Container
Gardening Tips for Newbies
Container gardens
can create a natural sanctuary in a busy city street, along rooftops or on
balconies. You can easily accentuate the welcoming look of a deck or patio with
colourful pots of annuals, or fill your window boxes with beautiful shrub roses
or any number of small perennials. Whether you arrange your pots in a group for
a massed effect or highlight a smaller space with a single specimen, you'll be
delighted with this simple way to create a garden.
Container
gardening enables you to easily vary your color scheme, and as each plant
finishes flowering, it can be replaced with another. Whether you choose to
harmonize or contrast your colors, make sure there is variety in the height of
each plant. Think also of the shape and texture of the leaves. Tall strap-like
leaves will give a good vertical background to low-growing, wide-leaved plants.
Choose plants with a long flowering season, or have others of a different type
ready to replace them as they finish blooming.
Experiment with
creative containers. You might have an old porcelain bowl or copper urn you can
use, or perhaps you'd rather make something really modern with timber or
tiles. If you decide to buy your
containers ready-made, terracotta pots look wonderful, but tend to absorb
water. You don't want your plants to dry out, so paint the interior of these
pots with a special sealer available from hardware stores.
Cheaper plastic
pots can also be painted on the outside with water-based paints for good
effect. When purchasing pots, don't
forget to buy matching saucers to catch the drips. This will save cement floors
getting stained, or timber floors rotting.
Always use a good
quality potting mix in your containers. This will ensure the best performance
possible from your plants.
If you have steps
leading up to your front door, an attractive pot plant on each one will delight
your visitors. Indoors, pots of plants or flowers help to create a cosy and
welcoming atmosphere.
Decide ahead of
time where you want your pots to be positioned, then buy plants that suit the
situation. There is no point buying sun lovers for a shady position, for they
will not do well. Some plants also have really large roots, so they are best
kept for the open garden.
If you have
plenty of space at your front door, a group of potted plants off to one side
will be more visually appealing than two similar plants placed each side.
Unless they are spectacular, they will look rather boring.
Group the pots in
odd numbers rather than even, and vary the height and type. To tie the group
together, add large rocks that are similar in appearance and just slightly
different in size. Three or five pots of the same type and color, but in
different sizes also looks affective.
With a creative
mind and some determination, you will soon have a container garden that will be
the envy of friends and strangers alike.
M.Harper
