Container Gardening: More of This Year's Containers

As a follow-up to last Wednesday's post, here are the rest of this year's winter containers.

Container Gardening: Some of This Year's Winter Containers

As per my recent posts on spray-painted alliums and wreath-making, I am trying do most of my indoor and outdoor Christmas decorating with cuttings from my garden. As a part of this effort, here are some of the winter containers that I have put together this past week. I'm about half-way done and will post pictures of the others after I finish them. If you want to see how they differ from last year's winter containers, click here.
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Winterberry and Leyland Cypress

Carex, blue spruce, variegated holly, Ballerina rose hips, and spray-painted allium

Spray-painted alliums, Southern Magnolia leaves, blue spruce and Ballerina rose hips

Ilex, Dortmund rose hips and blue spruce

Container Gardening: Autumn Container (and some Pumpkins and Gourds)

In a prior post on container gardening, I discussed my efforts to change the containers in the front border with the seasons.

For the container by my front door, I've just replaced the summer display of elephant ears with kale, American bittersweet vine, bronze carex, and a miniature gourd. This arrangement will last until the winter containers in December.



In front of the house, the children picked out a selection of pumpkins and gourds from the farmers' market and the local nursery.

Container Gardening: Summer Containers

Container Gardening: Pictures of Miss Kim Lilac

As a follow-up to my post on the variety, soil, and care of containers, here are some pictures of my Miss Kim Lilac, one of my favorite containers on the deck. As I previously wrote:

"When growing shrubs and trees in pots for the long term, I've learned to treat them as really large bonsai plants. Each year, I renew their soil by removing some and adding organic amendments and manure. Also, every few years I trim off the outer most roots of the plants on one side to allow more root development without the danger of the plant becoming root bound. With this treatment, my lilac is still growing in its original planting pot."

A Visit to Chanticleer in Wayne, Pennsylvania: Spring Bulbs, Flowering Trees, and Inspiring Containers

I have never been to Chanticleer in the spring. Usually, things are too busy here with spring sports and gardening to go for the day; but with a clear schedule, we went. It was wonderful.

The most inspiring part of the visit was seeing all the containers. I often find spring pots hard to put together, but with a combination of colored branches from dogwoods and willows, climbing vines, leafy vegetables, and some flowering plants, each pot conveyed the fun and excitement of spring.

It was also good to see which annuals be set out early. Usually, I plant bulbs for most of my spring color in my beds, but I was inspired by Chanticleer to use some annuals such as the African daisy (Osteospermum) which can tolerate cool weather too.

Chanticleer's large drifts of bulbs (pictured) are a hint to the abundance of summer which will follow. I have not planted any bulbs in the lawn, but I'm thinking of doing so in the fall. My daughter loved that you could walk through the flowering bulbs as if they created a meadow. It is those kinds of romantic vignettes that make Chanticleer memorable.

In this trip, I was also able to see things which are more hidden later in the season. To see how hard they cut back their shrubs teaches me how much to cut mine back. I wanted to much a hill in our garden with pebbles, but I hesitated thinking that they would roll down. However, at Chanticleer there is a hill as steep or steeper than mine mulched with pebbles (pictured) and they are not all sitting at the bottom of the hill.

Related posts: Garden Color at Chanticleer and Early Spring Containers

Container Gardening: Dan Benarcik of Chanticleer

As I have previously written, I am a great fan of Chanticleer. As a part of Gardening Gone Wild's recent Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop on Container Gardening, there is a short post with insights from Dan Benarcik, the horticulturalist who designs many of Chanticleer's inspiring containers. Despite their "over the top couture" appearance, he does try to make their maintenance as simple as possible--planting once for the season, fertilizing once a month, and watering once a day.

Container Gardening: Early Spring Containers - Daffodils, Pansies, Lettuce, and Primrose

As a follow-up to my recent Gardening Bloggers' Design Workshop post on the variety, soil, and care of containers, here are some pictures of this year's early spring containers. At this stage in the season, it still drops below freezing some nights, so I am limited in what I can plant.

In the pot that is next to my front door (first picture), daffodils greet visitors. At the base of the daffodils, there is a ring of pansies and lettuce (see the detail in the second picture), an idea that I picked up from Chanticleer.

In other containers that I am not yet ready to plant for the full season (such as my hanging baskets), I simply fill them with pansies--an idea that I picked up from the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG).

In the pot in front of the library, I have added primrose and pansies to the yellow twig dogwood.

Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop - Container Plantings: Variety, Soil, and Care

When I first moved to my current garden, I gardened strictly in containers for the first two years. I covered my 800 square foot deck with everything imaginable, leaving barely enough space for eating and sitting. During that time, I learned a lot about container gardening from both failures and successes. The three most important lessons I learned are: anything can grow in a container; the potting soil matters a great deal; and containers must be cared for and freshened up throughout the year.

Anything Can Grow In A Container
Anything that grows in the ground can grow in a pot. Containers are not just about annuals. More can be added to the garden by varying the contents of your containers. For example, two years ago I planted a culinary herb garden near our Children's Garden. I found that it was too far from the house to duck out while cooking for a quick snip at an herb or two. So, last year I relocated the herb garden into pots on the deck. I have one huge pot with dill, chives, and basil; one with rosemary, tarragon, and various kinds of thyme; and a few smaller ones with different varieties of basil. I usually grow any new roses I want to try in pots: everything from the small Clotidle Soupert to the rampant climber Cecile Brunner. Evergreens, shrubs, grasses, vines, even trees can be grown in pot. I have had a lilac growing for five years now in a pot on the deck and each year the blooms get better and better.

When growing shrubs and trees in pots for the long term, I've learned to treat them as really large bonsai plants. Each year, I renew their soil by removing some and adding organic amendments and manure. Also, every few years I trim off the outer most roots of the plants on one side to allow more root development without the danger of the plant becoming root bound. With this treatment, my lilac is still growing in its original planting pot.

The Potting Soil Matters a Great Deal
As regards the potting medium, consider again what will be growing in the pot. For tropical plants that like a lot of moisture like elephant ears, I use a heavy potting soil with lots of organic matter added to it that will hold moisture well. This year I am mixing the organic Gardeners' Gold potting soil with dehydrated cow manure. For my roses, that mixture would kill them because the water would sit too long close to their roots. So for roses, I could take the same Gardeners' Gold, but to it add perlite and cow manure so that the proportions are 1:1:1. This yields a rich, well draining soil. For a plant which likes leaner soil, take out the cow manure and use a less organic potting soil as a base.

Containers Need Year-Round Care
Once the container is planted, the care for that container does not stop there. Since containers are their one ecosystem, I must be very attentive to watering, particularly during heat waves, and fertilizing. Usually, I water every morning and sometimes again later if the weather has been particularly brutal. I also fertilize once a week with fish emulsion, sea weed emulsion, or a liquid complete fertilizer.

In the border, I often use containers which I can change with each season. The pot that sets in the front of our library began in the spring with a melange of daffodils, tulips, and muscari ringed with pansies. In June, I replaced the planting with red hot pokers, caladium, and a very tall phormium. Then in autumn, everything except the red hot poker came out. I add then a three foot tall yellow twig dogwood, pansies, and a few medium sized gourds. After Thanksgiving, I removed the gourds and replaced them with white pine boughs and trimmed back the leaves of the red hot poker for neatness. For this spring, I left the dogwood and the red hot poker. I have added pink primroses and pansies. The constant changing of the containers offers something new for each season and gives me more opportunity to experiment.
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Before the frost, I also move my non-hardy containers that I want to over-winter either into the garage (roses, fig tree) or into the house (elephant ears).

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Containers add so much to my garden and plant knowledge. It is a great way to experiment with different plants and combinations without the commitment of planting in the ground. Also, seeing how a plant thrives in a pot with a specific planting medium helps me understand under what conditions it will thrive in the ground.

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This post is a part of Gardening Gone Wild's Garden Bloggers' Design Workshop - Container Plantings: (http://www.gardeninggonewild.com/?p=940).
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Related posts: Early Spring Containers, Winter Containers

Container Gardening: Autumn Cleanup and Rosemary in Bloom

In autumn, before the first frost, I move some of my non-hardy plants grown in containers from my deck into more sheltered locations.

Some, I move into the garage so they can go dormant under milder conditions, like my fig tree and a few of my roses. Others, like the elephant ears, I move into the house. The herbs, except the chives and thyme which are hardy and can be left outdoors, I have usually treated as annuals.

This year, I brought my rosemary plant indoors and, to my surprise, it started blooming. It is now covered with the small, light purple flowers that you see in these pictures.

The Hellenbrechts in Ohio: Christmas Green

Here are some more ideas about winter containers:

The Hellenbrechts in Ohio: Christmas Green

Container Gardening: Winter Containers

Yesterday, before today's snow, I replanted all my planters in the front garden for the winter. I love having something beautiful to look at when most of the garden is sleeping. For inspiration this year, I looked at some photographs I took at the Missouri Botanical Garden (http://mobot.org/) last winter.

The first pot has a yellow twig dogwood as its base. From there, I added boughs of white pine and dried hydrangea blossoms from a Pee Gee hydrangea in the garden.

On the front porch is an urn whose plantings change every season. For winter, I have cut branches of winterberry surrounded by dried statice and white pine branches. Also, added are some large pine cones from a collection my husband and I have gathered over the years.


















Near the lamp post is a small pot atop a column which has Douglas fir clippings, some faux winterberries, and pine cones. Since this pot is in a more exposed position than the one on the porch, in the the past I have found that real winterberries do not hold up as well.




















The last pot I did is in front of the living room. In the center of the pot are branches cut from a red twig dogwood surrounded by more Douglas fir branches. A few pine cones were added also.

The pots will add interest to the garden until spring comes and are easy to do. You can use cuttings from your own garden, buy some from local nurseries, or from White Flower Farm (http://www.whiteflowerfarm.com/) who sells a wonderful 14 pound box of winter greens.