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Pots Galore! Container Gardening

By Sonia Uyterhoeven
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Here are some simple suggestions for planting beautiful containers this summer.

Container Basics

The first step in container gardening is to choose the size and texture of container that suits your taste, plant choices and container location. We offer a wide variety of containers in our online shop, including earthy terra cotta, faux stone and versatile, durable resin. One of my new favorites is an eco-friendly and very attractive container made from coconut husk fiber that will begin to biodegrade after about 3-5 years. It’s lightweight, with good color and texture, provides terrific drainage and air flow for your plants, and can be used outdoors.

Use containers with holes in the bottom for drainage, and follow these tips for successful container gardening:

• Larger containers require less frequent watering.
• Use potting soil, not garden soil, to plant your containers. Garden soil is too heavy and will not be free from pests and diseases.
• Space the plants much closer together than in the garden-you can grow twice as many plants in the same amount of space.
• Don’t fill the container to the top with soil and mulch. Leave ¾-inch empty at the top of the container. This space will allow for easier and more effective watering and keep soil and mulch from spilling out.
• Fertilize your container. Nutrients will leach out with frequent watering. Use a slow-release fertilizer, and supplement it with liquid fertilizer, such as Monty’s Joy Juice starting in mid to late July. You can easily use half the amount of fertilizer recommended on the label and still get good results. Over-fertilizing weakens plants and promotes leafy growth with few flowers.
• Use mulch to retain moisture.
• Deadhead your flowers regularly to keep them blooming. Cut back or prune any plants that become too large.
• Check containers daily to see if they need to be watered.

Design Considerations

Attractive, well-planted containers are an essential component of today’s garden. In his new book, Pots in the Garden, award-winning horticulturist Ray Rogers offers a fresh approach to container planting and explains the basic design principles of container gardening. Rogers demonstrates how to use color, texture, and spacing in containers, and much more.

Whatever your gardening experience, key design considerations for creating interesting container gardens are as follows:

Foliage: Foliage is an extremely important and often underrated component of any design, whether in a container or in the garden. Long after flowers are gone, foliage continues to provide wonderful contrasts and texture. Examples include: coleus (Solenostemon); cardoon (Cardunculus cynara), New Zealand-flax (Phormium).

Fine Textures: Fine textures are feathery and delicate; they enhance foliage and colors in neighboring plants. Examples include: fennel (Foeniculum vulgare); Mexican feather grass (Nassella tenuissima); cosmos (Cosmos bipinnatus).

Bold Textures: Bold textures create an impact. They add stability to a design and create focal points. Examples include: canna-lily (Canna hybrids); elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta); banana (Musa hybrids).

Shapes: Container designers often organize plants into three categories: accent plants add height to a container, mounding plants add mass and color to the composition, and trailing plants spill over the edge. Although these three different components are frequently used when designing a container, this is not a rule.

Accent plants: Accent plants are striking features that create a focal point for the composition. Vertical plants that give the container height can be accents. Tropical plants are very effective accents with their broad leaves and exotic feel.

Mounding plants: Mounding plants are wonderful fillers for an arrangement. They cover up bare spaces and add depth and fullness.

Trailing plants: Trailing plants are important features of many arrangements, particularly hanging baskets. They blur the lines between the container and the plants.

Color: Designing with color is fun. Everyone should be encouraged to experiment with it. Some colors are hot (red, orange, and yellow), while others are cool (blue, purple, and pink). White often brings out the intensity in another color, looking very classy when paired with green and pastel and pretty when paired with pale yellow. Beautiful arrangements can be made by combining varying shades or hues of the same color.

Repetition: Repetition is as important for container design as it is for garden design. When there is too much variety, the eye does not have a resting point. Repetition creates continuity in an arrangement and ties the composition together. Repetition does not necessarily mean using the same plant repeatedly in one container; plants can be repeated throughout a grouping of containers. Using plants with the same color or shape can be a form of repetition. Conversely, using the same plant in different colored containers effectively creates a sense of continuity.

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