The Container Gardening Expert

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When choosing plants for container gardens, try to remember the size of the container and how fast the plant grows.  While you want your container garden to look lustrous and full, fast growing plants will quickly outgrow their pots.  You can choose from choices such as flowering plants, evergreens, variegated plants, palms, cacti, herbs, vegetables and even fruit. 

Flowering plants are great for creating all types of effects.  The three largest flowering plant families containing the greatest number of species are the sunflower family, the orchid family and the legume or pea family.  The total number of species for these three families is approximately 62,000. 

Because the variegation is due to the presence of two kinds of plant tissue, spreading the plant must be by a vegetative method that preserves both types of tissue in relation to each other.  Normally you would just cut the stems to and this preserves the variegation.  Root cuttings will normally not be sufficient, since the new stem tissue is a result of a particular tissue type within the root.

Begonias are one of the ten largest of these variegations.  These plants are monoecious, with unisexual male and female flowers taking place separately on the same plant.  The male contains many stamens, the female has a large inferior ovary and two to four branched.  The leaves, which are often large and variously marked or variegated, are usually unequal on either side.  Because of their sometimes flashy, multi-colored flowers, many species are cultivated.

There are no limits to the types of vegetables for container gardening as nearly anything you would grow in a traditional in ground garden in your area will grow in containers.  It is best to use small growing varieties of any type of vegetable you desire to grow.

There are many advantages of growing vegetables in containers.  Growing vegetables in containers allows gardening in all types of weather conditions.  The garden can be situated in the most convenient place, inside your home.  This may be close to the kitchen, the family room or the patio, allowing quick and easy access to fresh vegetables and that certainly beats a trip to the grocery store.

The use of containers extends the season for growing vegetables, because plants can be started off in warm sheltered places and even moved indoors at night and be far more advanced before the soil in a traditional garden has warmed up in the spring.  Vegetables often do better in containers and grow more quickly as the soil is warmer.

Growing vegetables in pots also means reduced time spent weeding, a huge benefit considering it is one of the main chore people do in maintaining a garden.  And, by growing vegetables in containers the gardener has more control over the soil and any chemical additives, thus knows exactly what they are eating.  It also means ultimate growing conditions can be provided. 

For more information on growing great container plants, flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables click here or visit www.containergardeningexpert.com

Try selecting plants that vary in height, color and contrast.  This will add depth to your garden.  There are so many people that are scared to experiment with plants.  You shouldn’t be.  This is your garden so you can choose the flowers and how you want to have them arranged.  Get creative. 

The African Daisy is a hardy, spreading annual with daisy-like flowers.  A native of

The Wild Hyacinth is another good choice.  It flowers from early in April until the end of May, and being a perennial, and spreading rapidly, it is found year after year in the same spot, forming mass amounts of rich color where it grows.  Each flower has two small bracts at the base of the short flower stalk of pedicel.  The flowers have a slight, starch-like scent.

Daylilies are another favorite perennial plant.  They are appealing to the eye, hardy and very easy to take care of.  They have arching, sword shaped leaves and lily shaped flowers that come in all shades of yellow, orange and red.  They grow to a height of about eighteen inches. 

Daylilies will grow in all types of environments and like full sun, but if your area is very hot, place them in a somewhat shady spot.  They will usually adapt to any type of soil. They need quite a bit of water during bloom and should be fed with complete fertilizer during spring and summer.  When your daylily plant starts looking crowded and pretty large, it’s probably time to repot it or divide it.  

For more information on growing great container plants, flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables click here or visit www.containergardeningexpert.com

Children are naturally inquisitive, so nurturing their curiosity by exploring the plant world is a great exercise for both you and them.  If your child is not interested in gardening, you can entice them by utilizing the following methods:

·        Go to the bookstore together and purchase a gardening book with a lot of color photos.  You can read the book together.

·        Go to the local plant store together and have them rummage through the seed packets to find something they may want to grow.

·        Continue by looking at the different sizes and colors of the containers you can use.  Let them pick one out for their very own.

·        If your child has a neighborhood friend you could involve the friend.  Most of the time when they do projects together it’s more fun for them.

Children can learn about nature and how plants grow and that vegetables don’t just come from the grocery store or at vegetable stands on the side of the road.  They will be proud of being able to grow something themselves and best of all……they get to eat it.  It teaches them life lessons in responsibility and patience.  They will learn that growing vegetables is easy and fun. 

For more information on growing great container plants, flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables click here or visit www.containergardeningexpert.com

It’s often overlooked that Container Gardening can be a life long passion, a creative and artist hobby, and a simple and effective way to create a stylish, clean and inviting home, a great way to eat healthy organic foods, and an amazing way to connect with nature.

So if you’ve got itchy green fingers, and want an amazing collection of plants and flowers, fruits, vegetables and herbs - just simply follow these key Container Gardening Tips!

The 7 Steps Process to Great Container Gardening

1. Get Your Lighting Right

2. Choose Your Soil

3. Monitor humidity levels

4. Water as required

5. Check temperature

6.  How to Choose the right container

7. Food & Nutrients

Lighting

Via photosynthesis, plants absorb sunglight and carbon dioxide to create food. As such light is a very important factor. Try and keep your container plants and flowers near a natural source of light during the day. If you have a dark corner at home or your home doesn’t receive much natural light, use a 150 watt incandescent bulb about 4 - 5 feet away during the day. An even easier way to get some light is to buy a plant stand equipped with a built in lighting system. This is a great way to keep container gardens anywhere around the home. And remember light is only important during the day!

Humidity

The humidity required depends on the nature of the plant. Jungle plants need about 90% humidity, sub-tropical about 50%, temperate zone plants (such as North America and Europe) require 30 - 40% and desert / cacti about 5 %.

Cheap humidity indicators are great at monitoring moisture in the air, however obvious signs of low humidity levels are dry topsoil and wilting leaves. Excess humidty is not often a problem except for desert plants such as cacti. Low humidty levels can be quickly rectified by a spray on the leaves once or twice a day, and by placing a pot on a shallow try of water and small pebbles.

Temperature

Jungle plants thrive at higher temperatures, temperate zone plants thrive at between 90 - 100 F. Container plants, flowers and edibles are able to handle relative lower temperatures at night, as long as they are not too low i.e. near freezing. Tropical plants can handle a minimum of 65 F at night, sub-tropical plants about 55-60 F and temperate zone plants about 45 F.The exception to this are the desert plants such as cacti, which have adapted to the plunging evening temperatures of the desert.

Soil

The vibrant organic environment of jungle plants makes them more conducive to leaf mold and moss, and therefore a more acidic environment. A ph of 5.5 is ideal.  A good potting ratio for jungle plants is :

25% organically enriched garden loam
50% leaf mold
25% coarse sand or compost

Temperate zone plants have less organic material to cope with, and a therefore more comfortable with a ph of near neutral i.e. 7.0.

Desert plants prefer a slightly more alkaline soil.

Containers

The material from which the container is made - will affect the rate at which water is sucked out of the soil. Some container gardening enthusiasts can’t stop raving about clay pots, as they remove water at a generally faster rate, preventing water clogging of the roots, and keeping the pot cool. What ever the material , just make sure that their are water holes at the bottom, or material at the base which raises the pot and allows excess water to drain.

Get creative and indulge those container gardening ideas. Choose a variety of container colours, materials and styles to add a bit of sophistication and pizazz to your home.

Water

The amount of water required by a container plant, flower or edible will depend on it’s make up and size, and environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, and type of soil, as well as the nature of the container it’s self.

Always check the surface of the soil, and about 1 - 2 inches deep to determine moisture levels and top up as required. Too much water will drown your roots, and too little will dehydrate your plant.

To prevent excess moisture loss, keep a layer of rich top soil or moss on the surface of the soil.

A usefull container gardening tip is to never use cold water! This may be too much of a shock to a delicate system. Go with room temperature or slightly above.

Food & Nutrients

Slow release plant-food granules can be added to the compost or potting mix in the recommended quantity before filling the container, or at the sprinkled on the surface of the soil. Pelleted granules can be added about 1 -2 inches under the soil surface. If the soil is nutrient rich, additional food may not be required, however a little extra will go a long way!

Now that you have the 7 key tips to great Container Gardening you are on your way to growing great plants, flowers, fruits, and vegetables.

For More Container Gardening Ideas visit www.containergardeningexpert.com
 

Are you - like much of the planet - feeling the pinch?    

Holding on tightly to your wallet?

I know exactly how you feel. I’ve neverr seen a time like this, but I don’t intend to focus on the negative.

So what does freaking container gardening and Joe the Plumber have to do with the credit crunch so may ask?

Well 2 things. Self-suffiency and Go it Alone.

Don’t wait for help, handouts, lower taxes, and the election. Take things by the hand and go it yourself.

Why waste your hard-earned $$’s on pesticide infected foods - grow your own lovely fruit, vegetables, and herbs in the comfort of your own home.

The Key Advantages to Go-it-Alone Container Gardening:

1. Flexibility: Enjoy plants, fruits, vegetables in any place - especially where a traditional garden is impossible or awkward.

2. Go-Organic: Grow your own chemical free Herbs, Fruits, Vegetables

3. Save $$

4. Be Happy : Plants have been scientifically been proven to improve mood, improve concentration and even help in the recovery process when you’re sick.

5. I’m an Artist - Darling : Express your creative soul through container gardening. Use colourful or stylish plants and containers to create a colour scheme or interior design theme

6. Smell GRRRT! : Enhance the interior of your home - without chemicals that may irritate the respiratory system. Try some sweet fragranced container plants and flowers instead.

7. Get a date: Container gardening is a great hobby - with plenty of enthusiasts. Get to know the ins and outs of the trade - so you come across as informed, and chat up your fellow enthusiasts today.

8. Get Zippy : Grow ‘Super foods’ like wheatgrass - and what your energy & vitality soar!

9. Solve home problems : Air too dry or too much moisture in your home, container plants can help manage environmental conditions.

10. Reduce Radiation : Work on a computer all day? sit near electrical equipment? Photocopiers? Well particular container plants absorb the Radiation - so you don’t have to.
For more great Container Gardening Tips and Snippets visit:
www.containergardeningexpert.com
 

Unlike plants grown in the ground, container plants enjoy a cleaner and more pest free environment.  In most cases, they are potted in sterile soils or soilless mixes, so you can inspect them more frequently.  As a result, they tend to have fewer problems with insects and disease.  There’s really no predicting what could attack your plants.  Just because they are confined to pots does not mean that they will be excluded from plant problems.  Insects can creep into any garden and fungal spores are present in the air at all times.

Pesky pests will undoubtedly come at one point or another.  So, what do you do?   First, you will need to figure out what happened to your near dead (or dead) plant.  95% of plant problems are due to the location, soil and care.  The other problem is due to pests and plant diseases.

While the chances of infestation are much smaller with container plants, you still need to take precautions.

• Grow plants in the conditions they prefer
• Purchase only healthy plants and wash them thoroughly before planting them.
• Always plant in a clean growing media and in clean containers.
• Remove severely infested plants. Plants that have had more than half of their leaves damaged are probably not worth saving.
• Always wash your hands and garden tools after handling infected plants.  Insects and fungus often travel from plant to plant on dirty tools.

For more information on growing great container plants, flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables click here or visit www.containergardeningexpert.com

Imagine the delicious vegetables and fruit you can grow in your own home.  You can share them with family and friends when they come to visit.  They will taste the difference in the store bought foods and your home-grown treats.  You will be the envy of your family. 

Here are a few fruits and vegetables to get you started with your own container gardening. 

• Strawberries - Strawberries are relatively easy to grow in containers.   Plant them in barrels, tubs or hanging baskets.  Plant them in early spring and put them where they will get at least five to six hours of sun each day.  When the season is over, cover them and move them to an interior room.  The next year’s harvest will be even better.
• Salad Greens - Arugula, endive, leaf lettuce and mustard are super choices when it comes to container gardening.  Keep your soil moist and be sure to fertilize every couple of weeks with a liquid fertilizer.  You should be able to get four or five cuttings from each plant.  Replace mature plants with new ones to keep your salad supply growing.
• Tomatoes – Most people love the rich juicy taste of home grown tomatoes.  Plant your tomatoes in a container that is a least 16″ deep and 20″ wide.  Be sure to cage the plants to encourage a high yield and to keep them from flopping over.
• Carrots - Carrots and other root vegetables will grow well in containers as long as the pot is deep enough.  Be sure to choose a container that is twice as deep as the length of the carrot at maturity. 

For more information on growing great container plants, flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables click here or visit www.containergardeningexpert.com

The large number of garden planters and flower pots available help us bring our gardening indoors.  If you are looking to place a number of different plants in one flower pot, purchase flower pots which have suitable sizes to accommodate this - for instance, you can place a layer of Italian parsley intermingled with the bare stalk of the eggplant to hide the latter and display its more attractive fruit while proudly highlighting the green of the paisley. 

If space allows, it could even extend beyond the width of a window for a more liberal feel and look.  Before installing the window box, you must determine how much weight your window ledge will hold when the soil is fully saturated.  You will also want to look for matching materials.  You want ones that match your house’s exterior. 

Create a mini garden in a lovely decorated pot.  Make sure you select various textures, and similar colors, and place varying planters throughout your home.   Don’t forget that the vessel is an important part of the equation.  Choose a pot that best suits your setting or desired outcome.  Today you’ll find antique and contemporary, stainless steel, copper, concrete, stone, and iron, plus a wonderful selection of colorful glazes in all sorts of places, such as yard sales, flea markets, etc.

With container gardening, we can do more about landscaping our lawn and creating useful landscape design ideas that can be an inspiration to many of our garden guests.

For more information on growing great container plants, flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables click here or visit www.containergardeningexpert.com

There are numerous flowering plants that can be grown in containers throughout their lives.  This is true whether the plant is classified as a house plant, a perennial, an annual, shrub or even a tree.  Most successful container flowers are either annuals or perennials.  They either go through their full lifecycle from seed in one growing season as annuals or they bloom in the second year and last for a few years as perennials.

Annuals are extremely easy, and flowering perennials last longer than a few months, which is the duration of time that most annuals last.  Perennials can also grow larger over time so they can fill a nice ample space on your patio or porch that might look overwhelming with a small set of annual flowers.

Since most marigolds and petunias are so colorful, must gardeners often cannot resist them.  Petunias thrive in almost any type of garden container and are easy to grow, though they don’t do well in extreme heat every afternoon.  Zinnias, however, succeed in the hottest of climates.  If you lust for color during those mild winter months, then you’ll like primroses, which bloom from winter to spring.

Perennials will need more year round attention though, and you’ll want to fertilize them occasionally, especially during the coldest winter months.  The pruning and fertilizing care will result in healthier perennials once spring comes around.  And you won’t have to go all the way to your local nursery for a fresh round of seeds, because you can pinch off sprouting flowers so that even more flowers or little plants will grow.

For more information on growing great container plants, flowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables click here or visit www.containergardeningexpert.com