North Florida Month-to-Month Gardening Guide   June 2007  by Nancy George

Drama in the garden can be easily achieved with a few well-placed containers.  Pots provide interest throughout the year and give a sense of stability and tradition while adding architectural interest that pulls the eye upward.  Provide visual impact by accentuating the understated, use scale, symmetry and repetition for natural, daring designs that become in integral part of the landscape.

What to Buy / Plant

For carefree containers, choose plants as design elements that do not require constant watering.  Don’t squash too many plants into the same pot.  Instead, add artistic sculpture with quality pottery that stands alone unfilled, or use a single drought tolerant plant or slow growing evergreen.  Yucca, agave, dracaena, succulents, palms, cycads including coontie and sago, ornamental grass, phormiun, abutilon, or a mass of single color geraniums, all make an outstanding impact.  Marginally cold tolerant plants like bromeliads or beaucarnea are fantastic in lightweight containers that can be moved under shelter when the thermometer dips below 32 degrees.  Other ideas include japanese maples with stone, mondo or moss under plantings.  A bog garden effect is easy to pull off with non-draining pots, fill with a combination of potting soil and garden soil.  Then plant papyrus, pitcher plant, sagittarius, taro, fairy lily or other bog plants.  Any of these containers will last for years and require little attention to maintain.   (Click here to view a Photo Gallery by Nancy George of various ways to use potted plants in your outdoor garden.)

Prune/ Propagate

Cuttings of begonia, angel’s trumpet, abutilon and geraniums are easy to propagate.  Just cut stems to lengths of 3–4 inches, remove all lower leaves and keep one top leaf.  Stick directly into a small pot filled with potting mix and keep wet the first few weeks.  Roots will develop in about 6-8 weeks.  Last call for pruning spring flowering trees and shrubs.

Watering / Fertilizing

Soil moist, is an inexpensive acrylic polymer that reduces the amount of water needed to maintain potted plants.  Place about a teaspoon in a watering can fill with water, wait a half hour and add in layers, at root zone, while building your containers.  Most potting soil contains fertilizer still, it’s a good idea to top dress each container with a slow release all purpose fertilizer a few times a year.

Houseplants

Liquid feed, bi-monthly, spring – fall.  Leach twice a year by running clear water trough soil for several minutes.  When watering indoors, never leave more than a tablespoon of water in drain tray; use a turkey baster to remove excess.

Edibles

Reduce vegetable disease problems by rotating planting locations.  Watch for plant compatibility for instance; don’t plant peppers, eggplants and related crops in the same garden spot more often than once every three years.  Remove all plant debris from the garden each year.  Purchase disease-free plants, Inspect to be sure they have no spots or lesions at time of purchase.

Pests

Summer is the time to look for sooty mold, a condition that at causes the plant to turn black.  This develops from insects that leave a residue called honeydew attracting fungal spores and dirt stick to the leaf.  Use an insecticide to remove the insect, and then wash the leaves with a spray bottle of water and a drop of dish soap.  Rinse with a strong jet of water.  Leaves affected with powdery mildew look dusty white, just like the name.  This condition is a fungus that grows in humid weather.  Every gardener should have the following safe biological products in their cupboard, diatomaceous earth, B.T., Neem and pyrethrum, all available at garden centers.

For Fun

For contemporary containers buy inexpensive chimney flue liners at a home improvement center, brick or masonry store.  If needed, you can cut with a circular saw and masonry blade, then paint.  Group in varying heights or line them up evenly.  Set one end slightly below soil level, and partially fill with gravel for drainage, leaving room for potting medium and plants.

This article originally published on May 31, 2007.

Written by :

mkwestmark

 

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