Guys, spring is finally here! If you live somewhere with proper seasons like us, then you know how exciting spring is. Waking up to sunny days again makes me stoked about life. I want to do everything I possibly can outside (probably because I’m super low on Vitamin D as a result of this brutal winter).
With the first official long weekend of summer right around the corner, all we wanted to do this #sundayfunday was hit the greenhouse and do some planting. My Dad has the greenest thumb there is (I literally grew up with a mango tree inside my house. Alyssa and Vanessa can confirm), so planting is literally in my blood. I fantasize about living somewhere that’s warm all year round and winter doesn’t swoop in like an apocalypse every six months and kill almost all greenery in sight.
Today we took a little road trip to visit my Dad’s favourite plant store, Valley View. If you live in the Toronto area and you haven’t been, you seriously don’t know what you’re missing. They’ve got plants for days. We were inspired to make some cool arrangements so we grabbed some pots, cacti, succulents and picked up some herbs to get our gardens going while we were at it.
Vanessa and I decided to make cacti arrangements while Alyssa went rogue and did a succulent arrangement. They turned out great if we do say so ourselves. It didn’t take long either, we actually spent more time at Valley View in awe of the lemon trees – it’s just awesome to be able to make something together.
- Shallow pots
- Gravel or small pebbles
- Cacti/Succulent potting mix
- Cacti or succulents, depending on your preference. You’ll want to select a variety of colours, shapes and height to keep it interesting
- Gloves (trust us on this one, especially if you’re arranging cacti!)
Now, we’re def not planting experts (or experts at anything we do really tbh), so we’re not the best people to give you the lowdown on how exactly you should arrange your cacti or succulents, we’re just here to plant the seed (pun always intended) of a great idea for your #sundayfunday. Think of us as your #sundayfunday sherpas. There are however a ton of resources on the world wide web you can check out, HGTV knows what’s up, as does Southern Living.
We found so many cool plants we loved at Valley View that we also grabbed some plain terracotta pots and got our painting on after we finished with our arrangements, so we could have fun new homes for our new plant babies. We kept it simple with a white base and some black shapes and patterns. But they turned out great.
After all that planting, we needed a cocktail badly (though let’s be honest we could always use a cocktail). All we wanted was something super fresh and the herbs we picked up smelled delicious, so we felt inspired to use as many as possible. Introducing the Spring Smash, featuring gin, honey syrup, lemon verbena, basil and mint, it was exactly what we needed; super fresh and light. These go down pretty easy. You can grab the recipe here.
Happy planting you guys!
And don’t it feel good? This playlist is stacked with bright, feel-good tunes and summer vibes.