CONTAINER GARDENING

    Container gardening is one of the most versatile tools we have in the landscape.  In Europe, residents of urban areas have a tremendous show in window boxes, as this is often the only place to grow exterior flora at their street side residences.  This practice illustrates the usefulness of container gardening in limited spaces.  The term "container gardening" brings to mind lack of space, but all large estates and gardens are generously garnished with containers for accent.

    Container gardening allows you to extend your need to decorate to the great outdoors.  Often times, the selection of the pot is more critical than the plants themselves.  Go ahead - dress the place up!  Containers also give to limitless flexibility in that things can be constantly moved and changed.  Cool blue here, hot red there, and something different every year.

    Cultural needs of container gardening include soil, which gives both good drainage and adequate moisture retention.  Use a fairly light planting mix, which contains peat moss for moisture and perlite for drainage.  Make sure you have drain holes in the pot, as many a good plant have drowned due to this oversight!  Your pot should be large enough to accommodate the plant you are growing.  The larger the pot, the less frequently you should have to water, because it takes longer for a large volume of soil to dry out than the volume of soil in a small pot.

    Container gardening is also a closed system in which the plants are not integrated with natural elements.  Therefore, you have to provide nutrients to the plants throughout the growing season, usually through a water -soluble fertilizer such as "Jack's Classic Plant Food (formerly Peters), Miracle Gro, etc.  Feed your container annuals about every two weeks for optimum growth.

    Container gardening can become "jogging for the Mind."  Let your imagination run free.  Do you see a brain with tennis shoes right now?  I once dug a 4 inch pit, turned a whisky barrel on its side in the pit, filled the barrel about 1/3 of the way with planting mix, and continued out into the landscape about 3 feet past the mouth of the barrel in a fan shaped area.  Can you see the barrel chewing?  Deep in the barrel I planted purple petunias, transcending into bright red petunias as my planting extending out into the yard.  This planting gave the visual effect of someone pitching a large bucket of red petunias out into the yard.  Kind of like throwing paint from a bucket onto the floor!

    In Nags Head, I saw a full size concrete rowboat planter which was always filled with annuals.  A friend of mine always plants vines in an antique porcelain bedpan every year.  This same person once put an old wrought iron bad frame in the middle of the yard with a containerized tomato planted at the foot of each of the four legs.  Not only did this structure provide great support for the tomatoes, but it also rendered a true "bed of tomatoes."  Also spotted around Virginia was a bathroom sink filled with various flora and an old toilet filled with geraniums.  Have fun planting!