TWO CLASS SESSIONS FULL OF YOU visited yesterday to talk about container gardening, but for those who didn’t take the workshop in person, a recap seemed in order since it’s that time: everything into the pots! [read more…]
container gardening
It needn't be an "annual" to belong in a pot. From "houseplants" doing outdoor summer duty to all manner of edibles and tropicals and even perennials, shrubs and young trees, the moveable garden.
missed the workshop? container-garden 101
May 21, 2012 at 11:17 am
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may 20 container workshop: win a ticket!
April 29, 2012 at 7:47 am
WE CALL IT ‘CONTAINED EXUBERANCE,’ the container-garden workshop that garden designer Bob Hyland and I do in May each year at my garden in the Hudson Valley of New York. You can buy a ticket for one of the two sessions on Sunday May 20 – or enter to win one ($45 value) by commenting on this story about the event, which always sells out….so hurry. [read more…]
growing eucomis bicolor, or pineapple lily, in pots
August 15, 2011 at 10:22 am
IWAS GIVEN A POT OF EUCOMIS BICOLOR, the so-called pineapple lily (guess how it got that name), by a friend who was moving and couldn’t take it along. Why had I forgotten how easy this wacky-looking South African character, whose genus name means well-haired because of the tuft of brachts topping the flowerhead, is for overwintering in the basement here? From its moptop to the purple-mottled stems and freckled leaves to its long-lasting, trouble-free performance, there’s nothing about Eucomis bicolor that I don’t like—except that I don’t have more. [read more…]
using coleus ‘spitfire’ as container-design glue
July 11, 2011 at 11:08 am
IFALL IN AND OUT OF LOVE WITH COLEUS (which not so many years back changed its botanical name to Solenostemon scutellarioides, not surprisingly prompting one of our estrangements). This season, I’m back in love, largely thanks to a recent introduction called ‘Spitfire’ that’s just what a gardener who loves hot-colored annuals needs to tie the picture together. [read more…]
q&a and a giveaway: you grow girl’s gayla trail
June 1, 2011 at 12:00 pm
TRUE CONFESSION: I USED TO STALK GAYLA TRAIL ONLINE. Long before I started A Way to Garden, You Grow Girl, founded in 2000, defined “garden blog” for me, and I was a regular lurker there. But Gayla gardens in Canada (not the U.S.), in an urban setting (not a rural one). She is a bold world traveler (I am a big baby). We are nearly two decades apart in age (and I, regretfully, have no tattoos). If we’re so different, then why are we posting simultaneous profiles this week on our sites, and giving away four sets of both our books? Because we’re pretty sure you’ll like meeting the other one—we know we hit it off when we did. [read more…]
‘papaya’ petunia plus: updated annual slideshow
May 25, 2011 at 8:36 am
ME? I STICK TO MY STORY: CONSISTENCY! So here it is, time once again for planting up pots, but I’m stuck on my same color theme–hot, hot, hot. I’m working with an expanded palette of sunny-colored annuals gathered at the garden centers, including a very sexy new-ish petunia called ‘Potunia Papaya,’ from German breeder Dummen-Red Fox, above. Forgive its rain-splattered blossoms, and other still-in-their-flats snapshots that I added to the show in these “before” shots. Bring on the heat and some sunshine, and they will grow. [read more…]
rise and shine, tender bulbs!
May 7, 2011 at 9:13 am
OUR SPRING HERE HAS BEEN SO SLOW TO GET COOKING that I let the tender bulbs I’d stashed in the basement, like cannas and dahlias, all sleep a little longer this year. But now I’m sounding reveille, and saying “be up, be doing” like my Grandma used to say to me. I won’t put them in the ground till month’s end, but meanwhile, here’s how to get them off to a good start.
soil-saving tricks for planting big pots
April 30, 2011 at 9:52 am
AS I POTTED UP SOME PLANTS TODAY, I ran short on potting soil–and then I remembered: With big pots, in particular, there’s sometimes no need to fill the entire vessel, which is often deeper than the roots of seasonal plants would reach in their relatively short time in residence. So I reviewed my trick for making false bottoms (and saving on soil). Hint: It involves recycling garden-center leftovers, like plastic soil bags and empty six-packs. It’s right here.
‘instant’ water garden: try seasonal troughs
April 6, 2011 at 2:28 pm
NOTHING ADDS MORE TO A GARDEN THAN WATER. Just ask the birds, frogs, and insects—oh, and human visitors, too. It’s a magical element, providing sustenance and visual fascination (auditory, too, if you can make it move). I just hauled my simplest, seasonal water gardens—two big, glazed troughs I fill spring through fall, then stash—out of winter storage, and ordered the plants I need to get the look above. The details (and no, nothing to worry about re: mosquitoes, really): [read more…]
