Container Garden Tips

A few days ago I posted on container gardens. Planting several of them yesterday makes me think of a few tips:

Use the biggest, thickest-walled pot possible. They’ll retain moisture longer. Clay pots with a glaze will retain moisture longer than unglazed ones.

If you get a plastic pot, drill holes in the bottom for drainage. Plants die when they become waterlogged.

Buy small plants. They fit into a pot better and they’ll soon be catch up to the bigger plants.

Buy plants at the grocery store or box store. I’ve bought many good annuals there cheaply. Some good potting plants usually available there: petunias, dusty miller, grasses, vinca, geraniums, verbena, herbs, and asparagus fern.

Use seeds if you’re patient. I’ve planted nasturtiums in a strawberry planter for years. Herbs are also good for pots. Even dwarf sunflowers have a quirky appeal when growing in a big pot. But don’t grow disproportionately tall plants in a pot; grow something trailing or compact.

Don’t skimp on soil; get a bag of potting soil. Yesterday, I saw along the street a pile of dirt and a sign that read “free.” I love “free,” but only if the free thing is worth carrying home. Heaven knows what the free dirt contained—weed seeds, nails, rocks, besides perhaps just being poor soil. Who gives away good potting soil?

Don’t use houseplant fertilizer. Houseplant fertilizer has a high first number (nitrogen), which makes lots of foliage. You probably want lots of flowers. This calls for a fertilizer with a high middle number (phosphate).

Finally, move the pot first, then water it.

Paint: A Makeover, or a Costly Mistake

My house commands attention, as yellow houses do. Now that it’s faded and the woodwork needs repair, it demands attention as well. I love light yellow as a house color, but it fades badly and distracts attention from the plants. White would not only be brighter, but would make the house look like every other on the street.

A light colored house will reflect the light—good for the plants on the north side of the house. It will also reflect heat, making the house a little cooler in the summer. But a darker colored house will blend in with the plants, and reflect less light for them. Not a bad thing if the plants are already baking.

Here are a few tips that will help keep you from making a costly mistake. These tips are not only for choosing a house color, but a stain color for your fence and trellis (stain will extend the fence's life). My new house color: Salisbury green, a light verdigris color. The fence and trellis will remain blue and gray.

House: check out www.benjaminmoore.com. This free site can keep you from making a costly and expensive mistake. You can select among one of 14 pictures of houses and try different color schemes on it. Notice how a slightly contrasting trim color beautifies the house. The site also has some pre-made color schemes, although all but a few are hideous and probably forbidden by homeowners associations. However, most of the paint colors in the display photos look terrific.

Fence and trellis: As expensive as fencing and trellis are, I don’t know why more people don’t take a few hours to keep them from deteriorating. Traditional redwood stain and whitewash are traditional colors. But they contrast so strongly with leafy green plants that they scream for attention. Do you want your plants or your fence to get the attention? Try a subdued color like dark gray, Wedgwood blue, verdigris, or brown. These colors will recede, making the fence look farther away. I know—I’ve painted my back fence redwood, light gray, and Wedgwood. The first two were like a strobe light; the last blends in beautifully. The stain will also preserve the wood.

What House and Garden Won't Show You

It's spring, and magazines are full of fashion do's and don'ts. Here are a few don'ts you won't see in the gardening mags.

The Bordello. A brightly colored paint chip may not look so good when it’s the size of, well, a house.

The barnyard. A terra cotta bunny is cute. A copper flamingo is quirky. A yard full of store-bought critters, to quote Dorothy Parker, “makes me want to frow up.”

The floating arch. An arch that is flanked by a fence has vintage appeal. An arch without a fence is like the tollgate in the farcical movie Blazing Saddles: dozens of bandits in the desert lined up to pay a toll at a gate instead of riding around it. Unless your friends like to be funny, why will they go under the arch if there’s no fence around it—especially if the arch is a support for thorny roses?

The Sanford Son. If you think all that trash in your yard is treasure, then sell it. It isn’t going to appreciate sitting out there in the weather. If it doesn’t sell, then store it. If it isn’t worth it to store it, then order a lugger. Your neighbors will thank you.

The jungle. Trees, vines, bushes, and flowers growing unchecked is the garden equivalent of dreadlocks.

The quarry. This isn’t xeriscape, this is zero-scape, where the lot is full of heat-retaining rocks. Your yard shouldn’t have its own weather system.

The haunted house. The only sign that someone lives there is lights in the window. For goodness sake, at least keep the weeds mowed. If you need to, ask your neighbors for help with your yard—they’re tired of looking at your dump. Really, they are.

Garden in a Pot

If you have

• a spot where nothing will grow
• no land, just a porch or balcony
• brick-hard soil

you are in luck. All you need for beautiful flowers is a pot, potting soil, and a few annuals. So much for the black thumb excuse for not growing plants.

If you don’t have a sense of design, there are two websites that have dozens of plants designs for pots: www.provenwinners.com/combinations and www.plantbynumbers.com. The proven winners site goes by season; the plant by numbers site goes by sun exposure. I’d be concerned about planting coleus and petunias on a 120-degree balcony; I’d go with “Rembrandt’s Portrait” for a bold look or “Remington’s Western Prairie” for a wild, windblown look (these are at plant by number). “Country Cottage Blues,” “Mardi Gras” or “Sunny Side Up” at proven winners might do well for a really hot, sunny place. The rest need some afternoon shade.

Watering in the Heat

Could it be that it snowed just three weeks ago? It isn’t even June, and it is already in the 90s in Denver.

Keep your new plants watered, but not soggy. If the tops of the plants droop a little, that’s OK Don’t we all droop a little when it’s hot? In the cool of the evening, though, the plants should stand at attention.

Established plants shouldn’t be watered every day. It’s a waste of water and it only encourages the plants to grow shallow roots. The best gardeners I know water their traditional plants, like lawns, roses, and peonies, every third day. My xeriscape plants get watered once per week, at most, during hot dry spells.

Container gardens are another matter. Since they dry out quickly, they should probably be watered daily.

Now let’s talk about you. Where you live, it probably cools off in the evening. This is a good time to garden. You might feel tired from working all day, but a few minutes in the garden will revive your spirits. Early morning is a good time, too, since it’s the coolest part of the day. If you water then, the plant leaves will quickly dry off. Watering at night and leaving the plant leaves wet for several hours can lead to mildew. Besides, it is less hot and windy in the morning, so more water gets to your plants instead of evaporating or blowing away.

If you must garden in the heat of the day, drink plenty of water. When the pope was in Denver in 1993, a lot of people passed out from the heat. I think out-of-towners, especially, don’t realize how hot and dry the West is. My father, who used to bale hay in Kansas, swears by drinking water, left outside to warm in the sun, to keep going. I prefer to drink cold water frequently, a little at a time. (You can, in fact, drink too much.) Then I go back to my work and think about something besides the heat.

The Ants are Running the Farm

Yesterday I saw what I thought were black stems on some tansy plants. A closer look showed that it was an aphid farm run by ants. No kidding—aphids produce a sweet waste matter that ants love to eat. To that end, ants will guard the aphids after clipping their wings.

The problem: aphids suck on plant stems, and when lots of aphids do this to a plant, it causes deformed, stunted growth, a weakened plant, and curling leaves. Ladybugs eat aphids, but ants get in their way.

Solution: to control lots of aphids, spray the plant with soapy water. Use liquid dish soap or an insecticidal soap. You’ll probably have to do this for a number of weeks. If you don’t see any ants around, you can buy some ladybugs and release them in your yard according to directions. Hint: don’t do anything to attract birds if you are using ladybugs.

Set Plants out Now -- Here is How

After months of saying “don’t plant yet,” now I say, ‘don’t wait any longer!” Here in the Denver area (zone 5), we’ve probably seen our last frost. In a few weeks, it will be in the 80s. By July 4, I bet we’ll see 100.

Plants from the greenhouse are used to warmth and humidity. A searing sun is a shock to them. To reduce that shock, harden them in a sheltered area, like a porch, for a few days. Plant them on a day that’s not too hot, preferably a cloudy day. Dig an oversized hole to give the roots plenty of room to grow. Amend the soil if needed. Water the plants well, but don’t make the soil soggy. Add some mulch such as pea gravel or wood chips over layers of newspaper. This will keep the ground from drying out, and keep the roots cool. Water the plants every few days for a few weeks; you can probably back off the watering after that. Keep an eye on them to make sure they’re doing well.