Wherever there's light plants will grow with container gardening. Plant containers are useful when you only have access to a concrete, paved or gravel yard. They'll help you garden over difficult soil – especially with waterlogged soil.
More stylish containers of wood indoors, and stone outside, can be quite attractive when combined with wood furniture or ornamental stone. Window boxes are often used on the balconies of high rise apartments. A good indoor plant display can be made using wood boxes.
Portable Plants - container gardening adds flexibility because you can easily move your plants around an area and change an arrangement. Plants can be easily transported to make temporary gardens elsewhere.
Grow More - don’t stop at flowers, you can grow vegetables in containers too - carrots and lettuce are 2 good candidates. With container gardening you can provide an ideal soil and get better control over pests.
Types Of Container - there are various types of container ranging from light plastic, to clay pots, glazed earthenware and wood. One stylish fashion a few years back was to re-use chimney pots.
Plastic containers are cheap but cold for plant roots to grow in. Sunlight makes plastic brittle and fades the colour.
Clay pots are porous. The walls loose moisture so the contents dry quickly.
Glazed earthenware has good qualities including durability and style, and resistance to algal growth. As manafacturers respond to demaind this choice has become far less expensive.
Wood containers make a good match for organic style container gardening. I think logs are especially attractive. Wrapping a log roll around a plastic container or bin liner with compost is one rough and ready approach. Take care on how you preserve wood as some treatments are toxic. Pure linseed oil is not harmful but perhaps vulnerable to mildew. I will be discussing this further soon...
Your containers should have ˝” holes in the bottom for drainage. Some plastic containers have a nozzle that raises the hole by about an inch on the inside. This conserves moisture by raising the water table but overflows the excess.
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Filling a Container - fill the bottom of the container with a layer of 1" flat stone gravel. On top of this layer, place about 2inches of leaf mould or sheets of soaked newspaper to help conserve water.
Containers need plenty of fertilizer. So you could place a layer of comfrey leaves on top of the leaf mould.
The rest of the container can be filled with compost, either equal parts loam, sand and peat substitute mixed with a handful of bone meal; or a John Innes No3 or equivalent compost.
Fill gradually, firming down as you go. Take care not to leave loose open spaces. Instead create fine spaces to assist water uptake and distribution.
Feeding Containers - your plants will benefit by regular sprays of either fish emulsion, or seaweed extract during root formation. As flower buds form and thereafter add comfrey tea to your choice of liquid feeds. For a profusion of flowers be sure to use organic fertilizers high in potassium. Top dress the container with worm casts. They are rich in nutrients and conserve moisture.
Water Conservation - avoid overcrowding containers with larger plants. All containers are vulnerable to drying out but smaller ones even more so. Keep a constant check on soil moisture. You could try covering the top with plastic sheet, planting through the sheet and putting a layer of gravel on top for good looks. The plant holes should be sufficient to allow water in. But you could make an extra watering hole to avoid eroding soil from around the plants. see above on filling containers.
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Planting Up Bulbs - but container gardening would not be complete without a container of bulbs. You can make a big impression by planting multiple layers of Daffodils in one container. Work from the bottom up. After covering the bottom layer of bulbs over with compost another layer is planted and so on up to the top. This gives a fine display.
If you mix daffodils and narcissus in the same container you get a longer lasting display. Tete-e-tete is a nice daffodil designed for container gardening.
Work with hanging baskets is another popular form of container gardening - more soon...
BOOKS ABOUT THE CONTAINER GARDENING
Books in the Gardening Expert series are well designed & packed with information
