Kathy’s Home & Garden Tips – Container Gardening for Flowering Annuals

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Container gardening can work well for just about any living situation. They work as well on the back deck of a single-family house as they do on the balcony of a high-rise condominium. Choose your container to fit in the space you have. Remember, no matter how light a container is, it will be much heavier when filled with soil and plants. So, choose accordingly if you intend to move the containers around occasionally.

Containers come in a wide variety of materials, sizes and colors. Clay pots are a proven standby that help conserve water but can be pricy for larger sizes and are very heavy even when empty. Plastic is great for size, shape and color variety but does not have a long life. Wooden barrel planters are somewhat more durable but are also heavy to move. This leads most of us to leave them out through the winter, hastening their deterioration. So, think about your specific needs before choosing your pots.

Pay attention to the amount of sun your area receives daily. This will help you pick out the proper and successful flowering plants. To be considered a sunny area, it needs to receive at least 6 hours of sun a day. Shade-lovers still need an hour of direct sun or at least 3-4 hours of filtered sun.

Sun-loving flowers are many and varied. Some of the most colorful and diverse are geraniums, daisies, snapdragons, petunias and salvia. These flowers come in many colors and sizes to complement any container.  A type of shade-lover is impatiens. They come in a great variety of types and colors. They range from small to tall with a wide range of leaf colors and shapes. Other flowering shade-lovers are violas, begonias and primula. Another shade-loving, mostly foliage shade plant is coleus. This type of plant also comes in a great variety of colors. Here the leaves will grow out in lovely stripes of varying colors. They also produce a spike with small flowers in the center later in the summer.

When planting, pay attention to plant height at maturity. Plant taller plants in the center or back and smaller ones in front. Use a good container mix, like Miracle Grow. It provides a good soil mix and contains peat moss and other ingredients to keep the soil loose and retain moisture. Regular topsoil tends to harden in containers. Don’t pay too much attention to spacing on the label for plants in containers; pack them in but do give them room to expand. Feed every two weeks with a weak, all-purpose plant food. Pick spent blooms often to encourage more growth. Some may need to be clipped. The most important thing you need to remember is sufficient watering. Even in a normal summer, watering every two days is essential. During very hot and dry times, it’s necessary to water every day, especially hanging plants.

With a little planning and care, you can enjoy beautiful flowers in containers, whether you have a large patio with a dozen containers or one little pot on your stoop.   

KATHY WEAVER-ZECH & DEAN’S TEAM CHICAGO