasa)
(Source: BuzzFeed)
Hopefully we’ve inspired you to try a new type of gardening this summer! If you want to see more vertical gardening ideas, check out our pinterest board!
Begonias are wonderful plants for shaded areas and can give you a lush, full plant with huge blooms if grown correctly. Since they require a lot of warmth and some patience to get to this full state, many gardeners prefer to begin their begonia tubers indoors during the late winter months. Starting your begonias indoors is a fairly simple process and means fuller plants later in the summer season!
Follow these simple steps:
Plant tubers in later winter, hollow side up, just below the soil level in a moist peat compost mixture. Use shallow seed trays or small pots with good drainage and place on a window sill or other location that receives indirect sunlight. Be sure the temperatures for this location does not fall below 60 degrees F. Cover tray or pot with paper or plastic wrap to promote sprouting. Watering sparingly until growth begins.
Once the tubers begin to sprout (approx. 4 to 6 weeks), development becomes more rapid. Remove the plastic wrap or covering and give them maximum light but still shaded from strong direct midday sun. Water regularly, never allowing the soil to dry out completely but being sure not to let them sit wet as this can cause rotting. An application of good liquid plant food will improve and quicken growth.
When the threat of frost has passed, move the plants outdoors. The tubers can be left to remain and grow in the pots or transferred to an outdoor garden bed. Begonias thrive in semi-shade and do not do well in hot mid-day sun. They dislike dry conditions so be sure to provide them with ample water, especially in periods of hot weather. Remove all the wilted leaves and flowers during the growing season to encourage flowering throughout the summer months.
Brilliantly-colored begonia blooms in a unique hanging basket or watering can will add a splash of color on the deck, under the overhang, or even on a shepherd’s hook in the backyard! Check out our Begonia Gardening Kits which include a planter (hanging basket or watering can), begonia tubers, and a soil disk!
Happy gardening and enjoy your begonias this summer!
A warm front is coming! Though it’s not in the actual physical form, more like a virtual warm front is heading your way with these tropical oasis photos. What else is there to do on a blistery cold day other than look at pictures of warm destinations and their gorgeous tropical plants.
Here’s what we’ve been daydreaming of…
Planting a tropical plant such as a Fiddle Leaf Tree or Elephant Ear are a sure way to bring the tropical oasis inside during the cold winter months.
Want to go tropical too? Check out our Pinterest board filled with these and more tropical ideas to temporarily escape the winter blues.
Sometimes it may seem as if winter will never, ever end, is that how you feel too? We’ve had a pretty mild winter, compared to some of you out east with 8 feet of snow (we can’t even imagine!) and we aren’t complaining over here.
With winter comes the snow/slushy/salty mix that everyone seems to track in on their shoes, and we hear ya, it’s a pain to clean up too! So for all that floor clean-up you have been doing, reward yourself with a cheery, warm welcome mat. If not for the bright colors, get it to save yourself some sanity!
Here are a few other decor items we’ve put together to help warm up your entryway and create a warm welcome!
The Vintage Hanging Lantern is a staff favorite here at Willard&May. Its whimsical qualities add an extra dynamic to any fairy garden. Make your fairies fly when you hang this lantern!
For this example: we added river rocks for a foundation. To add a soft quality, we put some moss over the rocks. We then arranged some mushrooms and a friendly gnome.
The Classic Wood Lantern makes a great starting point for a portable fairy garden. It comes in three different sizes, so you can pick which one will work best for your project!
For this example: We started with a simple, shallow blue pot for the base. We added river rocks for a nice contrast. To top it off, we placed some fun fairy garden accessories in the center of the pot. Continue reading for some awesome suggestions on what plants you can get from your local garden center for your fairy garden!
Above are the different sizes the wood lantern comes in. You can create a simple garden with a fairy or two or add a classic look to your outdoor living space. These lanterns have doors to allow ease of use.
If you are looking for some greenery to add to your garden, below are a couple of suggestions from our resident horticulturist:
Let your creativity flow with these fun DIY fairy garden lanterns!
Summer is the perfect time for lounging outside with your favorite book, and what is more relaxing than reading in a hammock? Luckily our Relaxation Hammock is available to you for only $29.00! To help you get out of your reading slump, our staff has come up with a list of great reads. Enjoy!
George R.R. Martin’s Game of Thrones series has become a big hit on TV and in our office. Be prepared to get lost in a complex world that will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole time.
If you’re looking to expand your knowledge of landscape plants, then Michael Dirr’s Manual of Woody Landscape Plants is the book for you!
For the tenderhearted person in your life, Paw Prints in the Moonlight by Denis O’Connor is the purrfect book to curl up with. It is a whimsical tale of a man and his pet cat who form a heartwarming friendship.
We also would suggest a great classic; The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkein. Recently made into a blockbuster film, this book follows a timid hobbit on his quest to help restore the homeland of a clan of dwarves.
These next two suggestions come from our co-worker, Nick:
“I just read The Martian by Andy Weir the other day. It’s about an astronaut who is accidentally left on Mars without any functioning communication equipment, figuring out how to survive with the resources and equipment he still has. It’s a fun book that hangs on to your attention, and fits right in with any classic marooned on a desert island story….except the desert island is IN SPACE.
Earlier this year I read Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House and its sequel Blandings’ Way. These are about a 1940s New York advertising executive who decides he wants to escape the city and build his dream house out in the peaceful countryside. Unfortunately for him, building a house is much more involved (and expensive) than he ever anticipated. I grew up watching the Cary Grant movie, so it was a lot of fun to finally read the book, especially because I did so while my parents were building their new house.”
If you’re interested in YA reads, the final installment of the Shadow and Bone (The Grisha) trilogy by Leigh Bardugo was recently released. Shadow and Bone, Siege and Storm and Ruin and Rising take you through an epic journey of a teen orphan who discovers a gift she never knew she had. There is plenty of action and adventure packed into these novels, and they are definitely page-turners.
Finally, if you’re looking for a book that holds a historical feel, mystery and romance; check out one of Milwaukee’s own authors. Jenny Benjamin’s book This Most Amazing tells the tale of a young woman who is about to leave to teach writing in Italy. It is an excellent story of love and enlightenment.
Take some time for yourself this weekend! Pick up a good book and enter a different world. Happy reading!