The joys and headaches of gardening are completely accelerated  in a container garden.  Rewards are faster; problems arrive sooner.  But containers can be a real joy, especially for those of us with very limited space.  And, depending on the size of the container, you can move your lovely plants around.  Sure those flowers may need lots of light, but just for this evening you can move them to the patio where all of your friends are going to be gathering.  Move them back in the morning.

And the pots themselves can be lovely.  We have everything from tiny plain clay pots to very large ceramics, many elaborately decorated (some when we bought them and some decorated by Sherry).

We even use broken pots.  This summer we had a pot break in half (my bad), so we just used one of the halves for an artistic effect.  We hope it looks like a half buried pot with a plant growing out of it instead of a broken pot.  Why a half buried pot looks better than a half broken pot, I have no idea, but it does.  I would add a photo, but we didn’t take one while things were blooming, and the photo of bare earth with a broken pot with dead stuff coming out of it isn’t all that attractive.

You can grow more than flowers in containers too.  Vegetables, for instance.  Think “upside down tomato basket”.  And remember the photo of our chive garden in a “railing box”?

Still another great aspect of planting in containers is that you can create little ensembles of flowers, coordinating the colors, textures, heights and habits of several different plants into one lovely tableau.   One of our local nurseries is really good at hanging baskets.  They’re incredible.

But wait…. there’s more.   You don’t have to limit yourself to pots.  Use an old wheelbarrow…. or one of your grandmother’s Army boots (okay, maybe not your grandmother’s, but that’s changing, isn’t it?).   A kid’s wheelbarrow or wagon would look really nice as a planter.  You get the idea.

Number one container problem:  Moisture.  They dry out quickly, especially in direct sunlight.  Moisture gauges help, but if you have many pots, that could get expensive.  Mostly we use the finger gauge method (insert finger, gauge moisture).

Another problem is roots (they become root bound if you don’t re-pot once in a while).

Insects can be a problem, too, in more than just the insect-eats-plant way.  If you bring your pots in for the winter then you may be bringing unwelcome stowaways into the house as well.  Think Spiders.

And some pots freeze and break during the winter.  Not all pots are created equally, and it’s hard to tell which ones are going to break beforehand.  So you could bring them ALL in or just take your chances.  If they do break…… see the third paragraph from the top.

Here are a few container gardening resources:  Garden Guides;  Container Gardening Tips; Successful Container Gardening;  Container Gardening Ideas (and photos); Google Image Search;  and Container Gardening Videos.

Do you have container gardening experience?  Tell us about it.

Filed under: Our Garden