Container Gardening: Instant Beauty

Elements of good design Before you head off to the nursery to find some pretty plants or flowers, to make interesting and beautiful containers, it pays to consider the three major components of design: color, texture, and form. COLOR is the first thing most people notice about a container arrangement. Color influences how we feel and react. Warm tones, such as reds, oranges, and yellows, nab attention immediately, while blues, purples, and pastels may seem more soothing. Greens, grays, and whites can harmonize with almost any other hue. Remember that you can coordinate foliage and bloom colors with the color of your pot (luckily, terra-cotta goes with almost everything!). FORM refers to the shape of a plant and its parts. Think about how tall and wide your plants will grow.…

WAVE PETUNIA These massively popular, fast-growing annuals come in candy-colored shades of pink, purple, yellow, red, white and apricot. They bloom nonstop and trail over the edge of a pot in waves of color, hence the name. SCAVEOLA With their pretty blue-purple, fan-shaped blooms, scaveola look great in containers and don’t need to be deadheaded to keep blooming. The best reason to plant this variety? Butterflies love them. COLEUS The funky foliage colors of this plant, which range from lime green to blood reds, make it a fabulous filler for a container. Look for varieties that grow in sun or shade, depending on your needs. VERBENA A spreading annual that cascades over pots, this is a classic spiller. Its clusters of tiny, fragrant flowers come in white, pink and purple…

Pot Choices Everyone needs a good home, and plants are no exceptions. When choosing a pot, take into account these requirements. SIZE MATTERS. For best results, match your plant’s needs to its pot. You wouldn’t put a palm tree in a 6-inch pot because it soon outgrows the space. A miniature plant won’t perform as well in a 10-gallon container. In general, larger pots are better if you’re growing many plants, so there is more space for their roots to ramble. Smaller pots dry out quicker, so you’ll need to water more frequently. Size also comes into play when designing. A deep and narrow pot looks best with plants at least twice the height of the pot. Topping a tall urn with short succulents looks better if you add trailing…

Choosing the right potting mix Plants grown in containers need the right soil to succeed. That means avoiding garden soil or topsoil. These heavy soils compact inside a container, leaving no room for air or water to penetrate and feed roots. Garden soil also often contains weed seeds, insects, and disease-producing pathogens. Most containers grow best in a standard potting mix that doesn’t actually contain soil. A good mix holds moisture yet leaves enough spaces between particles for roots to take in air, nutrition, and water. Test your potting mix by running water through the container; it should start draining out within about five to 10 seconds. If not, switch to a lighterweight mix. Most potting mixes come prepackaged with additives such as fertilizer or moisture-retentive polymer crystals. If you…

Watering Every living thing needs water to survive. However, water needs for containers vary wildly. Water gardens contain plants that need moisture all the time, while cacti, some succulents, and some perennials prefer life on the dry side. Understand the water requirements of your plants before you plant. Just as you pay attention to sun and shade requirements, you should avoid mixing plants with different water needs in the same container. Container-grown plants can’t extend their roots to seek out more moisture, so you must provide it for them. However, if you overwater, you can drown the roots. Be sure your containers provide excellent drainage. Pots may need watering at least once a day and sometimes more often, depending on the size of the container, amount of heat and wind,…

[1] SHOCK WAVE PETUNIA NOTES: Comes in 13 colors or mixtures SIZE: 7-10 inches tall HARDINESS: Annual Some great plants are just too big for comfortable container use. Luckily, new downsized versions are available at a garden center near you. “Designing for containers and small-space gardening has been a focus of our breeders for a few years now,” says Katie Rotella of Ball Horticultural Company. “Several of our long-time favorites have mini-me versions.” Others get makeovers due to climate. “For instance, Angelonia ‘Serena’ gets very large in southern states,” Katie says. “So we recently introduced ‘Serenita’ as a more manageable Angelonia for the South and provide a low-border and container option for the North.” Plants often grow to the size of their container. “So if you wish a traditional cultivar…