I got to "thinking" further and realize I have sort of done that very thing, just not stacking the barrels on top of the other. I have a two tiered corner bed, where I have some barrels and hosta at differing levels, and so on and it works for me! Here's that corner, the subject of many pics. I have taken! In this one, you don't see my current situation where I put a barrel in place of the smaller and whiter pot to the right and another one down and behind the Lady Isobel Barnett on the same right! I did this at the end of the season with some of the many barrels I purchased on clearance! And another example of "tiering": I love the effect of higher and lower hosta placements! I think it gives the best views of some of those vase-shapes, especially, to be up high so you can truly appreciate their uprightness! I think it also gives a depth and dimension to the garden not easily achieved by one-level plantings! I'm done now--for awhile--back to the rest of you!! :o) Janice PS Note the "Sugar and Cream" (white margined, but lighter green--shhhhh--don't tell! I'm not suppose to like the white margins!)

The blending of pale yellow and peach is beautiful! I love everything about cannas, the ease of growing, the tropical look, the many colors; everything except the leaf rollers (however, I haven't seen any this year), but then I do like the skipper butterflies they become so I keep a catch plant to put them on when they appear.

@Diane Brakefield Clare's work is beautiful. She has great drawing ability and really beautiful clean line work. I love her starry sky works, she's playing with space and proportion so nicely in those. The first two works (red headed female and green mountains with black circular sky form) would look really nice together as a diptych. They balance each other beautifully. The kids with cacti are my favorite though. Really nice space and proportions in that one and all of my favorite plants :) Even a little rose tree. Looks like she did well at school and has great training and skill. I also really like that cute image of the girl with the puppy cart on her bike. Nice perspective and shapes in that piece. Thank you for the kind words on my photos. Most of those plants are from my tropical plants or from leftovers I'd get at the Chelsea flower market in nyc. I got to know the guys at some of the shops there and they would give me leftover cuttings if I visited early in the morning. Those are Bells of Ireland :) To me they look like underwater plant life and I love how sturdy and structural they are, but how much motion they have in their design. Most of the other plants are bromeliads, protea, or ginger family. The big white flower with the berries is a white torch ginger. I'm bummed because I don't remember the name of those berries....I'll try to remember today though. I love ginger flowers, they're so odd and have such nice coloration and surface texture. I love how plants remind me that mother nature always wins in the creativity/artist department. The structures she creates are so overlooked by most people, but when you really take time to look at everything around us (or in our gardens), you start seeing how amazing she is as an architect, sculptor, and painter :)

Maybe they did you a favor selling them. The pattern on the fabric is very busy. In addition, the chair without the throw looks fine, but the one with the throw has some pattern alignment problems on the chair cushion. At first I thought the cushion was just upside down (hiding stains?) but it doesn't look like it would match the other chair even if it was flipped over. And once you notice that you can't un-notice that.