Gardening in Pots

   

These photos show my hanging potted "garden", that I cultivated last summer. A truly beautiful pot planted with Impatients, Torenia (pocketbook plant) and Lobelia, this was one of my most successful and beautiful pots I have ever grown. The combination of colors, pink, purple, coral, blue and white was spectacular. The addition of a drip hose to the pot made it full and verdant. This planting was a selection of shade tolerant plants, in a partial shade situation.   I hope to repeat this success again this summer, but I don't plant my own seeds, so I am at the mercy of what I can find in the nursery to create my pots.

My pot gardens are set at the end of the garden paths leading to the house, and two others hang from wrought iron shepard's hooks as yard ornamentation.  The constitution of this year's pots. seen above right, are somewhat different. The colors are different, but the hanging pot seems to be filling in nicely. I went with a double Impatients in a rosy dark pink, a hot pink to purple single Impatients and a bright purple/blue Lobelia,  All pots in the garden were not planted at the same time, so they are at different levels of fullness and maturity. The ones at the foot of the path, which you can see here to the left, has Mountain Pink perennials which start off the spring bloom, burgundy and yellow pansies were added for color, a red Penta and the rest of the pot is filled with volunteers seeded from last years plants: Portulacas, and Verbena. They are growing slowly, but they are growing.  I planted this same mix in two full pots in full sun.

The Pentas seen here to the right were spectacular last year. I had to settle for red ones this year, pink ones were spectacular in the pots last year. I was disappointed not to find the pink this year, but you do what you can with what you find and see what you can make of what you have found. The burgundy and yellow pansies look great together, so for a while they should carry good color, as soon as the heat sets in they will wilt and die off. The other plants in the pot should fill in the color by then. The pots I have planted for the shade (below) have a different combo of colors. Those pots started with the burgundy and yellow pansies, but I added dark pink Impatients, blue/purple Lobelia, red Begonias, and those pots too have some volunteer seedlings from last years plants...Portulaca, Marigolds, and Verbenas.

shade plantings

I have one other pot of volunteers seen above, a pot of purple Wave Petunias, which have a fabulous fragrance. It could take some time for them to grow to maturity, but I think what will move them along is heat and some fertilizer. Warmer days should make them grow quickly. As you can see from the photo to the left, one of the volunteer plants has already bloomed, so the other plants in the pot should not be too far behind.