CHOOSING THE PLANTS For Home Gardening

WHEN CHOOSING PLANTS, Strike a balance between container size and plant size; a tiny plant looks ridicu- lous in a vast urn or tub. The container’s shape, tOO, makes a difference to the ratio between plant and pot. A profusion of leaf and flower tumbling from a narrow, tapered pot is most pleasing to the eye, but this abundance will be short-lived when there is not enough soil for the roots to run freely.

Avoid meanness in the planting and aim for luxuriance and extravagance. Compose a harmonious shape, with the taller plants at the back or the center, and a gradual descent to a frill of foliage or bloom at the rim. For a makeshift container, choose plants such as nasturtium

and periwinkle that will quickly tumble out and over its edges to create a dense, concealing curtain.

Every type of plant – bulb, tender annual, sturdy perennial, shapely shrub or even small tree – offers its particular benefits and with a bit of planning you can enjoy container plants in flower all

year round. Containers have such eye- catching potential that successes or failures are particularly noticeable , but mistakes are easily rectified.

GETTING THE BEST FROM EVERGREEN SHRUBS

Where containers are a principal part of a garden – in a town courtyard or On a balcony, for example – a permanent framework such as evergreen shrubs can provide a boon. Fortunately, with proper care and the right size of pot, almost any shrub grows happily.

The ‘instant garden’, every gardener’s dream, is attainable with containers and container-grown shrubs, indeed this is how most plants are sold in nurseries and garden centers. When you want only two or three plants., it is not too extravagant to buy items of a considerable size and to pick the best available.

Whether left to develop informally or clipped and trained into topiary shapes, evergreen shrubs can be attractive. But make your choice carefully; while topíary shrubs maintain their desirable charac- teristic – their strong shape – through the year, many flowering shrubs have several undistinguished months. When placed prominently in a container, they cannot merge into the background as border plants do. Choose shrubs that have more than one brief moment of glory.

+ Rhododendron Cilpinense has a display of pink-and-white flowers in April. A mahogany polish develops on the bark of old plants and the hair-fringed leaves are attractive all year.

+ Rhododendron Temple Belle carries pink bells in loose clusters, and when spring is over still draws the eye with shiny, heart-shaped leaves. Pieris formosa forresti, a lime-hater like the rhododendrons, drapes itself in late spring with chains of little white bells. Drama follows with brilliant scarlet shuttlecocks of new leaves.

Yucca gloriosa has long, narrow leaves that make a striking architectural state- ment, especially in the variegated form. A spire of white flowers may be thrown up in summer after a few years 

+New Zealand cabbage palm (Cordy- lime australis) , 1 deal for City courtyards and the mild west, was statuesque, sword. like leaves all year. years growth. cabbage palm (Cordy-

+ Red-hot pokers (Kniphofia), with all spikes of bright tubular flowers, long spectacular. Swordlike leaves of somma such as K. caulescens, are evergreen.

+ Conifers that are suitable for Containers and give year-round interest are the rugged mountain pine (Pinus mugo) and dwarf Siberian pine (Pinus pumila).

SMAll DECIDUOUS TREES  AND SHRUBS

Even a diminutive garden gains enormously from a beautiful tree carefully placed. Many trees thrive happily in a container, although pot-grown trees cannot be very large or heavy. More important than size are interesting and branching-patterns. Japan- structure and ese maples – which make excellent container specimens – develop these virtues naturally, but careful pruning develops such character in other plants. look for trees which provide year- round interest.

Maples, especially Japan- ese maple (Acer palmatum Rubrum’) and A. japonicum ‘Aureum’, are attrac- tively shaped and offer foliage in dra- matic shades of red, orange and gold in autumn. The weeping purple beech (Fagus sylvatica “Purpurea Pendula’) also offers vivid coloured leaves – deen purple which turIS tO Orange and gold before they are shed in autumn. A tree that lights up any corner laburnum is the Scotch (Laburnum alpinum). Old plants develop strong twisted branches and produce cascades of golden-yellow flowers in late spring.

For a mass of frothy blossom, Prunus offers a huge choice. A couple of the best dwarf species are the Japanese apricot (Prunus mume), which flowers in late winter or carly spring, and the small or- namental almond shrub P tenella Fire Hill. which has delicate willowy stems and is smothered in pink flowers in April,

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Many deciduous shrubs are quite at home in a container. For spectacular spring blooms nothing surpasses a magnolia. The dwarf Magnolia stellata is especially suitable for a container as even in open ground it grows to a maximum height and spread of 8-10 ft (2.4-3 m).

Hydrangeas are popular pot shrubs, and deservedly so, for the full flower heads last for a long time and come in a  wide range of colors from the purest white through brilliant pink to cool blue. Other useful shrubs are forms of bush mallow – Lavatera Rose’ and the blush pink L. Barnsley’. Among the many roses that grow well in containers are repeat-flowering hybrids or patio roses such as Drummer Boy’.

Winter interest comes, surprisingly, from some deciduous shrubs. Viburnum farreri has delicate, pink-budded white winter flowers on the bare stems, and the dogwood Cornus alba Westonbirt’ glows with clustered straight red stems.

THE MATURE CHARMS OF BONSAI

Bonsai takes pruning and controlled growth to extreme lengths, with normally full-size trees and shrubs being dwarfed to create beautiful miniatures that suggest great age. A bonsai collection makes a specialized pot garden, which needs persistent care as well as a long time Span; some famous specimens are several hundred years old but there are shortcuts to the bonsai effect.

The hardy dwarf conifers used in rock gardens make excellent pseudo-bonsai, and offer solid evergreen foliage in a range of colors from the dark green up- right juniperus chinensis Stricta’ to the paler shade of the spreading Piece pun- germs Montgomery’.

Use a cotoneaster or a pyracantha for quicker growing bonsai. These shrubs allow you to experiment with pruning and training the shoots into the characteristic gnarled shapes.

The choice of container is vital as it should be in keeping with both the shape and the aged appearance of bonsai. The shallow, glazed traditional Japanese containers always look the most elegant, as well as being perfectly in keeping with the proportions of the trees. A stone, or

stone-effect, sink also looks suitably acdient, and is a perfect depth.

UNTROUBLED BY WINTER

There really are no overwintering annuals or biennials equivalent to the tum- bling plants of summer, so winter is a good time to bring on the single most valuable evergreen for containers – the native British ivy (Hedera helix). Easy to grow, it has big or tiny leaves – rounded. heart-shaped, arrowhead, bird’s-foot – and comes in plain green, gold, and with cream variegations. Few hardy plants im- mediately give such an established look to newly planted containers. On top of this, ivy can cope with all but the very

Worst that winter sends. Periwinkles (both vinca major and V. minor), with their green or variegated leaves, do not have (continued on p. 240) the bulk of the ivy, but they do have some

of its desirable weeping habit in gracing a pot, with the bonus of a sprinkling of blue, purple or white flowers. The double-flowered forms of Vinca minor are even more effective.

Invest in some shrubs that will give touches of brighter color to the winter container display.

* Daphne odora ‘Aureomarginata’ has cream edges to its evergreen leaves and in late winter every twig bears a cluster of fragrant white-and-pink flowers.

+ Skimmia japonica Rubella’ has crim- son buds among the evergreen leaves on the male plants in winter before the white flower heads open up in March.

+ Mahonia japonica is crowned with per- fumed lemon sprays of bloom through the winter; its ranks of mid-green holly- like leaflets are striking all year, and some of them take on crimson tints in winter. Set some empty pots among your group of container shrubs so that you can pop up in a succession of pots of bulbs as they come into flower.

Put some of the t tougher indoor pot plants outside. Winter cherries Dseudocapsicum), set with scarlet mable. 1ike fruits amid the evergreen leaves, and Solantm chrysanthemums will brighten up a frost-free spot for a couple of weeks.

COLORS IN SPRING

You need relatively few plants to create a feast of color for spring, so buy the best. A typical half-barrel necds only a dozen fine wallflowers, supported with bulbs, to spill out color and scent.

Pots undoubtedly take center Stage when in flower but they give pleasure long before, for the swelling buds and promise of l beauty is often 1 as exciting as the real thing. Pots let you cheat

and bring spring

Start the plants in a greenhouse, cold frame or porch to speed their growth. For your plants to give a good spring forward a month or so. A display, you must look after them well through the previous summer, never let- ting them dry out completely, as this is when the flower buds are formed.

Spring bulbs, quietly biding their time just out of sight during the dullest months, provide a wonderful tonic when they eventually burst forth. Plant tulips, hyacinths, and daffodils are Sin (20 cm) deep, with leafy plants above them: the bulbs’ pointed shoots have no problem finding their way through.

Deep containers will hold two layers of bulbs. Plant bulbs of the same kind and you’ll have a spectacular display when they all flower together. However, planting layers of different bulbs (such as winter-flowering crocus and fritillaries) will extend the flowering season. After the bulbs have had their season, non-bulbous plants, if looked after, con- tinue to flower almost into early summer, and certainly until their successors are big enough to make a show.

The quality of these wallflowers, forget-me-nots, polyanthuses and pansies, planted in October when the first frosts have done for summer’s exotics, must be superb for they have to be able to respond quickly to spring’s increased tempera- res and extended daylight.

SUMMER BLO0MING CHOOSING THE PLANTS For Home Gardening

The ideal plant for a summer container October. May to should flower from May Avoid plants that are bred for compact habit as they do not provide the lushness and profusion you want. Experiment with tender sub-shrubs such as fuchsias, Osteospermums and marguerites (Argyr- anthemum frutescens), which are very fashionable and grown as formal standards.

They give a suitable height for the center of a pot. Tall summer annuals with a long flowering period – Salvia coccinea Lady in Red’ or blue S. farinacea – are also good centerpieces.

For a profusion of flowers with lower growth few plants are better than the summer classics petunias and nemesias, which come in almost every color of the spectrum -ranging from red, orange and yellows into the purples and blues.

Round the rim of the pot grow trailing plants, such as begonias, nasturtiums, lobelias, ivy-leaved pelargoniums and verbenas, to cascade over the sides. Try planting a collection of containers

with the same type of plant filling each one. In the summer, when there is so much mixed color in the flowerbeds, single-planted containers provide a wel- come rest for the eye.

LATE SUMMER INTO AUTUMN

The most striking effects can be obtained from sub-shrubs grown on short stems as low standards – and there is much satisfaction in training them yourself.

Fuchsias, pelargoniums (both the Regal and Zonal types) and orange-flowered

COOL COORDINATION Shapely glazed and Chinese pots are grouped together in spring for a softly toned display. Cream tulips pick up the acid yellow of the euphorbia, while white pansics harmonize with variegated ivy. lantana camera takes this form. You had a season to train a bush head and clear stem and the plants have to be over- wintered out of reach of frost.

Every gardener likes the mellow at- mosphere which abounds as summer slips into autumn. This is the time when reds and oranges make such pleasant contrasts to the blues, pinks, yellows and whites of the summer, and many plants bridge the seasons.

The maples come into their own in autumn. Look for Acer griseum, with its scarlet leaves and colorful peeling bark, or the e coral-bark JapaneSe maple  Acer palmatum Senkaki’), 1 Blunt a shrub such AS Chinese witch hazel (Hamomh mill), which 1 turns golden- leaved in the

autumn as well as having red-center yellow flowers in January,

V and Carry clandonenSIS Kew Blue’, which Oeris N has true blue flowers in September. Hydrangeas, with large mop heads in a wide range of colors, are excellent for autumn. The bonus is the 1 metamorpho- of H. nacrosis of the colors: the blue of H phylla ‘Ayesha’ or “Blue Bonnet fades to pale turquoise and green, while the pinks and reds, such as H. serrata Preziosa’ deepen to purple and burgundy. The white hydrangeas, such as H. macrophylla Madame Emile Mouillière’, tend to become pale pink.

IN CONCLUSION 

Tall, stately flowers always look dra-matic in containers, and contrast well with bushy plants such as hydrangeas. The crinum, active of amaryllis, is ele- gant and carráas many as ten large pink-and-white trumpet-shaped blooms on a stem, often all through October. For light. delicate flowers choose the African lily (Agapanthus africanus). Sitting on thin, erect stems the rounded flower heads composed of bells of white or pale to deep blue float above the strappy leaves and add a graceful touch to the late | summer scene. unt out A. praecox subsp. orientalis and A. Ben Hope’.

Having carefully chosen the contain- ers and decided what to grow, find the best position for them, for display and for sunshine and shelter, then tend them well to enjoy the best they can give.