Want to add color to your landscape without fighting Idaho’s heavy clay soil?
Container gardening may be the answer! More than just for areas with limited space, containers are great for adding height in an existing garden, as a way to plant areas with difficult in-ground soil conditions, or as a portable home for plants that cannot survive the winter months outdoors. They also allow gardeners an opportunity to experiment with combinations of colors and textures on a small scale before taking on a bigger planting.
Additionally, I use container gardens within my own landscape in order to create visual levels of plantings within my border, as well as an alternative to battling digging out and amending the hard clay soil.
Key considerations when gardening in containers:
Location: When determining where to place your containers, it is important to consider the amount of sunlight the location gets during the day.
Container: Containers should have adequate drainage and not be too much larger in size (around) than the combined area needed for the plants that will be planted in the container.
Soil: The soil should be mostly a potting soil mix, that can be amended with organic material (compost, peat moss). When adding material to the potting soil, the soil and organic material should be well combined in order to have a uniform texture and allow for proper drainage.
Plant selection: Based on the amount of sun that the container will get during the day, select plants that have similar amounts of sunlight and water required.
How to Design a Container Garden:
Designing a container garden lets the gardener be free to create playful and eye-catching garden spaces.
The primary design elements of a container garden are the thrill, fill, and spill.
The thrill is usually a planting that creates height in the container, it is a planting that is often centered in the container and is taller than the rest.
The fill is a plant or plants that are similar in height, but shorter than the thrill. The fill occupies the middle section of the container planting and may have pops of color contrast that draw the eye toward the container.
The spill is typically a trailing plant that spills over the side of the container and adds both drama and texture.
For plant recommendations and ideas, check out this list from Oregon State University.
Trying to decide which is right for you - container gardening or raised beds? Check out these five tips.
