Design Container Gardens for Multiple Seasons

With the upsurge in container gardening, I read much about seasonal containers. Spring containers, summer and fall containers. Even winter containers. Living in Minnesota with it's short growing season has not afforded me the luxury of more than one container garden season. I'm also stymied by seasonal allergies which makes fall gardening more than a little unpleasant. I suppose it can be done, but is there another way?

Here are the facts about frost dates here in western Minnesota: The risk of frost is from September 27-May 10. We have an average frost-free season of about 140 days. However, we are almost (note the almost) guaranteed not to have frost from May 21-September 16. That's actually only about 116 days (less than 4 months!) that we can generally count on.*

The advantage to container gardening is that we can plant earlier because containers can be moved into a protected area if there is a frost warning. This can extend our season by as much as 3 to 4 weeks as long as day time temps are warm enough. However, that's not always the case either. Yes, gardening in the Midwest is sometimes an exercise in frustration! I think that's part of why I love it. You just never know what you're going to get. 

I did do up some fall containers last year. They looked pretty good but the amount of time I got to enjoy them was fairly short. I wanted to enjoy them as long as possible because I had put the money into them and I ended up leaving them until the first snowfall and then had to drag those heavy things into the garage. As much as I love gardening, this is not ideal for me, nor is it money I care to spend for such a short period of time of enjoyment. 

The idea of planting up pots that would look good in the spring, summer and fall came to me last spring while working at the greenhouse. A friend of mine mentioned that she loved pansies but wasn't happy with them during the summer months. I said the trick was to plant them with other things that would do well in the summer so the pansies weren't the main show at that time. They look good in the spring, decline slightly during hot summer months and most times will spring back in the fall. 

That got me thinking about other plants that are less than spectacular in either the spring or summer but excellent in the fall. The first to come to mind was ornamental kale. I absolutely fell in love with it after my boss took this picture last fall.

Not that we need to see snow just yet but what Minnesota gardener doesn't love a plant that looks great through the snow?

However, kale isn't all that spectacular in the spring, and not all that much to look at through the summer either. It really isn't in it's full glory until the fall. This is not overly problematic when planting in the ground but for containers, it can be. My experiment this year was to plant the kale in a container with blue and carmine Picobella petunias in the front through the spring and summer. I loved the carmine and blue with the colors of the kale even though the kale wasn't full grown. I figured by the time the kale was gorgeous, the petunias would be played out. 

I was right and I was wrong. From the curbside the containers were eye-catching. The petunias were gorgeous all summer long, although towards the end of August they got a little played out. The kale didn't detract from the container, but didn't add much to it either until the end of August. Now, the kale is gorgeous AND the petunias have sprung back and look as good as they did in the spring! Turns out petunias can tolerate cool weather. From where I stand, I'd say they prefer it. 

Why I didn't know that before, I don't know. I now have a new found respect for petunias that I love anyway. This is one of the things I love about gardening. I always learn something new and I will never know it all ensuring that gardening will always provide challenges. 

The container today exceeds my expectations. Aside from some tweaking (there's always tweaking!) such as planting just one kale plant and getting something to keep the cabbage moths away from the kale, I will plant this container again next year.

Beside pansies, petunias and kale, other annuals that do well in the fall are dusty miller, calendula, bachelor's buttons. diascia, lobelia and nasturtium. Consider using these plants in your containers with other plants that do well in the heat of summer. Make sure to water containers well in the high temps so cool season plants won't die out. In the fall, you'll be pleasantly surprised when these cool season plants revive and take center stage again.


*Frost date stats from Dave's Garden.