CONTAINER GARDEN
No matter how small your garden, or how little time you have to grow it, a fabulous container or two will brighten up your space with very little effort. GH’S favourite gardener, Sarah Raven, explains why this is the month we should be potty about pots...
Sarah Raven’s pots of colour
If I had to name one thing I’ve increasingly enjoyed in my garden over the last few years, it would have to be our ever-burgeoning tribe of pots and containers. Whether it’s the contents of the long toms lining both sides of a path, the series of 10 or 15 different-sized pots collected around our barn door, the family of containers by our greenhouse steps, or the splendid terracotta urns full of witches’ broomsticks and annual climbers, I truly love and revel in them all.
PLAN WISELY
Fun is to be had at this time of year designing the best pot recipes to give your garden masses of flowers, colour and beauty right through summer and autumn. This is the moment to plot and plan and make a list of pot combinations for the key places in your outdoor space.
I think the number-one priority is to select plants that have an exceptionally long flowering season – and to find things that give you plenty of flowers without the need for endless dead-heading. You have to water pots, and most containers will benefit from a weekly feed (see practical tips over the page), but you want to avoid adding meticulous dead-heading as another duty.
BEST FOR LAZY GARDENERS!
For the lowest-maintenance container plants, choose perennials that bloom for ages, or that have spectacular flowers followed by glamorous seed heads. Then, of course, you will want to keep the seed pods, rather than remove them.
My top recommendation is Agapanthus ‘Navy Blue’, which we’ve had in a series of terracotta pots here for over 10 years. Every year, in May, we scrape off the top inch or two of compost and scatter over fresh compost, with fertiliser pellets mixed into it. Then every five years, we tip the plants out, saw each crown in two and repot both halves in new pots, but that’s it – they’re exceptional, almost zero-maintenance pot performers.
You can say the same for the combination of the ever-flowering daisy, Erigeron karvinskianus, and its perfect pot partner, Dianthus ‘Green Trick’. This dianthus is a bizarre, non-petalled sweet William, and with no flowers comes no fertilisation, so it continues to hold its green drumstick pompoms from the start of summer till the very end of autumn and won’t ever need dead-heading. The dianthus provides the architecture and upper storey in this container pairing, with the erigeron giving endless white daisy froth below. It’s a tip-top, hugely long-performing combination.
GO FOR COLOUR
For more head-on colour, try some of the half-hardy annual, bedding plant varieties, but be super choosy. Osteospermums ‘Serenity Rose Magic’, ‘Serenity Red’ and ‘Erato Compact Blue’, are my three favourites, as well as almost any of the trailing verbenas, the container-sized Phlox ‘21st Century’ series and many of the new generation petunias. We’ve had brilliant results from the rich carmine Petunia ‘Tidal Wave F1 Red Velour’ – it pumps out flowers ceaselessly from June to October. It’s the container plant I give away to my busy, not-such-devoted gardener friends and no one has been disappointed with it.
BRING ON THE BULBS
My favourite mix for a large pot involves a couple of bulbs: the wild and glamorous, scented cousin of the gladiolus, Acidanthera murielae, mixed with one of the new, petite gladiolus varieties, such as ‘Zita’ or ‘Adrienne’. To maximise impact, you need to cram the bulbs in. I recommend doing this in the same way we plant tulips in pots in autumn — in what I call a ‘bulb lasagne’. That’s how you make tulips look magnificent in pots in spring, planting them in a double or even triple layer, with 6-8cm of soil-based compost between each. If the shoot from the bulb below hits one in the next layer up, it just makes its way around and up into the light. This works just as well with acidanthera and gladiolus pairings in summer and autumn, with the gladiolus flowering first, followed by the acidanthera right through the autumn.
PRACTICAL POT TIPS
Almost all my favourite pots are terracotta or zinc. They age in a good way and, unlike bright glazed containers, don’t visually compete with their contents. It’s like vases for flowers — the simpler the better. Let the plants do the talking.
All pots need one or more holes in the bottom for drainage. The holes then need to be covered with crocks – pottery shards or pebbles – to stop them clogging with earth. If you are planting up large pots, put the crumpled empty compost bags into the bottom of the pot. This provides good drainage and means you need to use less compost.
Your choice of compost will depend on what’s being planted. For a permanent planting, such as agapanthus or erigerons, use John Innes No 3 – a rich, loam-based mixture. After the first year, scrape off the top inch or two and top-dress with a fresh mix, incorporating a controlled-release fertiliser like Osmocote. For seasonal containers, use a goodquality, multipurpose compost – generally, you get what you pay for.
Add food sticks or granules every couple of months to keep the plants growing
well. Or feed with Tomorite or liquid comfrey feed every couple of weeks.
Pots are thirsty. Feel if the compost is dry by sticking your finger into it. Hanging baskets are easier to gauge by lifting them slightly to see if they feel light. In hot weather, baskets need watering twice a day – early morning and evening are better, when evaporation is slower. Rainwater is better than tap, so install as many water butts as possible.