What's Growing in the Front Planters

It's a little late to just be showcasing the summer planters at my place, but better late than never, right? Last year was the first year we had new pots out front of my condo building, you can take a look at what I did then. The planters are from Ballard Designs and I have been really pleased with their quality so far. The only thing messing them up is all the lovely dogs that live in the neighborhood who have found a favorite thing to go to the bathroom on. Not cool.

This year I decided to mix it up and opted for a lush, tropical feel. The big standouts this year are the giant elephant ears. I am in love with them! They add so much height to the pot and I can't get over their huge, gorgeous green leaves.

Do you see those holes in the leaves? I was so heart broken when I came outside after a freak hail-storm and saw they had ripped through the elephant ears, ugh. I've had a few challenges with the pots in July, that's for sure. We had record breaking rains all month, including a crazy 7 inches in one day. Needless to say the pots were flooded and the downpours knocked the elephant ears over. That's my only complaint about the EE's, it's been hard keeping them upright during the storms.

I'm really liking the tropical feel of the mix this year. The Kong Coleus are always beautiful and have grown really well. The pots are in a part shade/part sun area so it can be a challenge finding plants, although even the geraniums last year thrived with not that much sun. It's mostly lush greenery this year and then I added regular impatients and wave petunias.

Totally absent from the pictures are the New Guinea Impatients in each pot in a great coral color. They failed me. Big time. No blooms! What's up with that? I think I've discovered that they like more sun than your typical plant that's billed as a shade lover. Major bummer because I think the coral would have looked great.

Here's the breakdown of what I used in the planters:

I can't decide what I like better, I'm thinking this years...