Garden Centre

Saturday, February 16, 2008

Gardening in February – working with tubs and planters

I’m looking at the garden in its bare state, as the evenings lengthen, to decide where to put the planters and tubs next year. There are two ways to do this, and most gardeners use them both.

The first way is the plantsman’s way. So, for example, my borders, with heavy but chalk soil (worst of all possible worlds!) doesn’t suit either lavenders or dianthus, both of which like a lighter soil, free draining soil, and a lot of sun. So I grow lavenders in pots and dianthus in ‘stone’ planters that ‘himself’ makes for me from compost, concrete and wood and they are both on the terrace where they get sunshine from early morning to mid-evening in the height of summer.

The second way is the designer’s way. This is involves putting the tubs or pots in places where they make a design statement and filling them with something classic and forgiving (a small conifer and some ivy, for example) or something cheap and cheerful (like bedding plants) that will cope with almost any positioning.

So what does the design approach entail?

How about the elegant use of two urns framing a front door, or two wooden tubs of herbs outside a back door opening onto a cottage garden? Or you can enclose an area using planters – long trough shapes can be used to mark out a dining area, or a line of pots can indicate a path: the latter is called repeating and is seen in many modern gardens where it is used to create a dramatic statement. There are dozens of ways to use plants and planters to make your garden more interesting.

At the moment, having decided where to put my Romneya tub if any of them actually germinate (that's a plantsman's decision), I’m also pondering the idea of a line of herb tubs along the barbecue area … and I really can’t make up my mind!

Labels: container plants, garden planters, garden tubs

The All Seasons Gardener at 9:50 AM

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