Perking up your patio
Small growing spaces offer huge potential
Q I have just moved to a townhouse with a patio. I miss having a roomy garden and wonder how I can use this new, small space to supply me with a little fresh food and colour as close to year round as possible.
A: It is possible to have living colour on your patio year round, as well as food and flavourings if you wish.
You could assemble pots of spring flowers like primroses, pansies and violas, and perhaps a few potted flower bulbs now, and replace them in late spring with summer flowers like petunias and dwarf dahlias, as long as the patio is in enough sun. Then, in September, plant pansies, bulbs, and mixed containers with heathers, dwarf hardy shrubs, evergreen ferns and grasses.
Many fresh foods can be grown in containers. Most are good to look at as well. Consider a patio pot of red leaf lettuces, frilly parsley or curly kale. In May, plant dwarf cherry tomatoes and basil.
Start small, and if all goes well, gradually expand your container garden as you desire. Select plants that you love the best. Look for lightweight containers, and consider plant dollies for moving them around easily and one or two wrought-iron plant stands for elevating some of the containers.
If you have ground floor windows that are not too high off the ground, simple shelving for perching pots on could create more pleasing vistas from indoors. Last summer, I placed a red geranium in a clay pot on a shelf next to the laundry room window, which is in full view from my office desk. Each time I looked up from my work and toward that window, the geranium was an uplifting bit of cheer all summer through mid-autumn.
Hardy herbs like thyme and rosemary look good in pots year round. Trailing forms of rosemary are especially suited for containers. Kale is a hardy vegetable good for winter greens in planters. Seed containers of hardy greens like kale in early August.