GARDENER'S READING ROOM
The Art of Gardening

Year-Round Container Style

Our fabulous summer weather has resulted in stunning containers filled with exciting colors, interesting shapes and lots of texture. While you can still be adding more color to your containers now, it's also a good time to look at longer-term planning for making your plants and planters look great all year round. This is also the time to be actively enhancing your container plants' longevity by adding fertilizer and deadheading spent flowers.

We have a huge selection of brilliant annuals and perennials in the new greenhouse. Gorgeous million bells and bacopa, annual dianthus and snapdragons can take a container from average to eye-popping in an instant. Sky also has some wonderfully vibrant perennials that will continue to bloom well into the fall. Rudbeckia, Gaura, Helenium and Penstemon are outstanding mid- to late-summer bloomers with lovely verticality.

It's a good time to be planning for fall color and winter interest. Our nursery has some great plants that can provide a centerpiece for your container. Our wide selection of Japanese maples will give you brilliant fall color and their fabulous forms will continue to provide structural interest throughout the winter. More stand-alone winners in containers are the evergreens 'Sea of Gold' juniper, Japanese umbrella pine and the 'Country Park Fire' yew pine.

'Goshiki' Osmanthus

Another evergreen show stopper for the container is'Goshiki' Osmanthus with lovely cream/green leaves and a pleasing shape. Drimys lanceolata (Pepper Tree) is also an eye-catching centerpiece; it has brilliant red stems contrasting with finely textured, deep green leaves. And be sure to take a second look at our wide range of gorgeous conifers, many of which can be combined with evergreen perennials for terrific effect. Sky has some lovely dwarf conifers like the deodar cedars 'Scott' (blue green) and 'Prostrate Beauty'(lime green frosted with yellow). Drooping elegantly over the edge of a container, they provide texture, color and effortless elegance. For shadier spots, the Sargent's weeping hemlock is just the thing. A slow-grower, it has beautiful shape and lovely light green tips on its new growth.

All of these central plants look wonderful contrasted with sharply textured plants like colorful New Zealand flax. The large leaves of Bergenia are also terrific in containers; they provide a lovely contrast to lacy or smaller-leaved plants, like Hebes. Heuchera is a mainstay of the container in all seasons, especially when it has the ferny green leaves and red veins of 'Venus,' or the frilly green with cherry red undersides of 'Sashay.'

New Zealand Flax		Hebe

Fall is a great time to be looking at your pot itself in a fresh light. If you've changed your house color or appearance, last year's container might look old or inappropriate. Maybe it's time to go for a new look. Choosing a pot is always a good place to start when designing a container that's right for you. Whether you want help freshening an existing pot or to start all afresh, Sky has what you need for gorgeous fall and winter containers.

By Mike Megan Bonner
Skylights Autumn 2009, Vol 24, No. 3

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