I think it really helps detract from the steel gold siding.

My Grandma has a green thumb-she has beautiful flowers and plants both inside and outside her house. I supposed my dad inherited some of this, but he tends to focus on corn, beans, and alfalfa rather than spider plants and day lilies. My older sister loves to putz with plants indoors and out and has claimed to have spent weeks deciding exactly which annuals to put in her window boxes. She also determinedly keeps alive a stub of a cactus that once belonged to my great-grandmother, a sentiment I admire, but really think is a little too much responsibility for me. Even with the great green-thumb gene, I can honestly claim I have not one plant in my entire house, living, dead, or otherwise.

In tribute to my grandma, and to spruce up the lovely 60's-gold color of our house, I do plant some flowers in a half-whiskey barrel every year, using my birthday money. After two disasterous tries at a hanging basket for the back deck, I've officially given up on that. This year I did spring for a small pot on the back deck, replacing my usual $8 palm-tree-looking-thing from the Walmart parking lot. Since DH spent 4 summers landscaping, we also have a few perennials (took me 4 tries to spell that correctly) that bloom about this time of year. Since I've been meaning to learn how to do a photo collage, you are being blessed/bored with the following visual report of our current blooms.