ALL YEAR CONTAINERS

I always enjoy seeing the gorgeous floral colours and arrangements that so many of us manage to achieve every summer in containers and baskets. What pleasure they bring. But the down side is that the bedding plants we lovingly use don’t last beyond the end of the season. So to save some time and effort and, at the same time, achieve some year round interest you could think about some permanent planting. This can be done by using any hardy evergreen shrubs such as dwarf conifers, ivy, phormium or hardy palms. There really is a huge choice out there waiting for you. The trick is to be sure to choose compact, slow growing and really hardy plants. To ring the changes through the months you can tuck in some seasonal plants and bulbs. Containers that are to be left out all winter need to be frost resistant. Wooden and plastics ones are usually best as terracotta and ceramic pots may be prone to cracking in really cold weather. Having said that I have a fairly large camellia that has grown happily in a really tough glazed pot for over fifteen years, this has survived the recent harsh winters perfectly well. By making sure you have selected really slow growing plants for your permanent containers you can leave them for years without repotting – a great time saver. But, of course, you will have to feed and water them regularly. For maintenance all you need to do is remove the top layer of compost every spring and refill with fresh. This has the added bonus of removing any moss or liverwort that has moved in. Eventually the plants will either outgrow their container or begin to look unhappy showing they need repotting. This is best done in early spring but any shrubs that are flowering should be left until flowering is over.

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