container planting | Deborah Silver & Co.

Planning The Pots

Reluctantly, I planted my first pots, this past Friday.. I was reluctant, as the overnight temperature was 46 degrees. At 9am, just 52 degrees. But this particular client spends most of the summer on the east coast. She needs an early planting, so I am happy to oblige. She knows there could be damage from cold-she is willing to risk it. She has every hope that when she gets back in late summer that her pots will still look good. What looks good early that goes on to look good late-that is a tall order. I choose the plants that go in her pots carefully. This means plants that can shake off the cold. Plants that have staying power. And a great soil in which to plant. No begonias or coleus or caladiums for her. Good planning in the beginning makes for good results. The big idea here-know your habits, your inclinations, your summer schedule, your availability to look after them-then plan to plant your pots accordingly.

I am very concerned that whatever gets planted produces good results. I am sure you are wondering why I am so interested in results-as if planting summer pots was a competition. But there is a very real competition going on. A love of the idea of a gardening life-lots of people favor this. But then there is the reality. The expense and trouble versus the effort and the result-every gardener has had that moment when they weigh the effort against the results. A summer planting that falls down and fails is discouraging. A successful planting encourages a gardener to keep going, and expand their relationship with the garden. I like the idea that successful container plantings can encourage people to garden on. Abject failure makes the time and money involved the most important issue. I like the benefits of gardening to be the most important issue.

Great container plantings revolve around three issues. First and foremost-who are you? Are you a do it yourself gardener? Do you work a job, or have kids? Are you a professional designer with clients who expect you to handle the summer season for them? Are you a person that loves green best of all? Do you have the time to individually and carefully water, or are you interested that your irrigation system do the watering work? Are you all in? Are you new to an interest in the garden?

This why I favor advance planning. I like to know how my clients see the garden. This helps me to plan for them. A planting that answers the needs of a specific gardener is the right planting. If you are planting for yourself-ask the same questions. Ask lots of questions of yourself-before you buy the first plant. Answer them, as true as you can. The second issue-where have you placed the containers? At the front door under a porch roof? On the pool deck? In a shady bed? Narrow your plant choices to those plants that will thrive in the conditions that you have. At my shop, the sun plants are in the sun, and the shade plants are in the shade-this makes choosing the right plants easy. Most nurseries do the same that I do. Most plants have care tags in the pots-read, before you leap. Plants are very specific about what they want, and if they don’t get it, they will languish.

Are you a good and faithful waterer? Do you relax, deadheading and grooming your pots? Do you have little time to devote to the maintenance of your summer plantings? Are you easy going about the relationships that develop in a container planting, or are you interested in being in charge start to finish? Do you have pots big enough to handle a day without watering in the heat of the summer? Do you have easy access to your window boxes? Will you look after those pots as soon as your family has been looked after? Are you up north in the heat of the summer? This is the third issue-are you on top of the maintenance of summer annuals?

Detroit Garden Works-everyone who works for me is ready and willing to help you with a summer planting scheme. But no one knows your summer life better than you do. Every gardener’s summer is different. I so value the diversity expressed by the gardening community. This said, tell your story. Your story, and our story, in concert, might make for some really beautiful summer containers. This is a fancy way of saying that my group likes meeting people face to face. I will repeat this, as it is so important. Be willing to tell your story. A story understood mean a plan with success in its future.

The plants are growing fast-how I love how they look. I am thinking non stop-what will I plant? What will you plant for summer this year?

Posted on: May 20, 2013 8 Comments

The Impatiens Dilemma

I have a big love for all of the annual plants that are available to augment my garden. Many of them come from tropical climates. One of the most popular annual plants of all time is impatiens walleriana. This plant grows readily in the heat, and covers itself with self cleaning flowers in a wide range of colors. Impatiens also tolerates a good bit of shade. They are happy in the sun, given sufficient water. They are the workhorse of annual shade bedding plants. That said, the impatiens are sick. A fungal disease that causes the plants to collapse in a rotten mess has infected our area. This picture, taken in 2009, at the one place I plant impatiens, tells the tale. I was so sure the client was over watering. I know now the plants were diseased. This devastating disease has affected impatiens plants all over the globe. There has been lots of discussion about planting impatiens this year in my area. I believe those major growers who are brave enough to suggest the disease is currently inherent in the seed. The upshot-should you find a nursery this season who still offers impatiens for sale, be advised that your purchase comes with an expiration date. Preventative applications of fungicide may stave off the disease, but once the disease is present, there is no cure. Any places planted with impatiens last year should not be replanted with them this year. No matter how much you love impatiens, the look of the plants in the picture above is not a good look.

The list of annual and tropical plants that tolerate shady locations is considerable. The toughest part is getting past the fact that a favorite plant in a favorite color is not available. On the positive side, adverse conditions can produce some very interesting and creative results. Green shade plants such as the irisine standards pictures, hostas, creeping jenny are not prized for their flowers, but the leaves are strikingly colorful. The same goes for the oxalis and Moses in the cradle. The flowers are not so showy, but the leaf color is spectacular.

Dragon wing begonias are quite tolerant of shade, though the colors tend towards the yellow reds, coral and orange-not at all like the bluish pinks so common in impatiens. The appearance of the color of this plant has everything to do with the color of its companion plants. Yellow will make this flower appear more coral orange. A red violet companion makes this begonia appear more rose red.

Fuchsia flowers may be small, but they have a very interesting shape, and come in a wide range of colors. A fuchsia on standard makes a great centerpiece in a container planted for shade. This fuchsia “Ballerina” will flower next to a north wall, all summer long.

Few shade tolerant annuals can rival coleus and caladiums for dramatic color and form. For many years coleus did not interest me that much. The colors looked so muddy. New cultivars have very clear and vibrant colors. They old standard caladiums have a lot more company these days. The arrow and strap leaf caladiums have a saucy shape, and are visible from quite a distance. The new white cultivars are very bright in shady locations. Variety is the spice of life, yes? In my opinion, the planting in this window box is much more visually interesting than a mass of impatiens. A good design assembles a collection of materials that look good together. Sometimes, the relationship between one element and another is vastly more interesting that the individual element alone. I do understand that there is a financial aspect to the impatiens debacle. An impatiens plant runs between .25 and .40 each. A single 4″ pot of coleus is 10 times that much. But many growers are offering coleus and seed New Guinea impatiens in flats. Some larger growing shade annuals can be found in 6 packs-18 plants to a flat. Other alternatives? Take the most ordinary white fibrous begonias in flats, and plant them in interesting shapes, swirls and stripes. Make the statement with a shape, rather than a specific variety. Impatiens has a tendency to get massive and shapeless by summer’s end. A planting of white or pick or red fibrous begonias can hold an intricate shape or pattern. A mix of three colors is more sparkly and interesting than one color. Those begonias can be punctuated with a 4″ pot of some other shade tolerant annual every so often. Another tip-fibrous begonias with dark leaves have a dour muddy look-stick with the green leaved varieties, unless you have a whole “other than green” foliage idea in mind. But the best of this bad situation is a chance to become acquainted with plants you may have passed by before. There are some very beautiful plants out there, looking for a home for the summer.

solenia rose pink begonias

coleus and solenia orange begonias

torenia kauai rose

pink polka dot plant

This container does have a dash of color courtesy of a blob of lipstick impatiens. But that impatiens is by no means the star of this show.

Posted on: May 6, 2013 27 Comments

Filed Under: container planting, Color, Plants Tagged With: shade tolerant annuals, shade annuals for Michigan, impatiens substitutes, impatiens fungal infection, impatiens disease

Italian Terra Cotta Pots

There are few objects in the gardening world with the iconic status of a clay pot. The phrase terra cotte can be literally translated from the Italian as “fired earth”. Clay is a type of dense mineral soil characterized by a reluctance to drain, and a sticky texture. Never mind the science-every gardener knows what it is to plant into heavy clay soil. Backbreaking. Firing clay – slowly heating it for an extended period to a very high temperature – results in physical and chemical changes that are irrevocable. Fired earth makes objects of great service, from drain and roofing tiles to garden pots. The fired earth is porous, meaning it will both absorb and give up water. Why is it that a plant in a clay pot will dry out in the blink of an eye, when my clay based soil holds its water forever? I do not know the answer to this, but I do know the porous quality of terra cotta pots is friendly to the development of good strong roots. Container grown plants thrive in clay pots.

Some of the earliest clay pots in Italy were used to store olive oil. This shape exists to this day. Modern clay pots are manufactured in several ways. Machine formed terra cotta-I have lots of those ubiquitous 8″ diameter pots. I have bought myrtle topiaries, dahlias, and lavender planted in them. They come in an astonishing range of sizes-from bulb pans to azalea pots to long toms-love them all. They are a symbol and a tool for growing. These pots are inexpensive-they are mass produced, and fired at a fairly low temperature. Knock one over and it will break. A machine made terra cotta pot left outdoors over our winter will absorb water from the ground and air. When the water in the clay freezes, it expands. Frozen water that expands can shatter a pot. Machine made terra cotta is fine year round for mild climates that do not routinely experience below freezing temperatures like we do. Treasured terra cotta pots in my zone need to come in for the winter.

Hand made terra cotta pots are not so common any more. Many of the most beautiful are made near Impruneta, in Italy. Different potteries have different styles, but they all have that characteristic pale orange color that originates with the clay. Some hand made pots are thrown on a wheel. Others are formed by pushing the clay into a rope form using methods that are centuries old. A handmade terra cotta pot is easy to spot. The color, texture, and form is quite unlike any machine made terra cotta. In a garden, the color of terra cotta is as ubiquitous and as neutral a color as green. In this sense, neutral means expected, appropriate. I cannot think of any plant whose beauty would be compromised by a planting in a terra cotta pot. Funny, this. My orange purse attracts attention. A terra cotta pot in the garden seems so natural it is almost invisible. Terra cotta pots in the garden-a given.

Prior to the invention of grocery stores, people grew their own fruit trees in pots, and wintered them indoors, or in an orangerie. At that time, if you want to cook with lemons, or eat oranges, a citrus tree in a terra cotta pot was the only way. The terra cotta pot provided a viable home for a plant far away from home. A lemon tree in an Italian terra cotta pot is a beautiful addition to a garden, no matter where you live. Though I like containers of different style and period, terra cotta is my material of choice. I like the history. I like the idea that they are fashioned from dirt and fire. I like how my plants thrive in them.

I do not mean to suggest that terra cotta pots are only made in Italy. Far from it! Every gardening culture produces garden pots from fired earth. The pot pictured above-French made. We make terra cotta pots in the US. Whichford pottery in England makes incredibly strong and serviceable terra cotta pots.

Terra cotta pots, no matter their age, period or origin, speak strongly to all that is right with a gardening life. These containers fashioned from fired earth can provide a good home for treasured plants. I could never stack my handmade terra cotta pots with plants growing in plastic pots, as in the above picture. Beautifully made terra cotta pots are what I would call sculpture. I have one antique olive jar in my terra cotta collection. I hold my breath from the time I take it outside until after it is planted. But I think I understand what is at work here. Terra cotta pots, even qntiques ones, are a part of every day life, not a precious object which needs reverential treatment.

This terra cotta yard in Italy is incredibly beautiful-do you not agree? Would that my shop could look just like this. Terra cotta pots in the garden. Casual grass. Gravel paths. This is a landscape that is about utility.

The majority of the pots I have at home are terra cotta, of the handmade sort. Hand made terra cotta from Impruneta in Italy are fashioned one at a time. They are fired at very high temperature for a very long time. I have left them outside over my Michigan winter without damage. But I would not recommend that anyone else do this-too many things can go wrong. A blocked drain hole, a heavy winter rain, or falling tree limb can spell disaster.

Rob has bought all sorts of terra cotta over the years, from many different places. They all have their distinctive style and color. They all look pretty good to me. My collection of terra cotta pots provides me with so much pleasure-I would not want to do without them.

These pots are very much a part of the Italian landscape-both formal and not so formal. They are equally at home in my landscape. And on my terrace. One vintage Italian terra cotta pot I go so far as to keep in my living room.

Terra cotta pots are weighty, and they will break. They won’t wait for you to find a more convenient time to water the plants inside. They are a nuisance to store. The little ones multiply over time. The handmade ones are expensive. Though they are tough to clean, they look great once they have aged. They come in light orange, medium orange, and dark orange. All of this-fine by me.

Posted on: February 6, 2013 21 Comments

Filed Under: container planting, Garden Ornament Tagged With: terra cotta, Italian terra cotta pots, terra cotta pots, handmade terra cotta