Dressing up the front porch

Before I went to Alaska in September, I did a little bit of outdoor decorating in honor of my mother's impending arrival for our adventure.   A little craft paint dressed up a few pumpkins, making it much easier to spot which house was #72.

I decided, during the first week of October, to move the pumpkins further back from the street.  We live in a nice neighborhood, but occasionally teenagers (I hope) wander through and wreak a little havoc; we've had eggs thrown at our cars, as well as actually having something spray painted on our car.  I'm a fan of spray paint, but not in that application!  And while I like the band Smashing Pumpkins, I didn't think these ones deserved to fall to that fate.

Quite a few of my plants were still doing very well in early October, as you can see.  As we reach the end of October, the only ones that aren't still looking great are the impatiens.  I suspect some critters decided they needed to put on a little extra fat for the winter, and my impatiens made a tasty try.  I found them all stripped of their leaves and flowers - just naked little stems jutting up from the potting soil.  Ah well.

You can see that our evergreens are a wee bit shaggy, here, but you can also see that I've hung a fall wreath in the front door.  I still plan to paint the front door a pretty color - that's on the project list for next summer.  Don't tell Mr. Handyverger, but I'm also hoping we can replace the dated screen door next summer.  I'd love to just take it off, but with five cats who think the outside is fascinating, it's not a great idea.

Also, I didn't realize just how long alyssum stayed in bloom!  It might finally be losing its last petals now, but there are still quite a few tiny white flowers on my plant, even now.  I consider them a must in my planter garden.  When they're in bloom, their fragrance wafts through the front door whenever it's opened.

Here are my pumpkins, happy as can be.  I've added a few Halloween-type decorations to celebrate the season, such as a few black cats and a cauldron.

I just love the color of the coleus here!  One of them is a Hot Lava Coleus, and the other is a something-something Dragon coleus.  Helpful, right?    You can see my potato vine (the purple one) is still quite happy.  At this point, a couple weeks later, it still looks good, but its leaves are turning a little bronze.  It's so pretty!

My peacock blue chairs have found a home for the winter.  Hopefully this will protect them from the elements.  Also, I'm a giant sucker.  Neighborhood cats often come and curl up on chairs on our porch when the weather's chilly.  We don't discourage this - I like them to know they can have a little shelter if they really need it!  (Of course, I'd much rather folks just kept their kitties safe and sound indoors, year-round.)  I'm realizing just now that the welcome flag is practically an advertisement for them to hang out there, but I swear they started showing up before I hung that!

Finally, a peek at how my margarita potato vine is doing.  This was a few weeks ago, but it's still going strong now!  Love, love, love the bright green, especially next to the purple elephant ears.  This is on the steps leading to the other front porch, the sunroom.  I realize this makes the door difficult to access, but that's intentional.  The cats like to spend time out there (while we're home), but I've found that delivery people will just open the door and put packages inside.  We lock the door, but making it clear that this isn't the main entrance helps, too!  This also discourages packages from being left on steps that are completely open to the weather.

That's where we're at with fall decorations in the Handyverger household - at least, outdoors!   How are your outdoor plants faring where you live?  I'm amazed at how well mine are doing in a New England October!

Cheers!
Mrs. H.

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