Best Garden

In both large and small gardens it is often appropriate to have a paved area, such as a patio, terrace or flight of steps. Here, container-grown plants can contribute significantly to the success of the garden, introducing splashes of colour, architectural features, focal points and seasonal emphasis. They have the advantage that they can be moved around according to the mood and prevailing display of the moment.

There are also a number of plants that thrive in conditions where the soil is limited, poor and well drained, such as in the cracks between paving stones or in walls. For example, creeping thyme and chamomile can be used to soften the geometry of a paved area, as they will tolerate some walking on, while saxifrage and acaena are useful creeping around the edges. Erigeron and corydalis are suitable for colonizing cracks in walls and between steps, and tall plants such as verbascum make bold vertical statements.

Pots can be used to allow the inclusion of plants not suited to the soil in the garden (for example, camellias and rhododendrons in a garden where the soil is alkaline) or ones that have to be kept in frost-free conditions during the winter such as the sweetly-scented spidery-flowered bulbous hymenocallis.

The importance of choosing the right container cannot be overstressed as it can make or break any aesthetic contribution the plant may bring to the garden. First, there is the style of the pot to consider, which should fit in with the chosen style of the garden. In a cottage garden, a mass of clay pots brimming over with flowering annuals and colourful bulbs will mingle happily with the exuberance of honeysuckles, roses, hollyhocks, phloxes and feverfew. In contrast, the recreation of a formal seventeenth-century garden will call for substantial containers of evergreen standards and topiary specimens displayed symmetrically about the main axes of the garden.

The containers may be of lead, stone or terracotta. There are many other materials available and much depends on the available resources, but it is better to have a few, well chosen containers than a host of second rate ones. Plastic pots may be light and cheap but should be hidden in wooden containers: marine ply stained dark green, black (which makes the vegetation stand out against it) or greeny-blue all work well. Alternatively, glazed containers created individually by potters that are in themselves pieces of art are an excellent choice as they would adorn the garden on their own or planted up.

The size of the container depends, within reason, on the size of the plant that is to be grown in it. It is important to remember that any container-grown plant requires sufficient nutrients to keep it growing healthily throughout the season without becoming so vigorous that it outgrows the container. Most good quality proprietary composts should contain enough nutrients, but at the height of the season it may be necessary to supplement this once a week with some liquid fertilizer. Watering is the single most important task when looking after pot-grown plants. During the main growing period, when evaporation is at its height, this usually needs doing twice a day.

Bearing these growing requirements in mind, it can be said that almost anything can be grown in a pot as long as it is accepted that it may not be as long-lived as normal, or, in time, will outgrow the container. So small trees (or larger ones grown as bonsai), shrubs, fruit trees and climbers can be included in a scheme of container-grown plants. Those that in their natural habitat tolerate drought are often best adapted to pot conditions; for example, many Mediterranean plants including bays, box, Rhamnus alaternus and pyracan-tha. Many species that need moist, shady conditions, such as rhododendrons and camellias, often fail through lack of watering. Usually, the most successful container displays are mixes of annuals and/or bulbs, newly planted as the seasons change.

Tags: century garden, fertilizer, paving, paving stones, plants, small gardens

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 12th, 2009 at 12:46 am and is filed under Garden Plants, Gardening Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.