Read at : Google Alert - gardening
http://www.herald-review.com/articles/2008/05/11/columnists/plant_palette/1032422.txt
Container gardening
Hopefully, you’ve already figured out a gift for mom this Mother’s Day. If not, consider creating a container garden for her. While bouquets of flowers are nice, a pot of colorful annuals should last well into the summer, if not longer. Mother’s Day, or about May 15, also is considered the safe “frost free” date for the area.
Choosing plants for a container can be intimidating. You may think you’re not creative enough or that you don’t know enough about plants. But with a few tips, you will be designing container gardens in no time.
First, choose a container. Consider where it will be in your landscape. You may want a pot that coordinates with your house or looks good in a particular corner of the garden, but it’s also fine to just pick a pot for no other reason than it appeals to you. Whatever you choose, make sure there is a hole in the bottom for drainage.
If you are going to place your pots in a sunny location, remember that unglazed clay pots dry out fast in the sun. You may wish to choose a glazed ceramic or even plastic pot for a very hot, sunny location. It also may be a good idea to go with a pot on the larger side, as a larger volume of soil will dry out more slowly than a small volume of soil in a small pot.
The down side of larger pots is buying enough soil to fill them. Most annuals develop a fairly shallow root system, around 6 to 8 inches deep. So it’s really a waste to have soil 2 feet deep in a pot! Instead, place inverted plastic pots, large Styrofoam packing pieces or a plastic bag of Styrofoam peanuts in the bottom of your pot to act as filler.
One of my favorite tips in designing container gardens is that there are three types of plants in a container garden: the thriller, the filler and the spiller.
The thriller is the tallest plant in the bunch. It grabs your attention in how it stands above the other plants. The filler is a medium-size plant that dominates the center area of the pot. The spiller cascades down the side of the pot, drawing attention downward.
In my experience, container gardens look best when you have at least one of each of these plants in the mix. Also, odd numbers of plants tend to look best. The pots on my front porch demonstrate this idea. Each pot contains three plants: ‘Tricolor’ geranium (thriller), Euphorbia ‘Diamond Frost’ (filler) and bronze sweet potato vine (spiller).
But just because you have a thriller, filler and spiller doesn’t mean they look good together. You still have to pay attention to color. This is where many people get frustrated. You will have the best results if you keep your color choices simple.
The easiest method is to choose shades of one color, such as red. Another choice could be a palette of warm colors, which includes red, orange and yellow. Green, blue and purple are the cool colors. Warm colors suggest excitement and energy; cool colors evoke peaceful and calm feelings. Choose your favorite.
Complementary colors are those which lie directly across from each other on the color wheel. These colors bring out the best in each other, and they “pop.” Red/green, orange/blue and yellow/purple are the basic complementary color pairs. Choose plants with these color pairings, and you will be very pleased with the results.
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Jennifer A. Nelson is a unit educator in horticulture for the University of Illinois Extension.
