Stand-ins

Until we get the real thing, these ducks will have to do. They're floating in one of our waterlily tubs. Those are glass bubbles floating along with them.

Worth it on every level

Saturday morning there were 21 open flowers and 6 fat buds about to burst on this potted brugmansia. I left a second, bigger potted brug to take a temperature hit and it will move directly to its winter location without a sunny stopover. 

It's not easy growing tender beauties such as brugmansia where winter temperatures dip way, way below freezing and spring doesn't really get under way until May. But then you get a flush of bloom like the one this week and all the hassle is worth it.

This potted brugmansia came in one or two weeks ago when the weather forecast made it clear we were flirting with damaging temperatures. It bloomed earlier this summer and had just set another round of buds. The plant typically drives me crazy -- the foliage always tends toward the chloratic side no matter how much fertilizer I give it, and inside it drops most of its leaves into a messy pile on the floor. The leaves that remain are a magnet for spider mites. But it MUST come in for the winter or die so I haul it in (it's heavy!) and let it go dormant by not watering, cutting it back a smidge and putting it in the dark closet under the stairs. And it will get there, and stay there until next April or so, after these flowers are gone.

Meanwhile, it makes a statement in a corner of the dining room. The fragrance reminds me of a load of laundry fresh in from the clothesline. It's especially nice at night when the blossoms fully open and the fragrance wafts throughout the main living area. 

I love this plant. I can't imagine my home without it.

Touring (and a small rant)

Michael Tonder creates impressive sculptures from glass that otherwise would find its way into a landfill. Last weekend, his work became a temporary sculpture garden on the shore of Thomas Lake.

This week, autumn is showing her spectacular side with a bounty of colors that shimmer in the sunshine. It's a great time to do a little touring along the North Shore, and the Crossing Borders Art Tour is a great excuse for getting out and about.

For 10 days a group of artists from Duluth to Grand Portage open their studios to the public and you can meet the people behind the pottery, metalwork, woodturning, weaving and more. We visited several of the studios last weekend and feasted our eyes on all the beautiful things ... except there were no plant-pots or other specific garden-related gear.

This seems to me to be a wasted opportunity. Especially when it comes to pots. I saw many, many beautiful pottery pieces on my tour -- some probably could be used in the garden -- but nothing that said "plant me." I asked one of the potters why I was seeing only plates, bowls and mugs but no planters. Was it competition from mass marketers? Was it economically silly for an artist to produce planters when the plates and bowls sold so well? He agreed that it probably had something to do with the economics of producing a planter. He pointed out that a reasonably-sized planter takes up the same amount of valuable real estate inside the kiln that several smaller pieces take up. And he'd have to charge more for the planter than the smaller pieces. But the less-expensive, smaller pieces are more likely to sell. So, at the end of the day, he doesn't see the market supporting him making planters when there are so many nice-looking pots coming from places such as Vietnam.

His argument makes sense, but it doesn't completely persuade me. I'd love to see local artists do some cool pots that would be appropriate to plant in or use as cachepots. These wouldn't be the workhorses of container gardening, but there are certain plants or certain locations that deserve something with a little extra kick. Any ideas where I can find some?

P.S. The Crossing Borders studio tour and sale continues through Sunday. For information, see crossingbordersstudiotour.com.

Stretching the potting soil

 Plant your petunias in a pot partially packed with plastic packing peanuts. (Yeah, I like alliteration!)

Container plantings are a big part of summer around here. And those big pots can consume a lot of soilless mix. Here's a tip for reducing the amount of potting soil you use that I originally posted in comments at awaytogarden. It bears repeating now that I'm actually putting my containers together.

Take some plastic mesh vegetable bags and fill 'em with packing peanuts. Stuff the bag in the bottom of the pot so that it's about one-third to maybe one-half filled. Fill the rest of the container with soilless mix and plant as usual. Because the peanuts are in a bag, it's easy to separate peanuts from potting soil when emptying containers in the fall. The bags of peanuts go back into the shed to be used again the next year.

I do this with the big clay pots in which I'm planting annuals that will get tossed at the end of the season. The pots don't weigh nearly as much so they're easier to move around, the plants do just fine with ordinary watering and fertilizing and I save on potting soil. However, I don't recommend this for anything that stays in the pot long-term, such as the brugmansia that is overwintered indoors or the mother plants for my scented geraniums. I also don't cheat with packing peanuts in pots that need bottom weight to balance a potentially top-heavy load such as a trellis covered with sweet peas or other vines.

No packing peanuts? I've been known to use damaged plastic six-packs or small pots to help fill out the bottom of big pots. That works just fine, too. 

A world on a deck

The deck is full of the greens of tomatoes, mint and eggplant. Lemon gem marigolds, blue and white lobelia and a banana plant's red leaves add small splashes of color. This photo of one side of the deck was taken several weeks ago.

As September here feels more like July, we're continuing to enjoy the backyard deck. Every summer I fill it with container plants. I normally proceed without much of a plan; often, it's leftovers from other parts of the garden that wind up here. There are always a few tender things -- scented geraniums, for example -- that winter indoors and summer outdoors, as well as some of the potted mints that are buried or otherwise protected for the winter. I try to incorporate lots of plants with fragrant foliage or flowers because they're easy to touch and fondle and enjoy while kicking back. Just rub a chocolate-peppermint scented geranium between your fingers or inhale the sweet vanilla-like fragrance of blooming night phlox and tell me the world isn't a better place because of them.

I was mostly happy with how the deck turned out this year. Some people (you know who you are) have said they'd like more color, but I found the emphasis (totally unintended) on foliage color and texture pleasing. It spelled serenity to me and that's just what I needed this year. I was disappointed that the hops didn't do better -- I had envisioned it snaking its way through the railing -- but I suspect it was too root-bound to do much more.

The deck is about 19 x 16 and I've managed to stuff 47 containers of varying sizes between the chairs and the grill. They include tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, four varieties of mint, parsley, lemon balm, malabar spinach, patchouli, brugmansia, heliotrope, a fig, a banana and lemon gem marigolds. I always include one water plant, this year an umbrella palm, because the silly dog likes to use the container as a personal drinking fountain.

A blue squash vine travels down the stair railing.

More and more I think of vegetables as ornamentals. This is 'Velvet Red' tomato; the foliage is a beautiful fuzzy silver, which is one big reason it gets deck status. Fortunately, we are getting fruit so we can try to save seeds for starting next year. It's not the easiest seed to find.

Geraniums? Or geraniums?

I love the chocolate pattern on 'Samobor's' foliage. The glossy leaves at right are the ivy geranium; the blossom also is the ivy geranium. 'Samobor' also is called Mourning Widow and performs well in semi-shady locations.

Some of the best performing plants in our garden are the hardy geraniums, also called cranesbill geraniums. And some of the best performing plants in containers are the tender plants commonly called geraniums that in reality are pelargoniums, a completely different genus. What would happen if I put the two together?

This spring, needing to keep a tighter rein on the plant budget, I decided to try it out. The hardy geranium Geranium phaeum 'Samobor' on the north side of the house needed to be thinned and divided. The big whiskey barrels by the garage needed to be filled -- cheaply. I dug up some clumps of the 'Samobor' with its fat leaves blotched with chocolate and paired it with 'Black Magic' ivy geranium found at The Garden House in Solon Springs, Wis. The ivy geranium has just a hint of chocolate in the center of its glossy leaves. I really like the subtle repetition of form and color. The leaves are different enough to be interesting and provide contrasts in texture and similar enough to form a relationship that isn't jarring. Oh, and the flowers are nice, too.

I'm debating on whether to pot up the 'Black Magic' to attempt to overwinter it inside. It may be more trouble than it's worth considering all the other tender plants that need to make their way back into the house in the next few weeks. Although it's a perennial that easily toughs out the winters here, I doubt 'Samobor' will survive above the ground in the whiskey barrel. I'll sacrifice them -- there will be plenty more where they came from next spring.

This whiskey barrel brims with hardy geraniums, tender ivy geraniums, 'Rosamond' lobelia and a fern in the back. Next time, I'll ditch the fern and trade out 'Rosamond' for 'Sapphire' lobelia. I think the blue lobelia would be a better companion than the purple. The hardy geraniums bloomed earlier this summer; they have small, purple flowers that are held above the foliage. But the combination is about the foliage and not so much about the flowers.

All the cool kids are growing their own ...

... food. And this summer the New York Botanical Garden is celebrating edibles in the garden. Just take a look at how the NYBG is elevating such garden staples as squash, tomatoes and corn by showcasing them in containers.

Pots of tomatoes, peppers, corn, squash and other vegetables line the waterlily pool at the Enid A. Haupt Conservatory at the NYBG.

Corn is underplanted with cherry tomatoes at the NYBG.

It seems like I've been growing vegetables and herbs in pots for ages, albeit on a much less grand scale than the NYBG. I love having tomatoes nearby so I can brush up against the fragrant foliage (if someone could bottle the scent of tomato foliage I'd buy it by the boatload); having mint in a pot on the deck makes it easy to add a sprig to my iced tea; and eggplants are just pretty plants. Period. Whether or not we actually get any eggplants. And I always have at least one big pot of flat-leaf parsley on the deck out of reach of the deer.

Growing veggies and herbs in pots is easy. I use mostly recycled black nursery containers -- it helps unify the look on a deck or patio -- and potting mix that we buy by the bale. Find a sunny location. Pay attention to water -- the pots often will need to be watered every day depending on the weather. I use a liquid fertilizer about once a week. I also like to mix in a few flowers, often planting lobelia or alyssum as a ruffle around the edge of the pot.

Here's a grouping of a tomato, parsley, mint and two eggplants underplanted with lobelia. The mint winters over and everything else we grew from seed sowed in the house this spring.