Color Bowl

Recently I was walking through one of the home improvement warehouse stores and I noticed that color bowl’s are back in season. A color bowl is a container of almost any size or shape filled to the brim with many different kinds of flowers. These container displays are perfect on a front porch, in a courtyard, or virtually anywhere you want to spruce up and add color instantly around your home. I thought to myself that I could probably create myself a few color bowl’s relatively inexpensively by piecing them together instead of purchasing the pre-fabricated version the store was selling. I decided to do just that. I already had 4 matching 5 gallon containers at home earmarked that would be perfect to fill with colorful plant life. All I needed was to get some good quality potting soil and choose some foliage and flowers that I enjoy. I meandered back to the bagged potting soil and found several choices that could offer a fertile home for the roots of my selections and supply them with needed nutrients in order to thrive all summer. I decided on a potting soil specific to container gardening that already contained about 2 months worth of organic fertilizer in the mix. Then I was off to the outdoor garden department for some six packs of flowers and some 4 inch “center piece” flowers. Out the door, I spent about $15 and I had all the ingredients for 4 full color bowls. The color bowls the store was selling were priced at $13 each so I figured that I will save about $35 in total with my project. I took my purchases of three 6 packs, four 4 inch flowers and the soil home, sunk my hands into some gloves and got to work. I filled the containers slightly more than half-full with the soil mix and I arranged an outer circle of 4 smaller flowers with a 4 inch flower in the middle as a risen center piece. I placed the flowers into the container the way I liked, leaving some space in between all of them to be able to fill in as they grow. Next, I gently filled in the container with more soil so that all the flowers were firmly planted. I watered each bowl lightly and placed the containers on my porch to get full sun. A key to success with this project is to make certain you get the right flowers for the location you intend to place your color bowl (sun versus shade). I find that I am watering my color bowl only twice a week and after 2 weeks they have really taken off.

My color bowls. (photo by Ed Walbolt)