Hi All!

How many pots and containers do you have on your balcony (etc)that you started from somewhere else ... like your Granny's garden, or a Mom's day present or 'pinches-and-gives-and-swaps' from a passing garden or a nursery or a neighbour or friend's garden? Perhaps you have a bulb or two that just keeps on going year after year?

I have several that are extra precious to me for sentimental reasons, and though I care for all my plants, these get extra attention as I would hate to lose any.

If you do propagate or extend your garden of pots and containers this way, which plants have you found to be the easiest to grow?

I have found sticking a piece of geranium or ivy in a glass of water (placed on a sunny windowsill) the easiest to root then transplant. They grow so readily.

Cheers

Hello Everyone,

I think I have mentioned a couple of times that our back garden is on a steep incline. Anyway, I am very pleased to report back to you all that the cuttings of the creeping geraniums have taken (80%) and are shooting and starting to grow in earnest - my what a display I will be getting and am looking forward to!

Well just yesterday we planted a large patch of big-leaf Ivy. With this I am hoping to help stabilise the soil on the incline, suppress the weeds and get a nice green all-year around look cascading down the hill. I will be keeping it trimmed and in single file as it were as I do not want rats and mice though I do want to encourage an Owl to come live in our garden, so who knows if my ivy 'waterfall' will help with this.

I got the cuttings (phew so many of them!) from a tree growing in a public area that had just been trimmed of the Ivy growing all over it - so this gave up long fronds of Ivy cuttings which I grabbed as quick as a flash on being offered them by the Parks Department.

Please try and grow some plants in containers taken from cuttings - then come and report back on your findings, great.

Just remember to keep the soil moist while they are rooting and add bonemeal (as per instructions) to the soil, dig it in ... your results and garden spaces and containers will be happy ones.

Cheers now

Sounds beautiful! I dry and grind up my egg shells (very fine) all year until gardening season (that would be when the ground isn't frozen solid). The question being is the ground up egg shell as good as bonemeal?

Hi Diana,

Crushed eggshells are an excellent addition to the soil as they offer up calcium (roses especially like this) but bone meal has a different task to perform and helps establish healthy strong roots, stems, leaves and blooms.

Am not scientific enough and all the ingredients etc will be on the packets of bonemeal you can buy so you will get the info so marked there. However, I will speak to my nurseryman Mike, get the ante and then come back to the forum with a more enlightening answer.

I do know that bonemeal is biodegradable and takes a very long time to break down completely so is a gift to the soil that keeps on giving - only a little is needed once or so a year or when establishing new containers etc.

How is your container garden doing.

Cheers now

I really appreciate the information and look forward to learning about egg shells. I can't container garden in this house. We just don't get enough light (three stories) and don't get enough heat for much of anything to survive. I have tried several years to container garden in the winter. I look forward to spring!

Hi Diana,

Do you live on one of the storeys with any sort of conservatory or enclosed balcony space - or is the whole house 3 storeys high. Do you have any indoor plant containers. BTW my keyboard is on strike tonight and the question mark an forward slash key will just not work - it's gone awol!

From my understanding there is a plant to suit most any condition we can find (other than neglect!) from cold to low light.

Maybe you would consider using a service so that they become responsible for keeping you in winter containers and your immediate surrounds colourful and pretty and all and all.

Where have you placed your spring containers. What have you tried to grow

Ag anyway Diana, speak another time!

Cheers now

I never thought of rats & mice living in ivy! Well, look at the bright side, if you manage to get that owl to live in your backyard, he should be able to take care of the rodents!

Hello SandraJ

Another colourful edit that I hope y'all will find useful!

The thing is to keep mass planting of ivy at a single 'storey' level and not let it build up by having to grow over and on top of itself. That way the mice do come for the owls etc, BUT do not breed and stay for too long. It is only when the ivy becomes 'bushy' that they will. So - the answer is to cut back the ivy regularly. Thanks from Lestie

I usually don't propagate plants from cuttings and I don't grown plants from seeds. I'm just too impatient! Having said that, I have started two avocado trees from the seeds - I ate the avocado then rooted the seeds in a glass of water. The first one is now about a foot tall, the other is new and still rooting with a 2 inch stem. Don't know what I'll do with them if they get bigger! But right now it's fun!

Avocado pips to plants to trees are fun in containers and look good and give a green green fill for a long while - but when it comes to planting them out in the garden makes sure there is lots and LOTS of space - roots are very invasive, (100 feet and more widths) will crack building walls and sneak into underground plumbing etc. Keep your plants growing and contained and you will get a good easy plant, plain green display. Easy peasy and a pleasure to grow in a pot. I have a friend who has two avo trees growing in concrete pots as her entrance pots, they give her all she needs for very little work! Cheers from Lestie

I live in northern Indiana USA, and love to garden, so if I didn't have lots of plants in containers I would be feeling very deprived through our long dark winter!

The current count is 34, some of them very large, living in every window in the house. They all go outdoors in May and come back in by October. Some came from cuttings, some were rescues, some leftover potted annuals, etc.

One of the oldest is an Oleandar, a cutting from a cutting. The original plant was a cutting that my FIL brought back from a trip to Arizona in the late 1940's! Mine blooms every Spring.

Another huge plant is a tangerine that grew from seeds my son planted about 45 years ago. It has bloomed and borne fruit several times, and has to be pruned every Fall or it wouldn't fit in the house.
BTW, some of them enjoy cool temps, and I keep them in an unheated bedroom, such as the old amaryllis that has split into 7 bulbs and is right now putting up 3 flower stems.

Amyrillus are one of my favourite plants - majestic I think and oh so pretty and long lasting and varied -but the red ones are my favourites. Very good feature plants in containers too, though I choose to leave the leaves on and not cut them away for the next popular look that is clean lines and 'architectural' as they say! Cheers from Lestie with thanks for your post Claybird.

Claybird

Wow!! You have a LOT of indoor plants! I gave up indoor plants many years ago because I adopted several cats. My cats and my potted indoor plants did not get along. I only have 4 indoor plants now: 2 orchids (in bad shape) and 2 avocado seedlings. The orchids may go to the "big garden in the sky" soon. It just is too dry in the house and the windows are where the cats like to sit (plus that's where the heat vents are, right underneath the center of the windows).

Next spring I want to start organizing all my lovely large decorative outdoor flower pots and try growing things in them!!

Sandra, I know what you mean about cats! I have 2, and while Smokey is well behaved, Harley loved to dig in the bigger pots and toss the dirt around. I finally found a solution; I covered the soil with wadded up sheets of bubblewrap, and once he couldn't get to the soil he stopped messing around.