When we moved last summer from our home of 15 years, one of the many, many tasks to tackle was moving my "mobile" garden. Now we know that once you put your house on the market, you can't dig up plants from the garden (so those were out of bounds)... but, in my yard I always have my auxiliary garden of potted containers.
My new home has a pretty sizable patio that I love. It is one of my favorite things about the house. It's tucked in around back, and from the street you'd never know it's there. It feels like a secret garden of sorts. But, with that much patio, comes a lot of concrete. It is the perfect spot for container gardening!
NEVER TOO MANY CONTAINERS
One of my favorite gardening tricks is keeping masses of flower pots and containers in clusters around the garden. Some are filled with annuals to bring color. Some are filled with perennials to bring texture. Some are combination of both! By my current count, I have approximately 25 containers in and around my garden right now and I love how they fill the corners and with lush brightness!All of them bring beauty and interest to corners of the garden that otherwise couldn't or wouldn't support them.
FILL SPOTS WHERE NOTHING WILL GROW
In my former garden, I had lots and lots of shade as well as some parts of the yard that were pretty inhospitable to planting in ground. My solution to that was to use large pots and fill them with bright, shade-loving plants that made those barren spots still look lush and full.
OVER-WINTER PERENNIALS IN POTS
Of my many containers, several are filled with Ferns and Hosta that I've had for years. This is a great money-saving trick and provides a lush green backdrop for some of the flashier annuals I add to them. I over-winter them each year in my garage, water them 1x per month, and in March, pull them out again to enjoy!
TIPS FOR CONTAINER GARDENING
For large pots, fill half-way with foam packing materials (saved from all that on-line shopping) or bunched up plastic bags. It's light, water drains through it, and it saves you a bundle on potting soil!
Use a mixture of perennials and annuals in larger pots. This way at the end of the season, you can either store the pot over winter (watering 1x per month), or you can transplant those perennials into your garden at the end of summer and use them to fill the garden.
Slightly overfill the container to get masses of color faster and remember the old "thriller, filler, spiller" adage.
Fertilize pots every few weeks to keep them blooming.
During the growing season, use your finger to feel whether the soil is moist before watering pots. Do this every day. This way you won't over or under water them.
Look for deals on large containers at the end of summer (August, September) when stores start shifting stock to Fall/Winter items.
GARDEN TO-DO'S
Here are some things I'll be doing in the garden this week:
1. Trim down perennials that have finished blooming/seeding
2. Prune top growth from tomato plants to encourage ripening of remaining fruit
3. Trim Iris leaves down to 4 inches
4. Keep watering grass re-seeding patches
5. Pull perennials from containers and plant them in the ground if not overwintering
Comments