When Testing Light Conditions, Your Plants Can Go to Pot

Even for those of us who enjoy ample garden space for flowers and vegetables, container gardening holds out numerous advantages. I'll often, for example, plant flowers I've not grown before in pots the first time around, so that I can experiment freely with placing them in different light exposures to determine which situation in my own garden suits them best.

That's how I discovered how long cineraria and monkey flower blooms can stay beautifully fresh when placed in a cool, lightly shaded spot, and that gerberas (Transvaal daisy) thrive and flower best in bright light where their roots will stay cool. The portability of container plantings makes them happily flexible. Shifting potted plants can bring color and fragrance to wherever you want them at a particular time or for a special occasion. At the end of summer, potted plants are far easier to shift indoors to extend their season of harvest or bloom than in-ground plantings. And, on a patio, balcony or deck, several containers grouped together can create an instant garden.

Last month, I was trying to figure out how I could have run out of my favorite size of deep nursery pots (8 inches wide) so soon - until I reconnoitered the greenhouse and sheltered areas against the house where I'd stashed these pots planted with lilies and strawberries, Mother's Day roses, clematis, winter pansies, double petunias and gerberas. Last fall I'd also used many of those pots to plant spring-flowering bulbs. Digging the pots into the garden allows for easy moving of the plants after bloom, or even during bloom if we decide to enjoy them in the house or on the patio rather than in the garden.

Putting together our summer container garden each spring is, for me, one of the most pleasurable gardening tasks of the year. For one thing, it can be done standing up, or even sitting down, rather than bent over, squatting or kneeling. This makes it a pleasantly restful chore. And setting up a container garden with home-grown or purchased flowers or vegetable transplants provides a sort of instant gratification that is wholesome and rewarding. It's fun to assemble pots, hanging baskets, wooden tubs and boxes, a good all-purpose potting mix and a bunch of transplants - and let the imagination roam free to plant them in any kind of combination that strikes your fancy.

Sometimes I feel like massing plants of one kind to a container, while in another year I might prefer to experiment a little with mixed vegetables or flower plantings. Soon, for example, I'll be putting together a large container of red geraniums, silvery dusty miller and purple basil, a color combination I've not tried before. To make your container plantings as productive of flowers, fruits and vegetables as possible, give the plant the light exposure it needs to thrive. Some plants need to accumulate quite a bit of energy from the sun before they can flower and fruit properly. Some examples are tomatoes, peppers and eggplant, geraniums, portulaca, verbena, marigolds and zinnias.

Only non-fruiting and leafy vegetables will grow well in lightly shaded locations, but several colorful flowering plants will put on a delightful show in such spots - begonias and impatiens. coleus, monkey flower and cineraria among them. Large containers are easier to care for than small ones. They need less water and are far more self-sufficient in every way. Plants with adequate space to stretch their roots will produce the brightest, largest flowers or the fattest vegetables over the longest possible period of time. Before using any container for planting, make sure it has drainage holes.

Testing light conditions, The Ultimate Container Garden, By David Joyce.