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Tag: Sugar Container Large, flowing containers can thrill with bold tropical color, or soothe with soft pastels. They can attract hummingbirds and butterflies and offer alluring fragrances. From a design standpoint, container gardens can complement your home, add structure to a garden or patio and even be used to create living screens by vining plants up bamboo screens for outdoor rooms that create privacy and a peaceful sanctuary.But nothing is more disappointing than creating a container that peters out mid-season with leggy growth and sparse blooms. The key to success, according to Byron Martin, owner of Logee’s Greenhouse in Danielson, is to consider the growth habits and horticultural needs of the plants you’re using, and if you have a good light source and can protect your plants from freezing weather, now is an excellent time to start containers.“Choose plants that take the summer heat and stay attentive to the potted-plants needs,” Martin said. Many fuschias, he added, aren’t generally an all-summer plant and don’t tolerate the heat well, collapsing by mid-summer.Martin stressed the importance of fertilizing, especially mid-season. But if you over-fertilize, leaves will crinkle at the edges or roots will rot. “It’s really about watering and fertilizing right through the season,” Martin said.A recipe for containers Barbara Pierson, nursery manager at White Flower Farm in Litchfield, likes is a mix of potting soil with organic compost or aged manure, so it’s two parts potting soil to one part organic matter. When designing your container, figure a 14-inch-diameter pot to allow for a mixture of plants.The larger the container, the less you will need to water. A 14-inch container will hold about five to six plants, Pierson said. A smaller, 10-inch container will hold three plants. But these formulas need to be tweaked to the plant you are potting — aggressive growers will need more room.Think thriller, said Laurelynn Martin, co-owner of Logee’s, when designing your pot, and the tall, central focal point should be the most aggressive. She likes Angel trumpets trained to a standard; Byron Martin is partial to the canna, cypress, Phormium, purple sugar cane and other ornamental grasses. Logee’s has designed one tropical container that uses the Ensente “Maurelli Abyssinian Banana” for a stunning tropical design. Then consider two or three fillers, as well as spillers. The filler plants surround the thriller and the spillers cascade over the sides. Color, texture and bloom type can create living tapestries.“Annuals, tropicals, and perennials are being mixed with the goal being continuous season of bloom, colorful foliage to be bright throughout the whole season, and a good mix of heights, colors and cascading plant habits,” Pierson said.Color combinationsCombining colors is a matter of taste, but some guidelines are helpful. Hot colors, noted Pierson, look great combined with dark foliage, and cool colors are set off by silver foliage. Traditional color schemes that work well together are purple, chartreuse, gold and white, with perhaps a dash of pink or red, Martin said.Laurelynn likes the Guardian Gate Collection. “It’s a wow for contrast,” she said. “The tall spires with feathery end of Cyperus papyrus and the Red Christmas Candy Begonia with the purple scaevola is an eye-catching combination of not only color but texture, as well.”A nice spiller with all-summer power Pierson approves is from Proven Winner, a petunia called Supertunia Bubblegum Vista. She particularly likes to design this plant as a spiller to the thriller, canna.Pick your potWith so much focus on foliage and flower, be sure to consider the pot in your design. Logee’s most always recommends clay pots for the health of plants, and advises to let them dry out between waterings.When assessing the pot, though, always make sure it has a drainage hole. Long, fluted pots need tall plants to balance the shape, and short, squat pots take chubby plants well. For a traditional or classic look, urns made of stone, cast iron or faux material that looks like the real thing have proven popular, Pierson said. Neutral colors work best, so off-white and brown are good choices.“Grey and black can also work if you have wrought-iron or black accents for lighting or trim,” she said.Pierson said when planting for a traditional style, plants should make a bold statement but follow a theme, using pastels or hot colors but not mixing the two. The bottom line is the design should appeal to you, and the plants should thrive. “The trick to mixed containers is you want them to grow at the same rate of speed,” Laurelynn Martin said.