Back to Basics: Design a Great Container

Whether you garden on a sprawling suburban lot or on a small urban balcony or patio, in full sun or in shade, you can design and plant a pot with stunning results. That’s the great thing about gardening—as long as you know a few basics, you can flex your artistic side even if you can’t draw a straight line.
First the basics. You’ll need a pot with drainage holes to shed excess water, otherwise the roots will rot and the plants will die. Buy a good, all-purpose potting mix—one with fertilizer granules mixed in to save time. Choose a container that complements the style of your home. For example, a classic iron urn looks great with a Victorian home, while a tall, contemporary glazed pot can enhance sleek architectural lines.

Create impact with color. Pick a pot in a color that enhances your garden, patio furniture or backdrop. Many garden centers carry new lightweight resin pots in a range of Crayola-like colors—red, blue, chartreuse, grey, or purple, for example—and in many sizes. Pots smaller than 14 inches across will require frequent watering, so the bigger pot you choose, the better. Last, determine where the pot will go and how much light that space receives during the summer, and select plants based on their light requirements (shade, part shade, sun).

Next comes the fun part—choosing the plants. I use the terms ‘monopot’ and ‘combopot’, says Ray Rogers in his new book, “The Encyclopedia of Container Plants: More than 500 Outstanding Choices for Gardeners.” (Timber Press, 344 pages, $34.95). A monopot contains one type of plant while a combopot includes two or more different plants. Garden designer Patti Kirkpatrick of Joliet plants several containers of monopots and combopots for her deck. A container filled with one type of coleus or an ornamental grass, such as Pennisetum ‘Prince’ (purple fountain grass), can give you a very dramatic and contemporary look, she says.

One easy formula for a mixed container planting is to use a thriller, filler and spiller, as shown here. The striking shade-loving caladiums are the thrillers, the tallest plants in the pot, which add visual interest with their coarse, colorful leaves. The fillers are the New Guinea impatiens with their rose-colored flowers and light yellow streaks down the center of the leaves. And the spiller is a variegated Plectranthus, ‘Troy’s Gold.’

What works well here: the plants offer leaves with contrasting shapes and textures—broad and pointy, oval, and long and slender. There’s a limited color palette—green, rose, white and golden-yellow. (Adding a few orange or pale blue flowers would surely take away from this put-together ensemble.) The container’s color and shape are neutral. And, perhaps most important, all of the plants prefer the same type of culture—light shade, good drainage and occasional watering with a liquid-soluble fertilizer.

Use the same formula to create a full-sun planter with some red fountain grass, dragonwing begonias and sweet potato vines—a thriller, spiller and filler. Or, for a contemporary look, plant a monopot using only begonias or petunias or calibrachoa. The possibilities are endless. On your next visit to the garden center, pick up a pot, some plants and start designing in your cart. Becoming a garden artist was never easier.

Season of Thanks

 “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” – Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette (January 28, 1873 –August 3,1954)

There are many things to be thankful for but sometimes you can’t see the forest for the tree ferns. I’m revisiting an interview I did with landscape and horticulture experts last Thanksgiving holiday.
 

The trowels and shovels have been cleaned and stowed and the summer garden is now just a memory for most of us. In this quiet time of autumn, we asked gardeners, plant breeders, horticulturists and designers to reflect on what they are thankful for when it comes to gardens, among other things.

“Plant-wise, I am thankful for Black Scallop Ajuga and golden Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’ [groundcovers] as they are a ‘living mulch’ and the Black Scallop is truly black,” says garden designer Patti Kirkpatrick of Joliet who, as a long-time volunteer, helps design and plant the hummingbird garden and indoor displays at Joliet’s Birdhaven Greenhouse and Conservatory. “I am thankful for the great volunteers who help with plant sales there, too. But most of all I am thankful to be working with Mother Nature as an artist’s medium. It is ever-changing, always challenging, most rewarding. Just to enhance her work, be it for a short time, is such an opportunity. And the appreciation of others who enjoy it is beyond words.” Birdhaven Greenhouse is located at 225 N. Gougar Road in Joliet and is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. every day, closed on holidays. Check out www.jolietpark.org or (815) 741-7278.

Landscape architect Scott Mehaffey is thankful that he picked up a garden magazine while in college. “I had been designing and building sets, setting lights and running sound boards when I realized that I wanted to make real places that would last longer than a few weeks,” says Mehaffey. “I picked up the debut issue of Garden Design magazine and I was hooked. I do think my tech theatre background still influences me--I pay a lot of attention to scale and perspective, architectural style and site furnishings--and to lighting of course.” One word of wisdom from Mehaffey’s designing side--get the garden on paper before planting. He says the adage “’it's easier to move a plant with a pencil than a shovel’ rings as true as ‘measure twice, cut once.’ A good gardener must also be a good planner.” Check out Garden Design magazine at http://www.gardendesign.com/.

“I am thankful for the large size container of red pepper flakes that they sell at Costco,” says Lora Lee Gelles, whose garden received first prize in this year’s Orland Park garden contest. “When we are at the height of ‘bunny’ season, I sprinkle it all over the tender emerging perennials and the newbie annuals that I have planted. ‘Ahhh chooo.’” For more pest-deterrent ideas, visit the University of Illinois Extension’s Web site at http://web.extension.illinois.edu/state/hort9.html.

Jim Ault is thankful that he discovered the many fascinating aspects of the genus Lilium. “My wife and I stumbled on the lily show at the Botanic Garden and we were blown away,” says Ault, plant breeder and director of ornamental plant research at the Chicago Botanic Garden in Glencoe. He has since joined the North American Lily Society and the Wisconsin-Illinois Lily Society and has read everything about lilies from garden magazines to scientific journals. The couple’s backyard in Libertyville, Ill., has become a breeding ground featuring hundreds of lilies in different sizes, shapes and colors as well as fragrance. “The whole plant breeding thing gets under your skin and I can’t walk away from it at the end of the day.” Learn more about lilies at the North American Lily Society’s Web site, http://www.lilies.org./

“I am very thankful for having had the chance to work at The Morton Arboretum because of all the work the scientists, employees and volunteers do to ensure the conservation of our natural world, “says horticulturist and designer Sue Miller of Geneva. She credits the Arboretum’s former landscape architect, Tony Tyznik, as a source of inspiration for her gardening style. “While we were working in the Fragrance Garden and the Hedge Garden, he would often be with us pruning trees, placing plants, telling stories and making comments about plants such as, ‘look at how the dew drops cling to the leaves of the Alchemilla mollis. Isn’t that beautiful?’ Or, ‘Look how the leaves shine on that Viburnum prunifolium?’ He taught me to notice little things like that when I design a garden. In so many ways, it’s those little things that make a huge difference.” The Morton Arboretum is at 4100 Illinois Route 53 in Lisle. Visit www.mortonarb.org or call 630-968-0074 for your own bit of inspiration.

Tim Wood is thankful that he spent summers working in his dad’s nursery in Michigan, which specialized in growing unusual plants. “I would take care of it after school, weekends and during the summer. In many ways I hated it--hard work, dirty and long hours,” says Wood who now works for Spring Meadow Nursery in Grand Haven, Mich. “But what I loved was learning and growing new and unusual plants. He gave me an appreciation and love for all types of plants,” When he’s not breeding or developing plants, such as the new Hydrangea ‘Incrediball,’ Wood searches out new, promising selections. Follow him on his plant hunting blog at http://plant-quest.blogspot.com/.

Garden book author Stephanie Cohen of Collegeville, Pennsylvania, is thankful she found vegetables boring as a kid. Her parents gave her a small section of their WW II Victory Garden in New York City where she grew petunias, marigolds and geraniums. “This was the start of my long-term romance with ornamentals,” Cohen says. Since then, she’s written three books, provided hundreds of articles and lectures, and has spent 21 years teaching horticulture.” I never found the cure for this obsession and probably never will.” Check out her latest book, “The Nonstop Garden: A Step-by-Step Guide to Smart Plant Choices for Four-Season Designs,” by Cohen and Jennifer Benner. (Timber Press, 248 pages, $19.95.)

Happy Thanksgiving holiday to you and yours...