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Summerflowering bulbs
Photo courtesy of: Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Centre
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The difference between a dull and a dazzling summer garden often boils down to what garden pros call "character". Garden character is simply that extra something, or sense of style, that sets one apart from others.
With input from Canadian, American and European gardeners, both pro and lay, the Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Centre compiled the following tips for character-filled container gardens, be they pocket-sized city lots or expansive country estates. Be forewarned, after reading the following you just might decide to astroturf the entire garden and never look back from the convenient world of 'the contained garden'.
1. Group containers for impact
Too often, people use the same containers in the same place every year. It starts and ends with the one big container by the front door. Tip #1 is: Go wild! Place seven, even 10 containers there. Groups of containers create focus and impact.
Don't limit your thinking. Consider anything that suits your fancy. Try what excites you: various ivies, lantana, coleus, verbena fuchsia, daisies, impatiens and roses. For especially dramatic container plants, try some of the huge assortment of summer bulbs: oxalis, cannas, eucomis, begonias, dahlias, agapanthus, lilies, caladiums or elephant ears, and lots more.
2. Repetition = balance. Add a surprise and you'll get WOW!
Gardening is a bit like painting -- you create appealing compositions with your interplay of colour, form, scale and texture. Balance is achieved via repetition and contrast.
When designing your containers, choose plants that go together, but, for that element of 'character', ones that don't quite match. This repetition of related colours ties the big picture together. Three to five colours work nicely as a base. But don't stop there -- how boring. Toss in a surprise -- something oddball that is just off enough in colour or texture to punch up everything else a notch.
3. It's a love match
The best plantings (in containers or in the garden) are those in which the plants fall in love -- intertwining and looping through one another, holding others upright, peeking and creeping through in odd places, or simply making one another look good. When choosing plants, select those that do something for each other. Differ their stature, some low-growing and draping, some tall and erect. Choose some that will creep and emerge where they choose. Pay attention to different leaf textures.
One canna in a pot is nice. But for real star power, provide it with a family of plant partners that can thrive under similar growing conditions.
As an example: start with a variegated canna with multi-striped leaves of green-orange-gold-pink; then add magenta-and-gold coleus, hot pink-and-green caladium and hot pink trailing petunias. For the zinger, add taxi-yellow lantana. As the planting matures, its charming intertwined growth will take on a life of its own.
4. Dead zone containers
Another good design technique employs container plantings to soften up the stark look of dead zones where no soil or garden area is available. Think of side gardens (especially north-facing ones) or walkways, decks, balconies, along garage walls or cement areas bounded by ugly chain link fences.
Build your own garden in these barren areas with containers. For instance: line up window boxes or pots along a wall, placing them a few inches away from the wall. The containers can be all the same, or a mix of any old thing you've got. Fill with potting soil and plant low leafy plants and climbing vines.
For a lush, cool leafy look at the base, nothing beats caladium bulbs, which produce abundant leaves in shades of all green, or green jazzed up with pink dots or splotches, white or magenta borders or flushes, or other exotic colourations. For vertical softening, add a backdrop of wooden or metal latticework (even string) to support climbing vines such as Mandevilla, moon flowers, clematis or morning glories.
5. Don't forget to water
1. All containers must have drainage holes; and 2. be sure to water container plantings regularly, even daily, especially during heat waves. Container plants drink lots and often.
6. Everywhere you look is an ideal spot for a container
Once you start playing with container plantings, you'll find places for them -- everywhere. Tuck them right into your garden -- plop them among the ferns and Hostas (actually Hostas are great container plants), anywhere that needs some filling in, or a jolt of moveable colour.
By moving pots around, you can grow sun-lovers in the sun -- then move them to shady spots to enjoy their bloom period.
Group pots on front steps, add them to deck railings, along paths, they work absolutely everywhere. Put them on balconies, in the woods, just outside the garage door, amid rose bushes, by the mailbox.
7. Cool containers
Be sure to check out the new fiberglass, resin and synthetic containers now on the market. Many are astonishingly lightweight, can overwinter outdoors without cracking and are often fashioned after rare old estate containers in stunning designs of pseudo-stone, moulded cement, terracotta, even cast iron. Today's containers may be the best looking ones you'll ever own.
The days are getting longer. Summer is on its way, and all across Canada, garden containers are beckoning to be filled.
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