The Practical Guide to Container Gardening

by Susan Berry, Steven Bradley

Overview

Offering boundless possibilities for cleverly decorating small areas indoors and out, container gardening is fun and easy. This practical guide covers everything you need to know to design and maintain your own container garden, including illustrated step-by-step instructions for choosing the best container for each plant, creating seasonal planting schemes, and a variety of proven growing techniques. With detailed profiles of more than 100 plants, you’ll be inspired to experiment and add creative touches to your thriving and beautiful container garden.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580173292
Publisher:	Storey Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	02/14/2000
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	8.20(w) x 10.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Susan Berry is a garden writer and editor who specializes in gardening, design, and craft subjects. Together with Steve Bradley she wrote The Practical Guide to Container Gardening,and is the author of many other books on gardening. She lives in England.

Steven Bradley is director of horticulture at Merrist Wood in England. He is respected as one of Great Britain’s foremost horticulturists.

Read an Excerpt

Containers can be employed in a variety of ways to enhance the architecture of the house and the garden itself. In this chapter, all the possible situations for displaying containers are examined, and their particular attributes and constraints are discussed in detail. Patios and roof gardens, entrances and steps, paths and alleys, balconies and verandahs offer many design opportunities for large and small containers, and for container groupings. Choosing an appropriate container style, creating a balanced plant display that is in scale with the architecture of the house, and massing together color and shape in attractive and interesting ways are all key elements in achieving a successful scheme.

Before planning your display, it is important to assess the practical constraints of the situation as part of the overall design consideration - for example, you might want to train your plants to provide shelter on a windy roof terrace or employ tough plants as a screen for more tender specimens, or achieve a good vertical display of plants in a narrow space by using climbers or wall pots. This chapter provides useful guidelines on these more practical questions, as well as inspiration for attractive planting schemes.

Entrances and Steps

First impressions are extremely important, and nowhere is this more true than for the entrance to a house or apartment. Very often the path to the front door or the steps leading up to it offer no actual space for the soil. Containers of plants make the perfect solution, providing a splash of color in what otherwise be a monochromatic area of brickwork or paving. In addition, foliage and flowers can have the effect of softening the hard texture of the stone and concrete walls or paving, creating an altogether less forbidding approach to the building.

Entrances

The architecture of the house provides the backdrop to the container planting and you should take this into account in deciding what container to use. Brick, stucco, shingle, tiles and stone are all used for house walls, while the doorway itself can be in any number of styles from classical to rustic, gothic or colonial. Pick containers that blend with it - not only in shape, color and material, but in size as well so the scale is right. The geometric simplicity of most townhouse doorways is enhanced if you position a container on either side, planted up with identical plants, whether in the form of, say, a pair of clipped box balls or large displays of ox-eye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare). For a country home with a rustic door or porch, a looser style of planting combining climbing plants with some perennial would look charming.

Aromatic plants are particularly valuable for entrances. Sweetly scented climbers are always a good choice, as they provide such a wonderful welcome and take up relatively little of the available space on the ground. Among the most popular are honeysuckle, (Lonicera spp.), jasmine and many forms of rose (although some

Table of Contents

PLACES FOR CONTAINERS 6

Entrances and Steps 8

Patio 12

Balconies 16

Roof Gardens 20

Walkways and Paths 24

DESIGNING WITH CONTAINERS 28

Choosing Containers 30

Large Containers 38

Small Containers 42

Hanging Baskets 46

Window Boxes 50

Unusual Containers 54

DESIGNING WITH PLANTS 60

Displaying Foliage Plants 62

Displaying Flowering Plants 68

CARE AND MAINTENANCE 76

Buying and Setting Up 78

Growing in Containers 80

Potting and Repotting 82

The Growing Medium 85

Feeding Plants 86

Watering Plants 88

Pruning Plants 90

Staking Plants 95

Propagation 96

Maintaining Containers 102

Diseases and Pests 104

CONTAINER PLANT DIRECTORY 106

Editorial Reviews

Here are creative ideas for special plants to capture more than casual interest for the container garden.”

– Dick Delano, the Dutch Gardener (broadcast)

“The ideal book for those who are looking for ways to dramatize their container gardens.” – The Florida Gardener

“This is one of the best container gardening books…great attention is given to the often-neglected maintenance of container gardens.” – Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch

“This is the ideal book for gardeners who are short of time or space and for those looking for simple ways to add drama and color to their outdoor living spaces.” – Gardens Decks Patios

“Using clear language and photography, this excellent book covers all of the important aspects of container gardening – including sites, design, care, and a plant directory.” – Library Journal, starred review

From the Publisher