Barbara Wise - Container Gardening for All Seasons: Enjoy Year-Round Color with 101 Designs

CONTAINER
GARDENING

FOR ALL SEASONS

Enjoy YEAR-ROUND Color with 101 Designs

Barbara Wise

INTRODUCTION

I would like to thank my four sonsJonathan, Robert, Zachary, and Buckfor all the years that they hauled soil, planters, and plants all over our landscape as I tried out different container recipes, for the hours of watering, and for never complaining about it. (Laughter will erupt at this moment.)

A huge thank-you to Southern Land Company, LLC, for their dedication to keeping distinctive horticulture a high priority in their developments and for allowing me to be a part of that.

To Carol Wintzinger for her guidance and encouragement to keep seeking new ideas; to Yelena Petruk, whose creative handiwork is seen scattered throughout this book; to Tim Downey and Brian Sewell for making what I do in my day job possible.

To Rita Randolph, a brilliant plantswoman and container gardening artist, who taught me that container gardening is more than just sticking plants in a pot, and to Carol Reese, a gift from the Tennessee Extension Service to Southern gardeners, who inspired me to see beyond the ordinary in plantsI can never thank you two ladies enough for all that you have taught me.

To Sara Bomar Davis and Sharon Kinney and the Spring Break Beach Trip Gang for looking through hundreds of pictures to help me choose which recipes to includethank you!

Finally, a huge thank you to Cool Springs Press, especially Billie Brownell, for your patience and guidance as I wrote this through one crazy spring planting season, one sons high school graduation, another sons wedding, and another sons deployment to Afghanistan. These are not the ideal conditions for writing my first bookthank you for sticking with me.

SEVERAL YEARS AGO I SAT ACROSS FROM THE FOUNDER OF COOL SPRING PRESS and I heard his story of hunting through bookstores trying to find a book that would help him learn the basics of gardening in Tennessee. Nothingzilch, nada, zipwas out there to guide him.

Most people would find another hobby. But not Roger Waynick.

Roger started his own publishing company to bring new gardeners like himself the information they needed simply to get started.

His voice struck a chord with me, stirring memories of my own experiences helping a young mom keep her planters going all summer or helping a retired couple finally have the lush, colorful courtyard theyd been dreaming about. Rogers publishing company gave me many resources to share with these novice gardenersresources such as Judy Lowes book Month-by-Month Gardening in Tennessee and Kentucky, and Felder Rushings book Tough Plants for Southern Gardens. They helped new gardeners find a little success keeps them coming back outside each spring to try something a little more challenging.

So heres one of my favorite container combos in memory and in honor of Roger Waynick, founder and president of Cool Springs Press, who passed away March 22, 2011, at age 50.

3 Red Pentas (Pentas lanceolata Butterfly Red)
This plant is a host plant of the Sphinx moth. This is a tribute to how Rogers publishing company has helped bring gardening up from the ashes of a lost art to become one of the most popular interests in our society today.

3 Dusty Miller (Senecio cineraria)
This is a plant known for being tough and reliable, a perfect example of the type of plant to introduce to a first-time gardener.

3 Evolvulus Blue Daze (Evolvulus nuttallianus)
This is a plant whose name comes from the Latin word meaning to untwist. Unraveling the mysteries of gardening was the passion behind Rogers founding of Cool Springs Press.

I know that there is so much more to who Roger Waynick was than what I knew as one of his authors. But this one part of his life left a huge impact on my life, for which I will be forever grateful.

Barbara

Sea glass or other decorative stone is a lovely way to finish off or accessorize your plantings.

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW BEFORE YOU EVEN START LOOKING AT PLANTS

T here will be a segment of the population who hears the phrase baby steps and immediately falls into laughter, remembering the much-panned psychological therapy of fictitious Dr. Leo Marvin in the movie What About Bob. And then there will be the group of people who hear that phrase and remember hearing the advice of a grandmama or an older friend telling them, The task may seem overwhelming, but try to accomplish a little at a time. Finding success in each baby step will help you take another. Whether the advice comes from the ramblings of a narcissist movie character or from the heart of a trusted friend, when we find that we can have success in one small area, it gives us confidence to try againand maybe even to take a bigger step.

When I first started working in the horticulture business, one of my favorite clients was a sweet lady who would walk into a garden center wanting to find something pretty to plant at her home. Shed look around at all the options and sometimes leave in tears, overwhelmed and often empty-handed. This same lady had a post-graduate degree from an Ivy League school, taught at a university, and, with her medical degree, was often literally responsible for saving human life. But gardening and garden design seemed daunting to her.

She was willing to pay me to create the design, purchase all the plants, and handle all the planting. But as we sipped coffee in her kitchen during our first garden consultation, I came to understand that what she longed for was the joy of planting something with her own hands, creating something beautiful, and feeling the joy of growing plants at her home. What she really needed was a gardening project that was not overwhelming, that was contained to a small area, and that came with clear instructions and guidance so that she could experience success. She needed to take baby stepscontainer gardening offered her that opportunity. Does any of this sound like you?

I love my job of planting and maintaining hundreds of containers for different clients every year. Yet as I began working with folks like this client, I realized that what I enjoy even more is helping folks learn to love to garden. There are generations of people today who have never planted a seed or maintained a garden but who now desire to embrace the plant worldbut they do not know where to even begin. Thats where this book will help. Ive created a recipe approach to container garden design and installation that takes you from an empty pot to a lush, vibrant container garden that you create at home.

So well start here, at the beginning, with some achievable container gardening projects to try to help cultivate a culture of gardening, starting with you. If you are a more experienced gardener, then even betteryoull appreciate my recipe approach to container gardening too.