Gardening in the Shade: Using Container Gardening to Add Color

Adding color in shady areas can be difficult. When it comes to shade perennials many rely on foliage color and many flower in white. Pretty but not a lot of color. Container gardens with annuals can add a much needed color boost to shady areas. As an added bonus, container gardens can be rotated in and out of a shady area where other things might not grow.

It seems people equate shade with impatiens and for good reason. They are incredibly colorful, reliable bloomers and they grow well. I personally love them but even so I like a little variety. In the spirit of other very well loved and ubiquitous plants, rather than scrapping impatiens altogether, I suggest using them in new ways. Instead of using them alone or as the focal point, use them as fillers in your container combinations. Grow with coleus, upright fuchsias and shade tolerant grasses like King Tut.

Other plants that do well in the shade are tuberous begonias, lobelia, pansies and violas, torenia (both upright and trailing varieties) and upright or hanging fuchsias. With the exception of the upright fuchsias, most of these plants stay fairly small. Alone, they make look frail but planted together they have quite an impact. My daughter has planted container combinations using pansies, violas, torenia and lobelia outside her window for years and the effect has been outstanding. Colorful and robust.

One of the best shade plants is, of course, coleus. This plant has come a long way. I remember planting tiny little things from 4 packs that never got very big. They were colorful all right but not really that spectacular. With the Kong Series all that’s changed. Color and size! In the shade! In addition there are many, many, many varieties of coleus that do well in shade or sun in sizes from 14 inches to 3 feet.

My new favorite plant is the upright fuchsias. I’ve always been drawn to their beautiful flowers but am not generally a fan of hanging baskets so tend not to use them. However, there are several upright fuchsia varieties on the market. Most of them, including ‘Santa Claus’ and ‘Winston Churchill’ have the unique bi-color blooms traditionally associated with fuchsias. However, ‘Gartenmeister’ has a tubular bloom in a unique pink-orange color. These plants are wonderful in combinations. Be mindful, however, that these plants are grown as annuals in zone 4 so will not get to the shrub-size proportions reported in plant descriptions. In my experience, they will be 12"-24" at best.

So go ahead and add some color in your shady areas with container gardens. Use traditional shade plants in new and surprising ways while trying out new cultivars of coleus and fuchsia. With a little creativity and a few containers, your shade gardens will really shine.

Container Gardening Plants: Sweet Potato Vine

Sweet potato vine really is one of the most versatile and attractive plants to use in container gardening. It’s a vigorous grower which is a big plus in our short growing season and it comes in a variety of foliage colors and textures. Be sure to plant it with other plants of equal vigor to get the most out of this colorful foliage plant.

Sweet potato vine is an ornamental vegetable vine that does indeed grow tubers. However, they are not edible. While on the surface the tubers look similar to edible sweet potatoes, inside they are white and woody. Not poisonous, just not good. It’s still fun to dig them up in the fall though just to see how big they can get. In every container I’ve placed on soil, I’ve had the sweet potato vine grow through the drainage holes and grow tubers into the ground. Good anchor system for highly windy areas!

Sweet potato vine is grown for it’s foliage and while some flower in longer seasons, it generally will not in zone 4. There are many cultivars covering a wide range of foliage colors from chartreuse to black-burgundy. Leaf shape varies from heart-shaped to oak shaped with some lacy variations in some of the newer cultivars.

Marguerite is the most vigorous grower with heart-shaped chartreuse leaves. It blends well with most colors and brightens combinations without competing with flower color. As well as being the most vigorous, I find it to be the most compatible cultivar.

Blackie is a deep black-burgundy vine with oak shaped leaves. The leaf shape is wonderful for adding texture to a combination while the color adds drama. It blends will with pink and lighter purple shades. Some of my favorite plants to pair with this are either a plum vein petunia or Supertunia Bubblegum petunia. I love the juxtaposition of light colored flowers with the dark foliage. Stunning!

Other well-known (i.e. easy to find) cultivars include Black Heart, which has dark foliage and heart-shaped leaves and Tricolor, which has green, white and fuchsia foliage and an oak shaped leaf. Lesser known cultivars are the Sweet Caroline series which has red or bronze foliage.

New cultivars in either the Sidekick or Chillin’ lines offer these same colors and leaf shapes with a more compact growth habit. In many cases, these varieties will be better suited to smaller container gardens. However, be aware that true trailing action on these varieties won’t happen until late summer. Take this into account when you plant your combinations to get the look you want. That said, I used Sidekick Black Heart in a combo this summer and was very pleased with the result. It did vine less but was actually an advantage given the size of container that I used. It is also less likely to take over other plants.

Sweet potato vine also holds up fairly well to drought and is heat tolerant. It will wilt in extremely dry conditions but bounces back like a champ. This is a full sun plant but will grow in part sun as well. With this kind of flexibility and all the colors and textures available in sweet potato vine, chances are you’ll find one (or two, or three) that works for your container gardens.

Container Garden Idea: Creating Height

Container Trellis
Full Sun
1 Marguerite sweet potato vine
2 lavender trailing verbena
1 white bacopa*

*The picture shows two bacopa but on subsequent plantings I used just one to give all plants maximum growth space for the season.

I love the colors in this combination! And it is a combination that looks great from planting through fall. Each of the plants is a vigorous grower so does very well together. It’s also a good example of how to use an accessory in a container.

As you can see, I had a rock wall to contend with. I didn’t want the wall covered but any container I put in that area seemed too short for the space. I needed height for a good proportion. Small trellises seemed like a good solution.

But what to grow up the trellis? I tried morning glory and moon flower originally and found they didn’t do well because of the heat and sun exposure in this location. It’s on the west side on a concrete sidewalk against a rock wall, a less than ideal growing condition. I couldn’t keep those plants watered well enough to get them established. Ipomoea vines generally don’t like to be transplanted. Other vigorous vines were the just the wrong color and I am picky about color.

My original design started with the lavender verbena and the Marguerite sweet potato vine. I love chartreuse and purple shades together. I couldn’t find a vine to fit in with my scheme when someone suggested growing the sweet potato vine up the trellis rather than using it as my trailing element. Perfect solution. Marguerite is the most vigorous of the sweet potato vines and while it’s not a traditional trellis plant, it will grow upwards easily enough with just a few garden ties.

Choosing a replacement trailing plant proved much easier than finding a vine for the focal point. White bacopa is another vigorous grower that holds its own with both the verbena and the sweet potato vine. The color scheme is fairly simple with just lavender and white flowers and chartreuse foliage but I think the effect is quite stunning.

Because these three plants are such vigorous growers, they will need a larger container in order to grow well. I recommend 18" or larger. This combination also held up quite well in the extreme heat and sun conditions. In case of drought (common in my gardening style), all of these plants rebounded very well. The verbena will bloom profusely throughout the summer if deadheaded occasionally. I always took the opportunity to pinch off a few spent blooms while watering and was rewarded handsomely for this minimal effort.

Using Accessories in Container Gardens

Container gardens don’t need to be limited to being just a pot with flowers in it. You can use the same accessories in containers that you use in a traditional garden. These include trellises, tuteurs or obelisks, stakes and art. Use these sort of accessories to add height, interest, texture or color to your container garden.

Trellises, tuteurs and obelisks all serve the same function in supporting vining plants. The difference in these structures is in the shape and in what circumstances you would use each of them.

Trellises are flat, vertical structures for vining plants to grow on. The can be as simple as wood lattice or more elaborate decorative designs made from a variety of metals. Trellises are best used in containers that are along a wall or fence. The trellis provides a vertical element as well as adds more interest to a container combination.

Tuteurs and obelisks are essentially a 3-D trellis. They can be round, square or pyramidal and made from wood, bamboo or more decorative metal pieces. Many have finials or other decorative embellishments at the top which adds another element of interest to a container. The advantage to tuteurs and obelisks is that plants can either grow on the outside of the structure or grow from the inside. Whether to grow from the outside or inside will depend on the plant you are using and the look you are going for.

The most important thing when using accessories in container gardens is proportion. The container and the accessory need to be of corresponding size. Obviously, large trellises aren’t going to fit in small containers but neither should you put too small a trellis in a large container.

Also consider the weight of the structure you are using with the container. Using a heavy metal tuteur in a plastic container is not going to hold up to wind. Generally speaking, metal structures will do better in metal, concrete or ceramic containers. They have enough weight to counterbalance the structure. Wood or bamboo structures can go in lighter weight containers such as plastic or fiber mache.

Using these structures will enable you to use plants such as sweet pea, morning glory, cypress vine and black-eyed Susan vine in your container garden designs. In using tuteurs and obelisks you can get plants that traditionally grow down such as sweet potato vine to grow up with very little effort.

You can also use decorative stakes or smaller pieces of art to add whimsy and interest to your container flower gardens. Don’t limit yourself by your garden’s size. If it works in a traditional garden, you can make it work in a container garden as well.

Container Gardening Plants: Ornamental Millet

I realize that Ornamental Millet is an untraditional choice for a container garden plant. Its rapid growth and large size will make it unsuitable for most container combinations. I have included it, however, because of its growth and height and the fact that this is just a gorgeous plant that’s in a category all by itself. I don’t recommend this plant in traditional combination planters but in very large containers (over 36” in diameter) and in multi-container designs, this is a gem.

In addition to being a fast growing and tall vertical annual, Ornamental Millet is prized for its striking foliage color. Cultivars range from deep purple to lime green with varying sizes as well. The tallest millet can get up to 5 feet tall while the most compact variety will be around 40 inches.

As expected, height will be affected by growing conditions and length of season. I have grown the largest variety here in our short summer season, in a container, in less sun than it would prefer and still had the plant get close to 4 feet tall. That alone makes it a valuable plant in my eyes. I like a plant that grows no matter what.

The largest variety is ‘Purple Majesty' with a possible height of 5 feet. This is also the one that I got to grow to 4 feet in less than ideal conditions. It is an AAS winner so really that is no surprise. Plants with these designations are chosen for their ability to thrive in a variety of conditions and deliver consistent results. ‘Purple Majesty’ delivers. While its immature plant leaves are green (what you may see in the greenhouse), once this plant hits the sun, its leaves are a consistent deep purple throughout the summer.

‘Purple Baron’ is the perhaps the smallest cultivar of the lot and comes in at around 40”. The leaves will retain more green color in more shaded areas and be more burgandy in high sun areas.

‘Jester’ and ‘Jade Princess’ are also smaller millets with mature heights of about 36”-48”. ‘Jester’ starts out the season with chartreuse leaves that gradually turn deep burgundy by summer’s end. I have grown this plant, and while beautiful, does not adapt as well as ‘Purple Majesty’. Make sure you grow this one in its recommended conditions.

‘Jade Princess’ is the newest cultivar and was well talked about at all the horticulture seminars I attended this year. I am very excited about this cultivar! Of all the millets, this one may be best suited for larger container combos. The leaves are a gorgeous lime green throughout the growing season while the pollen-less seed heads are a beautiful burgundy contrast at season’s end.

If you have containers 36” or larger, using one of the smaller cultivars might work quite nicely as a vertical element. However, be sure to use equally fast growing and vigorous plants to balance out the design. In multi-container designs, using one or two of these beauties in a container is sure to create a fantastic focal point.

Container Garden Idea: Multi-container designs

Colorful Camouflage
Full/Part Sun
2 Cherry Blossom Begonias
2 Spellbound White trailing impatiens
1 ‘Purple Majesty” Ornamental Millet
2 King Tut grass

If you're using containers to solve garden problems and have a large area you wish to fill, using several containers which work together to create one large combination is an inexpensive and easy solution. Not only can you create virtually any size or shape that you need, but you can vary the size and heights of the pots to add interest and structure.

In my previous post, I mentioned that I had a problem area in the back of my house. The electrical/phone/cable boxes all converge in one area. Because of the buried wires in that area, I’ve decided to use a multi-container design as camouflage. I started with 3 large containers placed in a triangle shape in front of the eyesore electrical boxes. ‘Purple Majesty’ ornamental millet is the focal point at the point of the triangle. Once again, I stretch this plant out of its comfort zone. It’s a full sun plant but does well on the east side of my house where it gets 6 to 7 hours of morning sun. Ornamental millet is a fast growing annual that reaches up to 5 feet tall. It also has broad deep purple leaves which brings much drama and substance to the design.

King Tut grass goes in the two containers behind the millet. King Tut grass is a real work horse plant that does well in a variety of conditions. It’s a full sun plant that does well in partial sun and it’s a water plant that does extremely well in drought conditions. One caution is this plant grows fast and gets huge. It will take over a container so either make sure you have a large enough container that it won’t crowd out your other plants (a successful container combo with this plant was in an old bathtub!) or plant it alone and combine that planter with other containers. I plant it in an 18” square container and the root ball takes up the entire container by the end of summer.

In this case, both the millet and the King Tut are the perfect plants. They are fast growing, tall plants that cover up what I would rather not look at while still enabling easy access to those boxes. The millet offers a strong vertical element with dramatic foliage as the King Tut fills in behind also adding height and texture. Because these plants grow so large and I have a great deal of ground to cover, my fillers and spillers go in their own separate pots as well. I use 4 medium sized containers around the base of the larger three.

In the two side containers, I planted Cherry Blossom Begonias. I love this plant! It is a fibrous begonia that grows quite large and is covered with delicate pink and white double blossoms. For me these blossoms changed from the bi-color in the spring to dark pink later in the season. Whether that was due to sunlight or maturity, I don’t know. At any rate, the result was stunning against the dark purple of the millet.

The last two pots contained Spellbound white trailing impatiens. These took the heat and sun much better than the Fanfare variety I’ve used in the past and were also more drought tolerant and faster growing. In a word, gorgeous!

While I consider his combination a success, I will move the Cherry Blossom Begonias front and center next year for two reasons. One, they are gorgeous alone and against the millet and two, putting the impatiens on the side will cover even more space horizontally which is better for the space. I also experimented with 2 millet in one container which I won't do again. I lost the vertical element without adding significant screening. By the end of the summer it just looked crowded.

Using several containers to create a plant combination can add height, drama and texture to your landscape. Use them as focal points, camouflage or to cover large areas.

Container Garden Ideas to Solve Landscape Problems

One of the best reasons to use containers in your garden is to have plants in places where you wouldn’t otherwise be able to grow them. Commonly this means on a deck, patio or porch. Containers also work wonderfully in areas of your garden or yard where you can’t plant in the ground for one reason or another.

There are many situations where part of a garden may be unsuitable for planting. Perhaps there are buried lines or pipes that make it dangerous to dig and unwise to plant perennials. There may be areas of your yard where you’ve had difficulty getting things to grow because it’s too wet, too dry or too shady. Using containers can help solve all of these problems.

For example in the back of my house, not far from my deck is a cluster of boxes, meters and pipes for various essential services into my home. While it’s nice these are all clustered into one area, it’s not aesthetically pleasing. Planting something in front of this was a definite must. However, at the base of this cluster is a tangle of buried lines. When Gopher One came out to mark the ground for planting the first year I had a beautiful rainbow of flags and spray paint indicating that everything meets right here. Right where I would like to plant something to hide the unattractive stuff up there.

Ideally a shrub of some sort would have been wide enough and tall enough to cover the area. However, aside from the wires in the ground I wasn’t digging around, I didn’t think having a shrub in that area was a good idea as it would make access difficult in case something needed to be repaired. Instead I used a grouping of 3 large containers and 4 medium sized ones. In the 3 larger containers I use tall fast growing annual ornamental grasses. In the 4 smaller ones, I use flowering annuals for color. Not only does the grouping camouflage this otherwise unsightly area but it also adds a colorful, multilevel arrangement that is far more interesting than a single shrub.

Other areas where containers are useful are in excessively dry or wet areas where you have trouble getting things to grow. Yes, choosing appropriate plants is the best option but sometimes, even those don’t grow in some areas. An easy and inexpensive solution is to plant in containers where you can more easily regulate moisture and get the full colorful plants you were hoping for when you planted them in the ground. An added bonus is that containers give height and interest where they are used. A feat that is difficult to achieve with strictly perennials.

Shady areas can benefit from containers as well. In those areas too shady for successful growing use pots of colorful shade loving annuals and trade them out every few days. They’ll do fine and brighten up an otherwise dark area.

Think outside the patio when it comes to containers. You will pleased at how containers in groupings or placed strategically through your garden can change the whole landscape.

What Are You Calling a Mistake?

Recently, I attended a garden seminar at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum in Chanhassen. I love attending garden seminars mostly because I’m a flower geek and I love to be around people who like to talk flowers as much as I do. Plus there is always something to learn about new cultivars, different trends and general tips and tricks. This particular seminar was on container gardening and I did take lots of notes on new plants for next spring and some great ideas on container combinations. The idea, however, that really stuck with me is that no matter how much experience, education or eye for design one has, complete and total flops still happen. A lot.

This was not the topic of any speaker but most spoke on their garden failures as well as their successes. I heard from a professor of horticulture to seed representatives to a landscape designer. Failure is a part of gardening and they all had the pictures to prove it!

The horticulture professor worked on annual trials throughout Minnesota. He and his students planted trial beds in 3 locations across the state. In addition, they also did trials of different container combinations. There were many, many successes both in the trial beds and in the containers. And several flops. The professor seemed particularly proud of the containers using gladiolas. They did not work. At all. He had many pictures of these “failures”. It seemed like a good idea. Glads in containers as a vertical element. Why wouldn’t that work? It just…didn’t.

The difficulty in gardening, particularly when trying to combine plants is that plants don’t always cooperate. Even when you take into account growth habit, water, fertilizer and light requirements and the design looks good on paper and particularly in your head sometimes it just doesn’t work. There’s no exact science to it. There is nowhere where trial and error is more in play than in the garden. If this gentleman who teaches this stuff is still making mistakes and proud of it, then I’m on the right track.

While it seemed almost each speaker talked of some disappointments in the garden, no one hit that idea home more than the landscape design company owner. She had 30 years of experience designing landscapes and containers for her clients. 30 years! Her pictures showed one gorgeous container after another but my favorite part of her presentation was the pictures of containers gone awry. There was one combination that seriously looked like a brain that had been sliced in half. I doubt that was the look she was going for but she took it all as a matter of course. Yes, most of the containers were gorgeous but still, even after 30 years, every once in a while there’s one that is just an epic fail.

I think why all these gardeners are so at ease with failure is that it’s just one more thing they now know about gardening. Gladiolas don’t work in containers. A spike between two mums looks like a dissected brain. They’ve accepted that no matter now much experience or knowledge they have plants aren’t always going to perform as expected and that things on paper don’t always come out as planned. And really? A combo planting that doesn’t exactly work is still not that ugly. It’s still comprised of plants which are beautiful in their own right. And all this “failure” does is open the door for them, you, and me to create something a whole lot better next time.

Check out some of my failures here, here, here and here.

Falling for Fall—Reviving Container Gardens

The sight of my burnt out flower containers at the end of August depresses me to no end. True, sometimes the cause of pathetic looking plants is my own fault for neglecting plants as I rush to get as much fun in as I can in the last bits of summer. But often for many plants, they are just at the end of their life cycle and there’s not much that can be done about that. Sure, some of the “annuals” we grow are really tender perennials not hardy to our climate and those, with a little care, we can stretch into the fall.

Early spring favorites of mine, pansies and violas will make a resurgence in the fall. While many people think these delicate looking flowers are tender, they actually thrive in cooler temperatures. It’s the heat that gets to them. A true Minnesota plant! Plant pots of them, baby them through the hottest days of summer (which means shade and some water), shear off the spent blooms and they will shine again in the fall. This is also true of most cultivars of osteospermum. They like cooler temps and will look great in the spring, take a breather during the heat of summer and come back swinging in the fall. In the case of osteos, I find that no matter what, they don’t do well in containers. I have much better luck planting these right into the garden. Other annuals that do well in the fall are calibrochoa (million bells), strawflowers, euphorbia, oxalis and sage. Using these annuals in some of your containers will give you some plants you can salvage to combine with other fall beauties when the others have gone to seed.

Ornamental peppers, kale and chard are also at their peak right now. I saw at one store where fully mature ornamental kale was being sold in a 8” pot for around $8. Not bad I suppose, but considering that if I was going to use kale I would want more than one, this is cost prohibitive. If I plan ahead in the spring I can purchase a 4 pack of kale for under $3, plant them either in my garden or in pots and have them ready to use in my fall containers. Easy and cheap, what could be better? This is definitely on my list for next spring.

I’ve also found that sacrificing some bloom time in the summer yields a longer bloom time into the fall. Specifically, I’ve found this to be true of petunias. Year after year, around mid to late July I found that my potted petunias were leggy and a little played out looking. Despite this, they would still be blooming so I was reluctant to cut them back. Short season and all, you know. This year I bit the bullet and pruned the plants by half around the beginning of August. Although my containers all have time release fertilizer, I also gave them a shot of liquid fertilizer as well. Petunias are heavy feeders and benefit from extra feedings even if you are using the time release fertilizer. I also had some lantana in some containers and trimmed those back as well. The result was, well, kind of ugly for a couple of weeks. But now they look like this:

Except for being windblown, this actually looks better than it did in the spring/summer. I’m sold. I’ll be pruning back potted petunias midsummer from now on.

You can also revive containers by pulling out the stuff that’s past its prime and replacing it with other annuals or things like red or yellow dogwood branches, curly willow, bamboo, or cattails. The cattails are rampant in ditches near here and I’d like to go steal some. It is okay in Minnesota to cut a few cattails for personal use in fall bouquets. Just don’t go trespassing…another experience I’ve had so you don’t have to. You can preserve cattails with hairspray. The cheaper the better so it has more lacquer in it. You can also add gourds, pumpkins and other seasonal items as decorative mulch to fill in where you have removed plants from containers.

This is my first attempt at reviving containers. I chose to do only the largest ones close to my front door since we’ll be spending less and less time out in the yard. Might as well make the effort with those containers that will provide the most punch. I removed the dried out sweet pea vines and the trailing verbena which if watered properly would have been just fine (oops, live and learn). I left the bacopa and sweet potato vine (which needs some dead leaves removed I see). I planted potted mums and placed several gourds around the base to fill in. Last, I pruned some errant branches from my red-twigged dogwood, stripped them of leaves and stuck those in to add height, color and texture. Not bad for a first attempt and certainly better than burnt out sweet peas and dead verbena.
Be creative. Recycle those cold hardy annuals and tender perennials you planted in the spring. Use branches from trees and shrubs in your yard for filler. See what fun fall containers you can create.

Falling for Fall—Perennial Beauties

I have a love/hate relationship with the fall season. I actually like the cooler weather, the back to school vibe and the bounty of the fall harvest. But as a gardener in Minnesota, it’s a rather sad time. The annuals are generally played out or perhaps dead (because someone forgot to water, oops!). Most fall gardening consists of cleaning up for next spring and cleaning in any context is my least favorite thing to do. What I’m left with is a fairly barren landscape that only gets bleaker as the snow arrives. And because our fall season is even shorter than our summer season, it’s always seemed there really wasn’t much I could do to improve my view. I threw in the towel gardening-wise, perhaps a bit prematurely and let nature take its mostly unattractive course.

I know I don’t generally talk perennials as container gardens are more my thing but I have to say that right now I am absolutely in love with my Autumn Joy sedum. I’ve come to this love late although Autumn Joy has been a popular perennial for years. My mother gave it to me after ripping it out from the front of her house. She despised it. As an herbaceous perennial with fall glory, location is everything with this plant. Plant it in the wrong place and what you have is a hole in your garden that will drive you crazy all summer, which is what happened with my mom. Surround it with spring and summer blooming plants that detract from it while it’s growing and you will be pleasantly surprised. Since my mother has moved her sedum to more appropriate place, she is learning to love it, too.

Another issue I’ve had with Autumn Joy sedum I’ve worked with in other gardens is that it can get leggy and floppy. I’ve had this problem with older plants but not the ones I planted just a couple of years ago. I can only guess that as the plant ages this is more of an issue. Cutting the plants back by half around the 4th of July will make the plant grow thicker and more able to hold up those dazzling flower heads in the fall.

Another fall perennial I adore is New England aster. Unfortunately, I’ve killed mine somehow. I think I accidentally pulled them up during spring clean up so I recommend cutting them down rather than pulling on dead foliage, no matter how easy it seems to come up. I kill so you don’t have to! Asters can also be pruned by half around July 4th to provide for a more compact habit and later bloom time although it’s not absolutely necessary.

Other perennials still blooming into the fall season include my burgundy Gaillardia, Veronica and Shasta daisy. Both the Veronica and the Shasta daisy were pruned during the midsummer due to ugliness and now are blooming for the second time. The blooms are less vigorous than earlier but I like the bonus flowers. And of course my Karl Foerster feather reed grass looks fantastic and will remain so through the winter. As much Karl Foerster as I see in landscapes I just never tire of this plant.

I love all these fall surprises. In many ways they are more rewarding than spring bloomers, not least of all for their unexpectedness. I will continue to seek out and plant more fall blooming perennials to balance out my landscape.

Container Gardening Plants: Trailing Verbena

Verbena Hybrids

Verbena Hybrids are one of my favorite plants to use in containers. These hybrids are sometimes referred to as trailing but the growth habit is more spreading than trailing. The plant grows out, up and sometimes down all at the same time. These hybrids are a great choice to use as a filler plant especially in larger containers.

The Aztec series, Superbena and Babylon series are a few of the hybrids of this plant. Colors come in white and several shades of red, blue, purple, lavender and pink. Flowers grow in clusters and can be small and dainty or large and bold. Some flowers have a white eye in the middle which is particularly striking in the darker purple and red shades. Others are solid colored flowers which gives the plant a different look.

The foliage on most verbena hybrids is similar to the upright variety with dark green compact serrated leaves. I’ve always found the foliage of this plant to add great texture and interest to any container. The Babylon hybrids, however, have wonderfully lacey and delicate foliage. The flowers tend to be smaller but still grow in large clusters and are quite striking.

The best thing about these plants is that if you don’t deadhead them, they will continue to flower throughout the summer. If you do deadhead them you will be handsomely rewarded with a plant covered in lush blooms.

Verbena hybrids prefer full sun and moderate water. They are incredibly versatile and combine well with grasses, osteospermum, malvia, coleus, petunias, guara, bacopa and sweet potato vine. With all the color choices and foliage interest, this plant is indispensable to container gardeners.

Growing Art: Container Garden Design of the Week

Purple Passion

Plants: 1 purple osteospermum, 2 Aztec Plum Magic trailing verbena, 4 Regatta lobelia in shades of blue, white and lavender (Part-sun)

This combination is perfect for an eastern exposure. Each plant actually has different sun requirements but can and does work together in the right location. I have a tendency to stretch plants out of their comfort zone a little bit to get the combinations that I want. More often than not, I am rewarded.

In this case, the osteospermum is a true part sun plant. It doesn’t like it too hot but still needs enough sun to flower well. The trailing verbena is a full sun plant and the lobelia likes to be in the shade. The eastern exposure gives all three of these plants enough of what it needs so the combination works. Morning sun is cooler so the lobelia will do fine and it’s still enough sun for the verbena. The osteo is in its element.

My 4 year old son chose this combination (with just a little help from mom) and thusly the heavy purple palate because that’s what he likes. I had just purchased these great lime pots so the result was quite fantastic.

First he chose the purple osteos which for containers is a great focal plant. It does have a great mounding habit in the garden but has enough height that it works as an upright plant in containers. Next he chose the trailing verbena in Aztec Plum Magic which coordinated nicely with the lighter purple of the osteos. This plant has a semi-trailing habit so is a perfect contrast with the fullness of the osteo. Last, we chose Regatta lobelia in shades of blue, white and lavender. This is also a semi-trailing plant which tends to trail more if it has nowhere else to go. In this case, between the osteo and the verbena it doesn’t so it trails down the container.

The result was quite stunning with the purple flowers against the lime green of the container. This combination is a good example of how your container choice can influence and enhance your flower choice.

Color in the Garden: Part 2

One of the best sources for color combinations is P. Allen Smith. I still have an article of Mr. Smith’s from a 2003 issue of Woman’s Day that shows some of his favorite color combinations. I have used several of them to great success. Also, by using his combinations as a starting point, I have come up with my own favorite combinations.

I’ve learned from P. Allen Smith the importance of foliage color in combinations (this is where that combining green thing comes in!). For example, one combination he suggests is lavender, burgundy, magenta, gray and cream. Flowers provide the lavender, magenta and cream colors while the foliage provides the burgundy (wandering jew, some wax begonias) and the gray (lamb’s ear, helichrysum).

Foliage colors can be used to tie a combination together, add depth and interest or provide a pop of color on their own. Silvery grays (Artemisia, lamb’s ear, dusty miller) can be used to harmonize color combinations. This color is particularly striking with blues, lavenders, purples and pinks. White or variegated foliage (English ivy, lamium, basket grass) adds sparkle and works well with blues, soft yellows, creamy whites and corals. Use burgundy or dark red plants (wandering jew, wax begonias, blackie sweet potato vine, and purple fountain grass) to add depth and color without competing with the flowers. Chartreuse (marguerite sweet potato vine, creeping jenny, lemon thyme) will supercharge a combination. I love chartreuse with purple, burgundy and blue.

Now armed with all this information where do you start? Go back to your surroundings. What colors will compliment the exterior of your home? What color combinations do you find inside your home? In your wardrobe? Do you want a more serene feeling in your garden? Choose complimentary colors. Are you looking for something bold and dynamic? Use contrasting colors. Again, choose a color theme of 3 to 5 colors and go from there. And whatever you do, don’t forget to use foliage to add color as well.

Color in the Garden, Part 1

If the hardest part of gardening is deciding what plants to use, deciding on color is on the other side of the coin. You have your focal point, your fillers and your trailers but do the colors go? What colors do you use?

Everyone has their favorite color combinations and chances are they appear in our homes and wardrobes. A good place to start is simply by looking around your home. What colors are you drawn to? What combinations emerge in your closet? You can take those combinations and apply it to your gardening as well. There really is no right or wrong. I’ve mentioned before that putting together a container is not much different than putting together an outfit. Plants don’t need to all match, but should compliment each other.

Another thing to consider is the outside of your home and choose colors that compliment the exterior. For example, if you have a white house, a largely white plant scheme is probably not your best bet. A dark colored house probably isn’t going to be best showcased by dark colored plants.

Speaking of white in the garden, white is NOT neutral. White flowers are quite bold in and of themselves. Think of how striking white flowers are against green foliage. When white is put with equally intense colors such as red, blue or purple the result is rather harsh. Green is neutral in the garden. Need something to tie a container together? Use green. Need something to tone down a bright combination? Green. Something to transition from one color to the other? Green.
But green is far from boring. There are several shades of green to work with ranging from gray greens to yellow greens to deep, blackish greens. And, yes, you can use different shades of green together as long as they tie together somehow.

If you’re familiar with the color wheel (basically the colors of the rainbow in a circle), you’ll know that neighboring colors such as red and orange are complimentary colors. Colors on opposite sides of the wheel such as yellow and purple are contrasting colors. One color combination isn’t better than the other. Generally, complimentary color combinations evoke a more serene easy going vibe while contrasting colors schemes are more bold and dynamic. It’s just a matter of taste and what kind of mood you would like to evoke.

Once you decide whether you want a complimentary color scheme or a contrasting one you can choose a theme. A theme is basically 2-5 colors used in combination and repeated throughout the garden. This helps everything tie together and makes decision making much easier. I have one theme for the front of the house and one for the back of my house. The front faces west so it bright and sunny. Because of the climate (hot and sunny), it made sense to choose a color combination that evoked that and also played into my whimsical sense of color. I chose red, fuchsia, purple and chartreuse as my main colors. I get color from flowers as well as foliage. In the back of the house, it’s mainly shady and it’s also where we hang out. I wanted a more serene color scheme and choose burgundy, blue, silver and pink.

Once you choose a theme, choosing plants becomes much easier. Don’t get too caught up in making sure your plants match exactly though. Using darker or lighter shades of a color from your scheme is fine. The most important thing is that you like that way it looks.