Loading...
The Rural Voice, 2004-07, Page 40Gardening Container gardening - anything will do Rhea Hamilton - Seeger and her husband live near Auburn. She is a skilled cook and gardener. By Rhea Hamilton -Seeger I have come to the conclusion that container gardening for some is just an easy way to leave those late season plant sale items on the patio and not bother digging them into the garden. Whether they are an annual, perennial, shrub or small tree, as long as their growing needs are met you can have quite an eclectic display. Container planting around the modem home usually meant brilliant annuals cascading out of a wide pot or urn. Not anymore. Marketing has met practicality and creativity, and this year the local garden centres are sporting a wide assortment of mixed planters that feature both blooming and coloured foliage perennials. Some combinations are great for sun and others ready for that shady spot. At the end of the season you can just dig the plants into your garden and they will be back next year. July is a wonderful month to fill even more containers. All you need is anything that will hold soil. The first thing that comes to my mind is an old boot with hens and chicks cascading around the tongue and out a split in the toe. Gardening in containers has many advantages. You can have a container garden as easily as setting a pot of parsley on the patio. You can create mini conditions for particular plants, move the containers around like furniture to best suit your deck or show off your plants, and then move the container into the background when they have finished flowering. I always find July a more quiet, relaxed time. Hopefully everything has been weeded once and is now mulched against further weeds, and drought. You can spend a few quiet 36 THE RURAL VOICE moments deadheading in your border as well as through your containers. There are some wonderful plant sales during the end of June, beginning ofJuly. While a lot of plants may look a little peaked or bedraggled, many are worth a look at. This is when I have fun filling my patio planters. I tend to look to annuals here although I have been mixing in the overflow of some perennials from the garden. I thinned out some Iambs' ears last year and mixed it with some blue salvia and white impatiens. It looked grand. Gardeners are quite creative with their choice of containers. Everything from old cooking implements, that can't be used with food, can be painted and given a new lease as a home for a scented herb. Baskets, tinware, hollow log slices, bathtubs, even toilets (I don't recommend this one). Wash them well before using. There are some lovely enormous planters being used now. To avoid getting a hernia when moving these grand large pots, use crumpled cell packs or lumps of polystyrene in the bottom. The polystyrene has the added benefit of retaining heat. A neat feature when the fall evenings become cool. It used to be that hanging containers needed watering at least once a day if not twice. Pots on the patio were almost as demanding, depending on their size and what they were made of. Clay pots look grand but dry out quite quickly. All this watering makes it rather difficult to go away for a few days without a neighbour or older child willing to take on the routine. With the use of drought tolerant perennials and annuals, larger containers, and soil amendments, it is now possible to have lovely containers, and hanging plants with reduced watering. Bonus! Your choice of potting mix will depend on the requirements of your plants. I use a pellet fertilizer (14-14- 14) especially developed for hanging baskets and planters. But even after six weeks I will offer a dose of fish fertilizer to keep them happy and blooming. Usually, a soil mixture will include some peat to reduce the weight and increase the soil's water retention. We should be trying to go peat free (it is a non-renewable resource) and look to some of the more interesting replacements. Chopped coconut hulls work great and there is a water -retaining gel that you can mix into your potting mix prior to planting. A new product on the shelf called Soil Sponge by PlantBest claims to be able to add up to seven days between waterings. You simply add it to the bottom of your pot and then add your soil mixture and then your plants. I am a little suspicious of a package that doesn't tell me what is in it. I suppose that would be trade secret if they told me. We are a bit spoiled with great labeling on our food products that I expect the same openness on all products. Don't forget the mulch on your pots. I have used pine cones around the base of the large ficus trees I set out each summer. They look great and make wonderful toys for the chipmunks that search the pots regularly, for what I don't know. You can also use stones, or gravel. Clay granules are great used in the trays that the pots sit in. They absorb moisture and release it slowly creating a moist microclimate for your plant. I still have an article by Jennifer Bennett, a regular columnist for Canadian Gardening and an author of several popular gardening books, for a wonderful hanging basket . She began with a 12 -inch wire hanging basket and lined it with a dozen fairly flat juniper or cedar branches about a foot long. Be sure to wear gloves if you try this.