NW Gardens: Put on your summer best
NW Gardens: Put on your summer best I was interviewed by garden writer Marty Wingate for an article entitled Put on Your Summer Best which was published in Seattle PI. Marty writes “Nursery shelves and tables are overflowing with plants that would be perfect in a pot. To help you plan, plant and maintain your summer containers, we talked with Toni Cross, owner of Seasonal Color Pots, to get all the details for creating a fabulous display. We followed a pot that Cross planted up for one of her clients in May of last year, and then took...
read moreBasics of Container Gardening Design: Choosing Container Plants Part I
Basics of Container Gardening Design: Choosing Container Plants Container Gardening: Beauty in Small Spaces is the tagline for my business. However, these “small spaces” actually need to be analyzed and assessed in exactly the same way as for a larger landscape design. While the container garden designer has ultimate control over the type of soil and the size of the outdoor container planting, Mother Nature has control over everything else. When determining what plants to install in your outdoor container garden planters, it is important to...
read moreBasics of Container Gardening Design: Container Gardens and Fertilizer
Basics of Container Gardening Design: Container Gardens and Fertilizer Feeding Container Gardens It always surprises me how obsessed gardeners are with chemicals – and I mean all kinds of gardeners, including organic gardeners. It’s as if folks are seeking some kind of ‘magic bullet’ that will correct every single thing lacking in their garden in just a few applications. This is especially true of fertilizer. Even if it is an organic fertilizer, it still qualifies as a chemical. Some years ago the magic bullet was spraying...
read moreBasics of Container Garden Design: Importance of Soil in Container Gardens
Basics of Container Garden Design: Importance of Soil in Container Gardens Choosing the Right Potting Soil for Planting Containers One of the great benefits of container gardens is that they are perhaps the most ‘controllable’ elements of gardening. After all, we can choose their shape, exposure, contents and soil. We can even move them around after they are fully planted (if we have help and perhaps some rolling carts). When given so much control over a container planting, choosing a good potting soil should be one of your...
read moreBasics of Container Garden Design: Choosing a Container for Planting
Basics of Container Garden Design: Choosing a Container for Planting I like to think of container gardens as jewelry added to a nice outfit or the right pair of cuff links with a crisp dress shirt. In fact, beautiful container garden arrangements have such a big impact on the overall picture that they are usually part of any discussion between client and landscaper. Almost everyone wants to get to the fun part first – the plants. However, without proper preparation from the bottom up, your plants will fail to provide the aesthetic...
read moreBamboozled: Container Garden Bamboo – Container Planting Ideas in Seattle
Bamboozled: Container Garden Bamboo – Container Planting Ideas in Seattle A number of years ago, a client asked us to remove some Black Bamboo (Phyllostachys nigra) from a custom-built wooden garden container. The bamboo was very unhealthy and had been incorrectly pruned by shearing off the top in order to keep it below the roof line. This particular type of bamboo is commonly called a “runner” This means that if planted in the ground without a barrier and/or proper maintenance, the bamboo will “run” in all...
read moreTopping Trees
Tooltip Text The pictures accompanying this blog posting show trees photographed in March, 2015 in the Seattle area. Standing in front of two prominent Ballard businesses, they have been topped dramatically. As I look at these topped trees, I have to believe that the business owners (or their agents) simply didn’t realize what was going to be done. The owners probably asked their landscape maintenance company to “cut the trees back” for some reason. It’s hard to determine what that reason could have been. They weren’t growing into wires. ...
read moreSprucing Up Your Container Gardens for Spring
Sprucing Up Your Container Gardens for Spring Recently, I participated in an interview with garden writer Marty Wingate entitled Sprucing Up for Spring which was published in the Alaska Airlines magazine for March, Alaska Beyond . Marty writes “Container gardening seems like an intrinsic time-saver, because it’s so, well, contained. But easy as it may be to have a pot at the front door or out on the deck, containers can assume a sad-sack appearance by the end of winter. Our first inclination is often to dump the entire contents...
read moreGreen-ier Than Thou
The two Pearls Before Swine comics at the top of this blog were created by my favorite cartoonist, Stephan Pastis. I laughed particularly hard when I read them, because I am a vegetarian (of over 30 years), organic gardener, recycler, childless, friend of the Earth, etc. etc. If I took a good look at my carbon footprint, it would probably be pretty small. I don’t look, however. How many times have we run into folks who are good hearted and green, but a bit too vocal about their green accomplishments? If I wanted to get into a green...
read moreBrrr in Seattle! My Container Garden Plants Are Flat!
Brrr in Seattle! My Container Garden Plants Are Flat! You are probably wondering what’s happening with your container garden plantings during very cold weather. The leaves of the plants are curling in and down, and some of the plants are even hanging over the sides of the pots—when they aren’t supposed to hang! Don’t worry. The plants are reacting naturally to the frigid temperatures. Their leaves curl in order to protect the plants from losing more moisture in the dry air. In addition, the “juice” in...
read moreSnowed In – Your Container Gardens in Seattle
Snowed In – Your Container Gardens in Seattle Snow! It won’t be long before we’ll all be there with snow, Snow! I want to wash my hands, my face and hair with snow. Actually, probably not. Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Vera Ellen and Rosemary Clooney sang this song in the movie White Christmas, but if you’ve just been without power for 18 hours, this is the last thing on your mind. However, when the weather calms down, or as the snow begins to melt, here are some tips for preserving your outdoor garden containers. Winter...
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