BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Container Gardening So, What's in the Pot?

I guess we're all agreed that spring is finally here. So, what's everybody growning?

I found that the Sweet William seeds I had planted in one big planter last year came up and are really very thick. I don't want to touch them, though I probably should dig out about half the thickness and transplant in the garden.

That's another nice thing about containers. Last year I had snapdragons and um...hmmm, I forget, in that pot. I scattered the Sweet William seed in with them---it takes two years to produce flowers---and now there's a bonanza. I would be more than willing to dedicate this pot to them and hope they will reseed because they are real favorites. I hate buying all my flowers over and over again. I'm a really big fan of reproduction.
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I have a galvanized tub that is full of shasta daisys and coreopious. They are blooming and look great. Next year they are going to have to be divided. I have 2 strawberry pots that have petunias and sweet williams in the holes and the top has red salvia in it. Whatever I put in there last year didn't do very good. I have 3 containers with petunias and columbines in them that also are doing great. Connie

They sound lovely.

I've been very busy. I did one pot with asters in the center and a tender-leafed lettuce around the edge. It is very attractive! I'm hoping the deer/slugs/and assorted critters leave the lettuce alone!

Another pot is fully of Sweet Williams, really, very thick but popping to bloom. Some other forgotten seed has sprouted and its shape is very fern-like. I love the "mystery plants" that either volunteer from God knows where, or that I had forgotten that I had planted. Adds a little spice to the pot.

Other than that, lots of verbena, French marigolds, dahlias, petunias, geraniums, impatiens, various daisies, allyssum, morning glories, dusty miller, and mystery plants. There's one in the middle of one of the pots that looks like a lupine that I planted from seed last year. Now that would really please me, because some I planted in the ground evaporated almost overnight.

Hi there
I'm growing box in pots and hope when they are big enough to create some topiary!
Until then I'm growing lavender and rosemary in big tubs surounded by lots of trailing lobelia and dwarf sweet peas by the front door so I can breathe in the scents everytime I go out. <img src="/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

Any tips on how to keep slugs away from my lupins?

Hellie T.

English Garden
Walking

I have read that you can put crushed egg shells in a circle around anything you want slugs to stay off of as they will not crawl on the shells. Also you can put a lid of beer out and they will crawl in that and drown.

Connie

I guess the slugs die happy then!
I bought a French lavender plant today and have potted it up with white pinks and pale pink lobelia.
I also potted on my alpine strawberries which taste so delicious - ummmm roll on summer...

Hellie T

English Garden
Walking

The lupines I planted in the raised bed disappeared so fast, I barely had time to look at them, let alone have them bloom. Slugs love that bed, and some of them have been monster-sized. When they show up on the pavement, they get salted. I'm kidding myself that I'm doing any harm to the population. It's just the wicked satisfaction of dealing with a sworn enemy. I loathe them. (Deer, I cannot hate, but they have only offended me the once, probably because of the dog and the activity around the house. The neighbors are not so lucky. I see lovely hostas nibbled to nubs. Mine are monsters and left alone. Maybe they're scaring the deer.)

A friend wrote about using chicken grit around the plants that slugs like. I think he was talking about hosta in particular. My hostas are untouched by either deer or slugs, so I hope I'm not misremembering.

The lupine seed I tossed in one of the containers last spring grew but didn't bloom. Now it has a bud on it! I am psyched!

When I get more adept with images I will post some photos to put my money where my mouth is. I'm taking the pictures every time I think of it, and though we've had such a long, cold spring and lots of rain, it looks like a real bumper crop this year. As soon as the sun comes back, everything is going to explode into bloom. Or rot if the sun doesn't come out...but I'm optimistic.

Lupin, not lupine. Right, I think alpine and forget the spelling.

Scented plants in doorways! Brilliant! Your feng shui must be perfect to have a sunny doorway. Sweet peas too. I forgot them in March this year. Ah, there's enough going on at the moment...but next year.

Our lavender isn't close to blooming yet. Is yours ahead? Rosemary is perennial in England?

In Ireland, the daffodils are fully a month ahead of NJ in the US. I haven't drawn a line, but I know it's more northerly and the UK as well. Gulf Stream I guess. It's a treat to see daffs for a full month in the years we have been there in early spring. (That's looking on the bright side, isn't it?<G>)

I am fascinated by the diverse ranges of so many of the plants we love. They are so resilient and at the same time so delicate sometimes. What we call a houseplant in NJ is a landscaping tree in Florida! It makes me laugh to see the difference in growth habit in plants in 1,000 miles, or even in 200 miles.

Crepe myrtle is a landscape tree in Maryland, 150 miles to the south; here it needs protection and is not seen so often. In Maryland, I could almost get tired of them. Here, they are a novelty.

Topiary boxwood. Mmmm. Have a bonsai going somewhere, do you?