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A Case For Planting Containers For Fall

 

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Our summer season has not been so friendly to those of us who garden in containers.  All of the tropical plants in the containers despised the cold, and the relentless rain.  Why do I even plant tropical plants in my containers?  Annual plants bloom, set seed, and die, over the course of one season.  If I remove the dead flower from an annual plant, I am thwarting its natural instinct to reproduce itself via the act of setting seed. This annual plant will bloom again, hoping to set seed, the next time.  This means there are flowers coming on all season long.  Some hybrid annual plants are sterile-they do not set seed.  They will continue to bloom over the warm months in spite of this.

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Warm months is the operative phrase here.  Many of our common annual plants are native to climates much warmer than the midwest.  They dislike being planted in cold soil in our spring, and they faint dead away with the first frost.  Why do I put up with this?  I like that group of annual flowers that grow larger and bloom with abandon all summer long.  Those plants with oversized tropical leaves-as in alocasias, calocasias, cannas, tree ferns and the like-are equally as pleasing.  They represent lush in a way that few plants hardy in my zone can match.  Container plantings help make my landscape feel like summer.

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I admire those gardeners that plant hostas in pots-bravo.  However, I like my hostas best, in ground. I have tried lots of perennial and shrubby plants in containers-by this I mean lavender, hydrangeas, hyssop, buddleia, gloriosa daisies, boxwood-I could go on, but won’t.  The only perennial plant I really value in containers is strawberries.  The leaves are large and beautifully serrated.  The unripe fruit is a beautiful color.  The ripe fruit is irresistible.  Some gardeners are attracted to the idea that their containers full of hostas could be brought out of the garage in the spring, and put in place-as usual.  Other gardeners are determined to keep boxwood, boxwood topiaries, junipers and their topiary variants alive in containers, season after season, year after year.  One of the things I value the most about the planting seasonal containers is how a fresh start energetically engages the imagination.  Last year’s containers-more about history than the moment.  I am not enchanted by my containers being over and done with.  Done-I dread both the adjective, and the noun.  So does nature, by the way.

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The prospect of my containers being filled with the same plants year after year would bore me beyond all belief. I would not care if the boxwood sphere put on another six inches in height and girth.  I value the change up pitch better than a fast ball down the middle.  My landscape has taken many years to bring to a level that pleases me.  Any major change would be a major upheaval.  Not that I adverse to some upheaval.  A landscape is a big fluid situation that evolves over a period of years.  There is no fast forward.  No matter how loud you are able to snap your fingers, the landscape will take years to really respond.  But my summer containers reward my efforts relatively quickly.

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The second reason I so value tropical plants in my containers?  I can plant something different next year, and the year after that.  I can ditch my failures, and move on.  I can entertain a color scheme on a whim.  A cold and rainy season will not stalk me beyond the frost.  Next year will be different.

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As for planting fall pots-let’s agree that this summer was not the best for container plantings.  I have appreciated the summer heat we have gotten in September-all of my containers look much better than they did a month ago.  Most of my containers have dark empty spots.  Those holes are from the begonias that rotted.  What coleus didn’t give up has spots-the tell tale sign of cold.

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In late September, there are several options for a container that has unnattractive gaps.  Those tropical plants that have faded away can be replaced with cold hardy plants-as in parsley, 4″ cabbage and kale, pansies, bok choy, Napa lettuce, ivy of every description, chrysanthemums, asters-there are no end of fall hardy and fall blooming plants that could fill your gaps.

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Or you could replant you containers for fall. I have lots of containers.  I will stand pat with most of them until the frost takes them down.  But the pots I drive up to every day, I replant them for fall.  I have lots of choices for material.  Broom corn, fresh and preserved eucalyptus, twigs, preserved leptospermum, asters, gourds, dried grasses, cabbage, kale, lettuce, pansies, rosemary, thistles, pumpkins, bittersweet, dried hydrangeas from my yard, twigs from the field, chrysanthemums-you get my drift.  It is entirely possible that my fall containers will be the best of the year.  I have no regrets about the annuals going down.  I have the fall season coming on.

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All my driveway pots need is for me to assemble a group of fall materials, and soldier on.  Soldiering on?  This means plant.  Stick.  Arrange.

fall-planting.jpgEnjoy the season.

 

 

Posted on: September 23, 2013 7 Comments
Filed Under: Fall, container planting Tagged With: , , , ,

Shop Your Own

Once the summer garden wanes, every devoted gardener is looking to extend their expression on into the fall.  Why wouldn’t they?  The alternatives are not pretty- sulking is not a good look.  I understand that the love for the garden is not something that be turned on and off, like water from a spigot.  Fall containers and plantings enable gardeners to take advantage of the fruits of the harvest, the late blooming perennials, and the cold tolerant annuals.  Just today I spoke with a client who told me he hated this time of year-the coming of the end of the garden.  Michigan is a great place to garden, as we do have four seasons-each distinctly different than the others.  Why not take advantage of that?

Farmer’s markets and garden centers feature loads of fall plants, pumpkins, and gourds this time of year. There are mums and asters to be had, and pots of grasses, seeding.  Petunias and salvias are all good with the cold. I will confess I buy lots of them-for my own garden, and my shop.  But as blog reader Alan Fox put so clearly, I am driving with one eye to the road, and my gardener’s eye to what lies on the side of the road, or in my own garden, that might help make my fall containers more interesting.

Anyone who grows a perennial garden has fall material available to them.  The thick stalks of perennial hibiscus, laden with seeds, dries beautifully.  Bunches of ornamental grass, or dry hydrangeas are good looking.   My own Acanthus mollis, or bear’s britches, has stems and seeds that are uncommonly beautiful.  Any perennial or grass whose stems dry can enrich your description of the fall season. 

Bear’s britches from my garden, and butterfly seed pods from the field next door make a great fall centerpiece.  I did spray the acanthus with a clear sealer-this helps to glue the seeds in place.  The brown dyed eucalyptus adds a little warm company.  This pansy mix would be a little lonely all on its own, but it as a member of this group, it shines.


Statice longifolia is easy to grow, provided you have a loty of sun, and soil that drains in an instant.  A mature plant in full bloom is like a cloud of lavender blue.  Though that color is fairly short lived once it is cut, it lasts long enough to enrich a fall pot.  The stems themselves are easy to dry. 

The field next door has plenty of plants which have gone dormant. No end of wild plants have sturdy stems that can grace a fall container or display.  Many are even strong enough to survive the winter intact. The field next door has grasses seeding, weeds going to their skeletal stage. The remains of the summer Queen Anne’s Lace, in a substantial mass-quite beautiful.  The creams and browns may not be as showy as a delphinium in full bloom, but they have their own charm.

The fuzzy bits of these spotted knapweed stems are surprisingly sturdy.  Centaurea stoebe is a short lived but very vigorous perennial one would not invite into a cultivated garden.  But their remains are lovely. 

Rumex crispus, or curly dock, has strikingly robust seed heads.  It is just one of many materials that are readily available.  Foraging the roadsides can be a treasure trove of natural materials for fall.  The only time I would ever welcome a Canada thistle into my life would be the dead and dried version.  In this form, I like it. 

    

All those roadside weeds freshly matured into their fall forms, and arranged as a centerpeice can be quite handsome in a pot.  This time of year, more than any other, I envy those gardeners with wild places on their property full of popple branches, rosa multiflora, chicory, butterfly weed, centaura, sumac and so on that look so graceful in a fall arrangement.

Posted on: September 30, 2012 2 Comments
Filed Under: Fall, container planting Tagged With: , ,

A Busy Week

We had gusty winds today, sun and stormy clouds alternating, and cool temperatures.  It seems like it rains every fifteen minutes-for days on end.  Our weather is beginning to act like fall.  I am not sorry for this really.  It makes all of the plantings I did this week seem appropriate to the season. 

Rob found these great bleached sticks and branches with bleached leaves from a company in Canada-I was keen to try them out.  I was pleasantly surprised by the contrast of light and dark in these planters.  The blond leaves highlight the complex and moody color and texture of these redbor kale.  That tall centerpiece will go on to provide the foundation for an arrangement that will last the winter. 


It may be hard to see exactly what materials are in this trio of pots, but how the low in the sky fall light illuminates plants is one of the best parts of fall.  As thick as cabbage and kale leaves are, those leaves transmit light.  There are times when a fall planting captures that light in a beautiful way.  No summer container planting ever has this look.  The long low slanting shadows-a sure sign of fall. 

The creeping jenny from a summer planting was left in this pair of pots.  It will brave the cold until very late. The color is not quite so lime like as it is in the summer, but it still is as green as green can be.  Any summer plant that can handle what fall dishes out, we leave in.  I try to handle the transition from one season to the next as gracefully and simply as possible-why not? 

Most pennisetum plumes have lost their their color, and some of their bulk by now, but that feathery texture is a great foil for those giant, silent, and unmoving kale leaves.  This planting has a lot of movement, in spite of those kales and cabbages.  Interesting relationships are vital in creating lively compositions.  This robustly trailing vinca maculatum thrives on this cold; it has been in this planter since May.       

A garden terrace now is much more about the look from inside, than a place to be.  I try to go out every night that I can, and I am not afraid to bundle up. Winter will wander in soon enough.  But I do like a planting that looks great from the street, or the kitchen window.  Some nights now are just too cold for a stay.   I would guess this client has moved inside, but that does not mean they do not want a good view of the out of doors.

The centerpiece of this rectangular planter is dried bahia spears, and preserved eucalyptus dyed a color I call butterscotch.  The cabbages front and center have turned quite pink, given the cooler weather.  The angelina trailing in the front would easy survive the winter in this planter, were it left there.  Placed just next to the front door, this planting gives a cheery fall hello to anyone who comes to the door.   

The chocolate centerpiece in this planter is comprised of many stems of a tall weed gone to seed.  I am sorry, but I do not know the name.  Is it dock?  I only know they look sensational in the fall.  Were I interested in having them long term in a pot, I would spray them with Dri-Seal.  But for the fall season, I just bunch them up around a bamboo stake, and set them at a height that looks good to me.  The loose creamy grass-plastic.  They add just enough adrenalin to this planting to make you come back, at the very least, for a second look.

The Community House in Birmingham Michigan hosts an art show and sale for local artists every October.  I may be wrong, but it seems like the Our Town event has gone on 25 years now.  The past two years, we have placed fall pots at the entrance in celebration of their event.  I like how local artists have a yearly chance to show and sell their work.  The intent here is to welcome visitors to the exhibition.   

These contemporary beehive pots from Francesca del Re look great planted for fall.  The theme of their show this year-the garden.  I plan to get there this weekend to see how some 200 artists have interpreted that idea. 

We were busy this week, planting.  We also were making the rounds to all of those clients who have topiaries or tender plants they want wintered in the greenhouse space we have on reserve.  The installation of a landscape for a new house-we are fighting the rain, the mud, the carpenters, plumbers, and  masons.  Business as usual-a very busy week.

Posted on: October 14, 2011 4 Comments
Filed Under: Garden Design Tagged With: , , , ,

Walking The Field

I would bet that if I organized and offered a shopping trip with Rob, it would fill up in an instant.  There would be a waiting list.  He has an eye for where to go, what to see, and what to commit to that interesting and beautiful.  His less obvious searches includes sifting through the debris and dried materials that tends to accumulate in vacant land.  This abandoned tangle of wire fencing and rotted posts may not upon first glance seem like much seem like much. But I would say the chances are excellent I will see this found object, or this combination of colors and textures and materials, or some semblance of this idea somewhere soon.   

Vacant land has a story to tell.  This grass likes the watery ground.  Other species only come so close, before conditions are no longer optimal.  Plants are very specific about what they want-this picture makes that clear. Given this picture, it is no wonder that lawn saturated with water from automatic irrigation thrives.  Other plants are not so crazy about it-they stay away, if they can.  I know him well enough to know this wild grass laying over is appealing.  Some spot or another in the shop will have this look.            

Wild asters have small and insignificant individual flowers, but large colonies of them can be very beautiful.  Weedy and wonderful, this.  Rob’s pictures are a harbinger of what is to come from him.   The other day Rob nailed a  twig bird feeder to a chestnut fence post, and set the post in a tall limestone cylinder.  Wedged into the cylinder around the fence post, a few wisps of weedy plastic grass.  The idea of plastic grass appeals to no gardener, but should you come in, take a look.  There is an utterly natural and believable look to the entire assembly.      

This vacant land is littered with giant logs, the remnants of their roots intact.  The goldenrod and asters have grown up around them.  The story that lies behind this picture is unclear.  They do not look cut, they look rotted off at the very base.  They look like they were dumped here. But perhaps this land was inadvertently flooded long enough to kill all of the trees.  I am just waiting for Rob to ask if I can send a truck and trailer after them.  They would be the perfect material for a stumpery. 

 I have no clue what thesese shrubby trees might be.  They have been dead long enough that the bark is peeling away from the wood from a long standing sun burn.  Spooky branches, he calls them.  Would they not be perfect for a Halloween vignette?  Rob is just as likely to find inspiration from spooky branches in a tract of vacant land as the library.  To put it mildly, he has an active imagination.  A genuinely original imagination.    

He and I both love asclepias tuberosa-milkweed.  Few wild and weedy plants have big luscious leaves like these.  The story of how milkweed seeds mature, and are sent aloft is one of the most delightful stories that nature has to tell.  When the pods mature, and crack open, the seeds are packed tight in that pod with the unopened parachutes attached, just waiting for a stiff breeze to send them all aloft. An afternoon sky full of milkweed seeds is one of the best visual pleasures of fall.   

Thistles are a pernicious weed in cultivated gardens.  They are almost impossible to eradicate; the roots go very deep, and are very strong.  Who would want to touch one?  But the seed pods are beautiful.  The seeds nourish many a goldfinch.  They look great in fall arrangements. If you know of any tract of vacant land in zone 4-5, there will likely be a thistle patch.        

There is a fall party going on here-undisturbed.  No one has had a mind to refurbish, zone, or organize this space for residential use.   Vacant land in no means implies a vacant space.  There are plenty of plant species thriving with no need for any supervision.  It may be that the most beautiful places on earth are places that are solely supervised by nature.   Every gardener appreciates this.  

Rob took all of these photographs-of course he spotted this giant thickly growing clump of asparagus.  Did it grow from a seed?  Was there a farmhouse here decades ago?  The mystery that is nature is alive and well on this vacant land.  A shopping trip with Rob to a vast tract of vacant land?  It might be better than you think.

Posted on: October 4, 2011 2 Comments
Filed Under: The Natural World, Detroit Garden Works, Garden Design Tagged With: , , , , , ,