Plants in Pots 2010

Here's an installment for 2010 Plants in Pots: what I like this year, what always works, experiments, favourites, etc.


First of all, I've decided that begonias are the Supreme Beings of pot combos--there are so many lovely tuberous varieties coming out that fill out just so and are just so easy and you can store the tubers for the next year, when they come back bigger n' better. Below, this is your basic red tuberous begonia--but with a black leaf, which is rather random, and perfect for this black ceramic pot. It's combined with Red Baron grass (Imperata cylindrica 'Rubra') and Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummalaria 'Aurea') beside Rose's fish pond.





Below, there's a white and pink trailing begonia under the variegated foliage of a Hakuro-nishiki Willow (Salix integra 'Hakuro-nishiki') on Anne's deck. This trailing begonia is a particularly delicate, fluted variety that is similar to the bright coral 'Bonfire' begonia we liked last year. I'm not sure that these are tuberous begonias--you can pull up tuberous begonias at the end of the season and store the knobby tuber in peat moss in the garage/shed and plant out next year.





As for Hakuro-nishikis: they are so striking, with pink/white/green foliage that everyone wants them, but I have observed that they do better in the ground. Still nice in pots, but they tend to be fussy with inconsistent watering/confined roots and are constantly complaining; that is, randomly turning brown, so you tend to get white/pink/green/crispy brown variegation.



The red flowers in the other pot above are the standard annual Nicotiana--I haven't worked with them a lot because I seem to remember them being fussy, but they seem to like Anne's deck. I'm more mesmerized by the tall, fragrant, white variety called 'Only the Lonely' which came available again this year and I enthusiastically planted around various gardens...









(Me, looking enthusiastic--if not hyper--about this bench-full at Roswitha's, with white impatiens, about to bloom.) My verdict: very fun...if they make it. Their other name is Slug Salad, so any baby 'Only the Lonely's I planted in garden beds were chomped to the ground. The ones that survived were in containers/pots, where slugs had yet to launch expeditions. Below, a full-face view of this lush-looking Nicotiana crop on the elevated pool deck, with a backdrop of the forest garden.





Nicotiana, by the way, is the fancy name for tobacco--but this is of course the legal florist variety. The less legal varieties (I didn't know growing tobacco was illegal--but isn't that strange?? You think perhaps the corporate cigarette companies have something to do with that huh huh?) look something like this:



They look a little weedy, so I wouldn't recommend them for your flower gardens/pots. But they have other uses. (I'm not growing this, by the way. Don't recall where I took the picture.)



So onward: still referring to the pic on Anne's deck, another favourite for Plants in Pots 2010 is the common Hosta. Hostas are so effortless in pots (or anywhere) and again, are also safer from the Sluggish Hordes when planted up high. They provide little islands of lush greenish calm in pot combinations



One of my favourite combinations, in pots or in the ground, is hostas and hardy fuchsias. Below: a big blue Hosta sieboldiana with Fuchsia magellanica 'Riccartoni' in John and Margot's sitting area. They like the same conditions, and are both soooo hardy and will perform/bloom in shade (I mean the plants, not John and Margot, although some of that may indeed be true). I'm not a huge fan of annual fuchsias. I think because they are a little blowsy? Pink n' frilly? Brittle? Wedding cakish? Can't put my finger on it. I love the delicate yet hardy 'Ricarrtoni' though...

Canna lilies remain a pot-stunner: we left these canna rhizomes in their elevated cement planting beds at Rose's over the winter (a mild winter, yes) and they came back unscathed. Again, Red Baron grass is a showy companion, hiding some kind of mechanical box at the base of the cannas.

The cannas below were overwintered in Roswitha's furnace room, next to a big window. They nevertheless came out in spring, covered in bugs (aphids/spider mites etc.) so I chopped them down to the soil level, rinsed 'em hard, and let them re-emerge like so...


Echinacea--the white cone-flower above--also does well in pots, if you can wait for their from-now-on bloom. I like perennials in pots. Even though they don't pump out a season-long bloom like annuals, you can orchestrate the bloom-times so there is always something interesting going on. For example, the little hardy Gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides 'Kleims') in the smaller pot just finished its full and fragrant flush of bloom, just as the Echinacea took over. This also saves the cost of buying a shipload of annuals every year--at Roswitha's, we also save all our dahlia and begonia tubers and replant them. Further to the hardy gardenia, I do plant it in the ground and mulch it over the winter, because a pot is less protected and I don't want to tempt fate.

I've included the pic below of a Trumpet vine (Campsis radicans) in the Plants in Pots feature, because this specimen is being contained in a spot that is really too small for it...

It was planted in a cement bed about five feet below this ledge, and of course it wants to grow about 20 feet, or more. Last year, it started to be a problem and I (unimaginatively) just cut off the dense growth when it crept onto the patio above, sacrificing flowers. This year I (imaginatively) started rolling the shoots to the left and tying it to itself, somewhat like a fancy chignon hair-do...which looked funny until it continued to flush out and produced flowers.

Time for a swim. Actually, this photo is several weeks old. The summer is shifting, shifting, sadly. However, so many things are beautiful because they are fleeting. I'll try to get some more Plants in Pots 2010 pics before the season is through.