All Decked Out

by Clearissa Coward

$60.00

1 Day

Easy

The Memorial Day weekend marked the official beginning of summer. With that comes summertime decorating and organizing outside areas. We set out to do just that this past weekend and as usual, we did it on a budget.

I live on the east coast and it can be quite hot and humid here during the summer. Temperatures upwards of 90 with humidity above 85 percent is kind of the norm here and in anticipation of our summer weather we installed a gazebo on the deck (this was done a couple of years ago) so that we can enjoy the outdoors without being subjected to the harmful rays from the hot sun or the awful bites of the mosquitos – oh yeah, we have a lot of those as well...sigh.

The deck was a process that began in the middle of May. In our area, we have to wait until the pollen stops falling at the beginning of spring. It makes everything yellow, and it is very difficult to keep cars and yes, decks, clean so we did not power wash the deck until the second week of May.

We waited 48 hours after power washing the deck and then we put a clear coat to protect the wood. As I said, it gets extremely hot and humid here and we use the sealant to protect the wood. We do not paint or stain the deck because we both like the natural look of the wood.

I do a lot of my gardening in pots. I have hostas, roses, strawberries, herbs and various other flowers in pots. Most are perennials (I love perennials because they come back every year) and they sit dormant all winter. There were squirrel footprints up the sides of several of the larger pots and they all required a good cleaning (I am not so fond of squirrels).

I prepared my personal concoction of Dawn dish detergent, Clorox, and an all-purpose cleaner, to thoroughly clean the outside of each pot.

I prepared a bucket of hot water, Dawn dishwashing liquid, and Clorox. I sprayed the all-purpose cleaner directly onto the sponge and clean each pot. They perk up like new when this concoction is used. The result…no more cruddy flower pots.

I added fresh soil and coffee grounds to each pot (another fun concoction). After the winter season of dormancy, new soil adds much-needed nutrients to the plants and makes the posts look fresh and renewed and the coffee gives the plants/flowers a shot of energy and sparks growth.

I chose the setting for this year’s table and put the table together for al fresco dining. I chose bright, happy summer colors. I could not decide which one color to choose so I added a little orange, yellow and green and it works for me.