BIG BOX ARRIVES AS PROMISED!

 My sonny Chris and my delightful daughter-in-law Susan warned during their birthday call to me that a "big box" would show up on our doorstep sometime in late June...IT DID!

 It is a huge resin planter, self watering with a BASKET WEAVE look, on legs. 

My under-gardener wants to put in a special word of "thanks," as he got the job of moving it around in the yard several times before I settled on the right spot. 
"OH COME ON, IT'S NOT THAT HEAVY!" I said. 
I picked a spot where I've struggled to make anything look good... the slope to the southwest, almost to the very end of my garden. Nothing seemed to work there. It's under the shade of the big silver maple tree so I had a few pots of ferns propped up on rocks. 
Now the legs of the planter elevate the foliage so the eye looks up, not down at the slope. In other words, it disguises the slope nicely! 
"PERFECT!" I said. Don't you just love instant gratification!
We did have to use a board at the back to shore it up so the legs wouldn't sink into the gravel.
So here it is kitted out with ferns in my own special "fern grotto." For now I'm using pots but I'll probably plant the ferns in it this fall. 
A GREAT BIRTHDAY GIFT!