The China Garden

I don't know about you, but I name my various gardens. We have the White Garden, The Riverbirch Walk, The Sahara, Hydrangea Alley etc. One of my very favorite little gardens is in front of my vegetable garden - that's my Cottage Garden(pictured above). Right next to it is the China Garden. No it doesn't have an oriental theme! It's called that because I placed lots of my dishes and teacups in it.

I love all kinds of china, plates, teacups, teapots, soup tureens, bowls you name it. But I only have but so much room in my house (at least where it's safe to display breakables). So I thought why not put them outside?

I've had a plate border for quite some time now. I don't use expensive or rare plates outside. Just ones that I love and pick up on clearance or at the thrift store. Inside my home I mostly have transferware so this gives me a chance to pick up floral plates.

The teacups need to be emptied after it rains - you don't want them to be haven for mosquitoes. As you can see they're just resting in the rings of an iron planter.

Underneath the plates is an iron chair that I've had for years and I usually just plop a nice container plant on the seat. Next to it is a birdbath which I painted the base yellow and the inside blue. My plan is to mosaic it one day (you know when it's really slow around here and I have nothing else to do)! It's really shallow and doesn't normally get filled with water and the birds have two other deeper birdbaths and a pond to use.

I may have to take all the plates down when it gets really cold, usually January or February. I don't know, this will be their first winter outside. The ones in the ground have done just fine so we'll see.

I hope everyone has a lovely weekend. I'll be back on Monday with some small things we do to help save money - pennies add up! Thanks for visiting!