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CONTAINER GARDENING FLOWERS
I am going to try to view this container gardening flowers subject from a lighter side then its counter part vegetable container gardening. We do not need to get too technical here about soil content or other technical aspects suited more to other spots of this web site. AS far as soil goes for your flower containers,you just need to purchase a good bag of potting soil from your local supplier and proceed with your planting. be I do want to pay particular attention to the waxed begonia in the bag. This is not at all difficut to produce on your own if you just do a few simple procedures. You can buy the empty bags at some garden shops or from on line flower catalogs and do your own container flower gardening. The garden shops want to charge upwards of $22.00 for buying these already prepared. I do not begrudge the garden shop because they too must make a profit. Purchase these bags bring them home with some flowers of your choice. I do find the wax begonia holds up best to rough treatment in stuffing them into the holes of the bag.You can purchase these bags with five or ten holes. The other plants that would fair well could include regular begonia,petunia,wave petunia(now in many colors besides purple) and all types or styles of marigolds to think of a few. I would advise to plant one style in this container gardening flowers bag because of sun requirements for each different flower. The first thing and the very messy part of this job is filling the bag. I used a small garden shovel and filled the bag to the top with potting soil. Even though the potting soil might be moist,I would make it wet before I put it in the bag. This compacts your container gardening soil and prevents it from rolling out the top end of the bag when you lay it down. As careful a you can be,take whatever flower you are using,wet it thoroughly before removing it from the nursey pot. Then you carefully stuff it into the holes you have made in the soil with a pencil or some object. You should make sure your container gardening bag is lying down when you perform this procedure. After all the pre made plastic holes and your holes in the soil are filled,continue to to keep the bag flat and move it to a semi shade area and put the bag down in a flat position. In about three to four days your plants should be sufficiently anchored to hang up in the appropriate spot in the garden. This is probably the most difficult procedure in container gardening flowers but makes a great impression on gardening and non gardening friends.Find some very good containers at the location below.
THE ACHIEVEMENT OF A LOOK IN CONTAINER GARDENING FLOWERSI prefer the use of annuals for my pots and try to purchase ones that will provide instant color and ones that will bloom the entire summer. I would try to vary my combination of colors and style in this container gardening flowers effort. I used red celosia with both red and purple wave in this self watering container to achieve a brilliant and bright look.
By the way the container pots,we are showing here,have just at this moment been planted so they are not as full as they might be otherwise. However this gives me the opportunity to display the progression of these flowers to maturity.
See starting for hints on how to grow your own from seed
The pot to the left contains an unusual flower called Angelonia which my wife discovered at a local nursey. It is a beautiful spike flower and of great use in container gardening flowers. It grows to 10-18 " in height and, as the weeks progress,we will see it reach its full maturity This is the exciting thing about container gardening you can be as creative as you want and you can place your garden anywhere to be seen by more interested folks then your permanent garden. OTHER CONSIDERATIONS TO BE MADE IN CONTAINER GARDENINGI do not believe there is a plant either annual,shrub,or perennial that will not survive in containers for awhile. A container life for a plant puts many constraints on the plant itself such as space,the nutrients and the water necessary to sustain a reasonable life. These are the very reasons you must choose plants that meet the container environment. I would evaluate the following distinctive items before placing a plant in your container gardening plans:
It is also necessary to point out the distinctive items to avoid in your container gardening:
The picture below depicts container gardening in a pot with strictly foliage. As long as the foliage will grow into an attractive arrangement,which this will do in a couple of weeks,then by all means plant an entire pot with different types to give it some contrast.
I am going to say a little here about perennials and shrubs. There are excellent ones for both flowers and foliage. The problem ensues,in places with winter,where do you keep the pots? We are fortunate to have an entire row of deck doors with windows basically from floor to ceiling and a high arched ceiling. Even so I am not a real fan of raising and keeping perennials indoors all winter. They require a lot of pruning and temperature regulating unless you have a winterize green house. Even the folks who have the good fortune that allows their container pots out all year long, still have to prune and water. I should mention here,and I have made this mistake,do not fill a container with perennials.This is correct perennials in the plural. You will no sooner turn around and you will have to repot put some annuals with one perennial,if you so desire. The next item to research is how fast will this plant grow? I had this problem with a Brugmansia(Angel's Trumpet) It truly is a breath taking plant until repotting time which was in about a year, and a year after that, and the year after that----. I was told to saw the roots off about one-third and this would retard the growth and it did but it had a little trouble flowering that season. By the next season,it was in a pot which neither my wife nor I together could lift or manage to get on to our deck two feet away. so a word to the wise,do not let beauty and size get larger than your muscle THE DESIGN OF THE CONTAINER GARDENING POT OR PLANT OR BOTHYou might want to consider the plant's form that is the plant's shape,growing habits,vining,or upright-growth,spreading,or vased shape. Yes you can always prune the appropriate plant into the shape necessary to make the pot take on its unique-looking life. It is so much easier to pick out plants that will naturally give the ultimate shape you want. Plants do fall into three categories. These are vertical emphasis,plants to fill in,and plants like vines,ives and others that supply the waterfall look to your container gardening pot. Think about what are the most important features that you want to stand out in this design.A decision has to be made as to whether it is the pot,plant,or both. If you have purchased a rather fancy container pot with very interesting features, I say go for simple plantings like broad leaf foliage surrounded by a few small size marigolds. A jaguar marigold pictured below would look good in a type of featured pot along with the foliage. The opposite holds true for bright and showy plants. The pot should remain anonymous
in this case.
THE OTHER IMPORTANT FEATURES IN CONTAINER GARDENING DESIGN
The other important considerations include color and texture in container gardening. This is the fun part because you can experiment with various color schemes to achieve this visual harmony. I have given this some thought and decided on the approaches I would take and these fall into four categories. Everything seems to fall into four categories. Just a ton of flowers in the same color or different flowers with the same color. I guess a ton could be described as many flowers in the same pot with out over crowding. It is simple and dramatic. Now I am starting to sound like an art critic. The next thing would be to plant several different variances on the same color. This gives your container gardening pot a contrast of dark and light. Another approach would be to combine cool looking pastels with some ornamental grasses or other foilage. Finally the last approach,I would consider,involves a mix of bright reds with maybe some yellows to give you that sensational color and strong effect. Texture,believe it or not, plays a large role in how your container gardening pot is received visually. It is very hard to see small leafed plants or plants with tiny flowers from a distance. You want to have this in an arrangement where the visual is a close up experience. You need bold leaves,large flowers, and tall spikes that can be appreciated from a distance in a large garden setting. You can give consideration also to the texture of the leaves on a plant. Do you want dull looking leaves to contrast with a very bright flower arrangement or do you want bright shiny leaves to contrast with a rather subtle color arrangement of flowers. One more thing before I end this subject.My daughter tells me my web pages are too long and I said how can you explain subjects of great importance in the gardening world in two paragraphs try war and peace! Anyway that is off the subject. You can design a mixed container gardening pot,which I briefly touched on before with a plant considered the foundation plant and fill in around it with some annuals or the foundation plant can even be an annual. The type of annual used here would have to be tall and majestic as in a cleome or spider plant or two as the center focus. Incidentally if you donot disturb the pot over the winter,you may have the ultimate surprise of more cleome next Spring.
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You can start all your annuals that are required for container gardening flowers from seed starting. In this way you have complete control over the kinds and types of annuals you may desire for your pots. I have found in many cases you can acquire the seed of a flower not readily available at any local outlet in either seed or flower form. This always makes for interesting garden talk.
