Placed near a fan would help insure that it dried. Do not have to worry about the plant not drying out here in Florida! It has been warm and dry, and sunny recently, and your plant should not mind a bath - which is a good idea Soak the plant up, and see if you can lift it. I would not get it out of the basket as the roots are all over it and you will likely break them off :( Soak it, see if you can gently pick it up - and use plastic covered wire to prop it up to the wire hangers for the pot... Beautiful flowers, indeed!

I wanted to comment on this part of your post above: " In my heart, I know I just really miss having a good female friend. They are so hard to find. My husband and I don't have children, and a lot of women I meet at church and places like that I hope to become friends with, but I sense that because I don't have children (or grandchildren), they think we would have no common ground." I don't know how old you are. I'm in my mid fifties and I think sometimes it can be a challenge making new female friends at this age. So many of the women my age I meet or know already are so busy with their jobs, kids, grandkids, and circle of friends they already have, so I get where you're coming from. But a lot of us whose kids are grown have a lot more time for ourselves now, more time for hobbies, more time for exercise, more time to meet a friend for coffee or a walk, more time for new friendships. I had what I call "the lost decade" due to injury, illness and a couple of other family issues. Once my circumstances improved, some of my friends had moved due to job changes, some had retired and moved closer to their kids, some simply got too busy with kids and grandkids, some friendships were really built on convenience with our kids and there was no common ground once the kids were grown. I still have long term friendships and I cherish them, but I have room for plenty more new friendships, too. There are quite a few women out there like me. That whole demographic of fairly newly retired women is a rich gold mine of friendship opportunity. A lot of them are way more interested in finding out if you have hobbies in common than whether or not you have kids. So I hope you'll keep trying. You might find that women who had nothing in common with you before have loads in common now. I realize some areas are easier than others. A friend of mine retired to an area and had difficulty making new friendships there because every woman she met was busy with kids and grandkids. My friend has kids but she has a lot of hobbies and other interests. She kept trying and now she has a great group of friends she found through volunteering at her church and also through her hobbies. I know it's discouraging for you and I wish you good luck and great success.

I think that the best thing you can do is to get yourself better educated about gardening. Go to your library and find a couple of books about gardening, and make sure that one is a general "encyclopedia" type of book - Reader's Digest had one, and Better Homes and Gardens did too, and they both covered, not in PhD depth but deep enough that they covered more than the high points, plant placement, types of plants (annual/perennial/shrub/vine/tree), shade/sun requirements, and things like that, which all gardeners need to know. You also need to think about what KIND of garden you want - nice cottage garden? Roses? Evergreens? Plants for wildlife? Minimal care? Do you want to work in the garden every weekend (I do - it's my therapy) or have mostly lawn? There are no wrong answers here - it's YOUR garden and you get to make it what YOU want. Most landscapers are Mow and Blow; far too many landscape design places and garden centers are all about arbor vitae/river birch/ pampas grass (apologies to those designers that aren't), which is why so many yards are interchangeable. Around here (Essex County), every garden center I have gone to has the same shrubs, vines, and trees as everywhere else. If you decide that you want something even slightly different, you may have to search a little, but those little garden centers that sell the good stuff are out there. A lot of the "regular" garden centers are staffed by the horticultural equivalent of used-car salesmen, who will try to convince you that you really want a nice juniper instead of the lilac you came there to get - be strong and stick to your guns!

Your space looks a bit New England, sparse, and rather tight and contained. These don't lend to visions of other worldliness. I would push the pavers together into more of a narrow aisle down the middle. Then think of either side of the aisle as bigger swaths in which to plant. Bring the planting up close to the middle pavers and don't line them all up, rather have undulating edges so your eye feels less like it is in a rectangular space between two houses and more like in a space that is endless, where your eye can wander. It feels like everything is hugging the wall right now so it kind of looks like furniture in a room instead of an other worldly garden. Sketch out your space kind of to scale. Look up how big your current plants will get as they mature. Then draw in space for other big plants to live. Next plant purchases: Think about the textures and volume of the plants. Get some that are shaggy, some with huge broad leaves, and some that are really wide and not just tall. And, invest in gigantic containers where the greenery is spilling over. (I used to get a ton of bang for my buck with tall grasses in containers.) Take a pic of your space and take it to a * good * garden center and ask for help selecting plants that will take up space. The furniture does look a bit uncomfortable: I'd get some deep green seat cushions for the chairs and bench - just another place to add greenery. I presume you are going to grow vines up the grids on the white walls? If so, I don't know that you really need the arch there.