Garden Woes and Weeds

My Florida gardening experiece hasn't exactly been a paradise for me this year and right now my little piece of paradise, the one thing in the world that truly keeps me sane has gone from thriving raised beds to a few surviving plants in containers.

Still I love nature & gardening it is my refuge, an oasis among the chaos when daily living begins to overwhelm, my own piece of paradise the one place where I can touch the earth and make it bloom and on a bad day I can hide from the world, pull weeds and watch as the birds, bees and butterflies make their magic.

I have let the weeds grow wild over the past few weeks, disheartened with the garden this year I just don't want to expend any unnecessary energy if I don't have to. Yes I know it makes more work, but now I can take the weeded eater and the shrub trimmer and attack those nearly 4 foot tall weeds, vines and whatever looks like it doesn't belong there.

I was very happy to see the bee house buzzing quite actively yesterday morning while I was watering the potted plants, there must have been 2 dozen bees flying around despite losing all the vegetables I planted in the Spring, I suppose my Hibiscus, Lemon and Lime trees, and Rosemary still attract the bees, I would guess the full grown orange tree at the house next door helps too.

I think for now container gardening will be my preferred method of gardening since my paradise has turned into a dying mess replaced by jungle of overgrown weeds that will take some time to get under control, I have lost the desire to start all over again so I have plans to turn my raised beds into a container oasis, one idea is to lay a layer of white stones over the soil and placing the potted plants on top of the stones. Something like this photo

I like the clean neat look of the stones and I think it will deter weed growth better then the mulch.

I like this look above too with the scalloped trim and each pot on a square block, in fact I have several square blocks I bought when I first moved in 2011 and placed a few of the plants I brought with me. 

Again I like how neat everything looks, I would place my pots closer together like the photo above well maybe not that close.
This idea would keep my hands in the soil and I could hold onto my love of gardening, I could even plant a few vegetables in large pots like I did before though this time the pots would be on a bed of stones.

I have the next few months to decide what to do next as far as the future of my garden is concerned but the more I look at photos of the stones with the planters the more I like it. You bet I will keep you posted.