Growing Art: Container Garden Design of the Week

Updated Geraniums

Plants: 3 William Langguth zonal geraniums, 3 medium pink zonal geraniums, 3 white (or light pink or white bi-color) zonal geraniums, 6 heliotrope (trailing variety)

I stole this idea from a gardening book. Something about it just grabbed me. Perhaps the color combination or just that it took what I considered a uninspiring plant and made it look fresh. This is a good design for a plant grouping. If you are using smaller pots (10-14 inches), I would put one color of geranium in each pot and group the pots fairly close together.

I used to use this in a 6 pot arrangement and it worked much better. Currently, I use this combination in 3 large pots that are spaced fairly far apart. I'm still trying to work the kinks out and get the look I had with the 6 pot grouping. This is last year's model. I used one of each geranium in each pot (thus breaking the rule of grouping colors together and remembering why this is a rule in the first place!) and two heliotrope. Obviously, the white took over. It was a seed geranium which is better suited to the garden than a container. This year I will use all zonals and try two of one and one of another in each pot to see if I can better emulate the 6 pot grouping I used to have.

This planting will take a lot of heat and is drought tolerant. I currently have this on the south side of my house, on the concrete, in front of stone siding in a black metal pot. It doesn't get much hotter than that! And you can see from the picture, it flourished. I also love the contrast the variegated foliage of the William Langguth adds to the container. Much more exciting that a regular red geranium! And geraniums of any other color than red always seems fresher to me.

Some varieties of heliotrope take more sun than others. Also, choose a variety that is trailing or semi-trailing. The upright varieties I've used not only didn't look right in the planting but they didn't seem to take the heat very well either. The heliotrope spilling down the sides of the container is a nice contrast to the compact nature of the geraniums and is what really makes this container work.

Playing in the Dirt: Choosing Soil for Container Gardens

Soil is the most important component in gardening and it is even more so in container gardening. In my opinion, the whole point of container gardening is great results, huge plants and constant blooming. The best way to achieve this is to use the best soil possible. Soil can make or break a container. In some instances, rich soil will be a detriment (i.e. morning glory, moonflower and other vines in the ipomoea family) but for the most part, good soil is a must.

I don’t really recommend filling your pots with soil from the garden for several reasons. One, you don’t really know what the content of that soil is and just how well your plants might do. And again, the whole point of container gardening is good results. Second, the soil tends to be heavier (particularly here) and less rich. Perennials may do well but for short term growth? Not so much. In order to get this soil up to snuff you would have to add things like peat, perlite, and fertilizer and you still won’t be able to predict results. There’s also the possibility of having a high salt content, high or low ph or toxins in the soil that will affect plant growth.

I really recommend using potting soil that you either buy of make yourself. In our region Minnesota, peat based potting mixes work best with our water conditions. I have used Miracle Gro soil (which is a bark based soil) with satisfactory results so I can’t discount that entirely. Whichever you choose, I do recommend a potting mix with time release fertilizer mixed in the soil. If you can get a mix with the water saving crystals, I say get it. There have been some studies that say these crystals don’t significantly reduce watering. And I would say that likely true but I think what it does do is reduce stress on your plants in the hotter weather. You will still have to water everyday but the plants won’t dry out as bad between waterings. If it buys you a couple of hours until you get home from work and your plants aren’t stressed and wilting, I think it’s totally worth it.

If you have a lot of large pots or the cost of the premixed potting soil is cost prohibitive you can mix up your own soil. Buy the very basic potting soil for a couple of dollars per 20 pounds. In this area it’s sold under the name Hyponex. It does come with perlite added so you won’t have to add that, but you will have to add peat. Peat is fairly cheap and one of the best things you can do for any soil. As is the way I do things, I don’t have an exact ratio of soil to peat. I would do about half and half or at least enough peat to give the soil a more brown color and a lighter texture. Also, you will need to add Osmocote, a time release fertilizer. Follow the directions on the package. Mix up all the ingredients in a wheelbarrow or other large container. You can also add the water crystals if you desire.

I also recommend using new soil in your containers each year. The soil will be largely depleted after a season of use and the effort to get it back up to snuff, in my opinion, just isn’t worth it. In very large pots, I don’t dump all the dirt but probably about the top third or at least what it compacted with old roots. I dump all the old dirt in my garden. I figure if it has any magic left in it, it can help my perennials.

Choosing the right soil will vastly improve your container results. It’s the foundations of gardening. Get this part right and everything else is practically effortless.

Container Gardening: Coleus

Coleus

What can’t you do with coleus? It used to be that coleus were cute little colorful plants that grew in the shade. Now there is a coleus for nearly any light condition, in sizes from 6 inches to 3 feet tall, in a vast array of colors that includes deep purple, burgundy, orange, red, cream, yellow and lime green. They also come in upright, mounded or trailing varieties. When it comes to container gardening, this is pretty much the perfect plant.

Use coleus to tie together flowering plants and single color foliage plants, or to tie together two different colors of flowering plants. Use it to add color and texture to any container. The colorful foliage adds that extra pop to any container and breaks up the otherwise sea of green foliage.

Even containers planted with several of one variety of coleus is quite striking. Or really go wild and mix several varieties together (but make sure the colors all play off each other). What more can I say about this plant except this: coleus works hard so you don’t have to!

Growing Art: Container Garden Design of the Week

Welcome!
Recipe: 3 ivy geranium, 3 Marguerite sweet potato vine, 1 sun coleus (24-36 inches tall)



I’ve worked on this pot for several years. It originally started in a whiskey barrel at my old house and went through several incarnations before I came up with something I was happy with. It’s my contention that it takes at least three years to come up with a combination that I really like and actually works together. Sometimes things that look good together don’t grow well together. They might have different sun requirements, water needs or fertilizer needs. One might grow faster, overshadowing another or it might just be simple user error. I put in too much of one plant and not enough of another. I just keep tweaking until I get something that works and appeals to me.

That’s what happened when I stumbled on to this mix. I had the sweet potato vine and the ivy geraniums for years. I just wasn’t getting the third plant right. I tried snapdragons, petunias and regular geraniums. It wasn’t until the larger sun coleus showed up at my garden center that I got this combination to work.

What I like about this combination is that it looks good almost immediately (this picture taken about a month after planting) and just keeps getting better and better throughout the summer. The sweet potato vine grows down to cover the pot, the coleus gets up to 3 feet tall (make sure you choose the tallest variety you can find) and the ivy geraniums bloom all summer.

The beauty of this design is in the variety of the ivy geraniums and coleus. I started with the ivy geranium because I fell in love with the Global Merlot (a beautiful burgundy flower) but you could also start with the coleus. Putting a pot together is not unlike putting an outfit together. Each plant plays off the other. Since I started with the Global Merlot, I looked for a coleus that meshed with the burgundy and also had some lime green in the leaves. This way the coleus, in addition to being the focal point of the container, ties together the geranium and the Marguerite sweet potato vine.

This container is a good example of basic container design. There is the focal point that goes up (coleus), the filler plant or spreading plant (ivy geranium), and the trailing plant (sweet potato vine). Or as I like to say, up, out, down. It doesn’t get much easier than that.