This summer I needed more knee surgery. I knew that creating and maintaining containers for the deck would be tricky – dragging the bags of dirt, buying annuals, planting them, etc. My mobility would be limited but I really wanted the pots to be full of flowers.Hey! What if I bought hanging baskets, cut the wires off and placed them in my ceramic and clay pots? Easy technique – same result!!
As usual, I made sure there were some tried and true standards in the pots: helichrysum (licorice plant which creates a soft, silver background), wave petunias in many colours, potato vines – bright lime green and dark eggplant purple – trailing geraniums, ageratum and bacopa.
I also have my herbs in pots under the kitchen window: parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme (Hey! That would make a great song!! Ha ha), oregano, basil, marjoram and mint.There’s nothing nicer than fresh herbs in a dinner recipe.
And under my Linden tree, I have a wonderful flowering maple tree that my Dad gave me last summer and I overwintered in the house plus one of his variegated-leaf pelargoniums (that he picked up at Canada Blooms years ago and has grown from cuttings ever since) called “Vancouver Centennial”. They’re happier in the shade than on the hot sunny deck.
One last note about successful container plants. At Sheila’s last weekend, she showed me her magnificent containers that she hopes to enter in the Fine Gardening magazine’s “Container Contest”. They were spectacular – I think she has a great chance of winning.
She promised to take some cuttings from a most unusual coleus called “Kong”. Huge leaves, I mean HUGE! Would they ever be spectacular in my front porch urns next summer. Now if I could talk a deal with my Dad to grow them under his gro-lights over the winter…..hmmmm……let me work on this……
