Container Gardening: The Most Fun You’ll Have Playing in the Dirt
Love the idea of a garden, but not the fuss and bother of installing and maintaining it? Not to mention the sweat equity required? Look no further, friends. A container garden is your solution and the best part is, it’s simple and fun.
A container garden allows you to enjoy blooming flowers and vegetables from sturdy garden pots rather than landscaped backyard beds. The work is minimal compared to a full-fledged vegetable or rose garden, and those pots also can be rearranged if you like to move things around.
One of the many perks about Florida gardening is that the growing season never ends. It literally never does the further south you go, but even occasional winter chill in the northernmost part of the state isn’t a floral showstopper. You can enjoy a container garden year-round, which means the blooms just go on and on.
Here’s why container gardening can be the most fun you’ll have playing in the dirt!
Container gardens can be instant
Seeking to spruce up a patio or lanai at your new custom Florida home? Decide where a handful of flower-filled pots would work well visually for you — and element-wise for the plants — and pick your containers.
Classic terra cotta pots are hard to beat in any garden. But don’t overlook ceramic pots of all shapes, colors and sizes. Window boxes or smaller pots mounted on wall brackets are another option.
Arrange the empty pots around your outdoor living space before you fill them with potting soil and plants. Perhaps you’d like only a few statement pots filled with vibrant hibiscuses or geraniums. Or, perhaps the more the merrier. If you opt for the latter, try a grouping of different-sized pots — big ones in the back — so you can enjoy them en mass.
Hint: those empty five-gallon, plastic paint buckets in the garage DO NOT make good containers for gardening. Just saying.
Container gardening can be fuss-free
Putter around with your container garden as little or as much as you like.
Several potted sago or ponytail palms arranged around your lanai will endure for years if you keep them watered, trimmed and fertilized every so often.
In fact, summer showers and sunshine can do most of your maintenance if you choose weatherproof containers and sun-loving annuals and perennials. But don’t overlook spots under overhangs, pergolas or porches. Ferns, begonias, impatiens and other shade-lovers flourish with a few hours of morning sun — or little at all — as long as you keep a watering can handy for them.
Container gardens also are perfect for kitchen gardens. Snip some fresh basil and oregano for tonight’s dinner, anyone? How about fresh tomatoes and peppers? Both thrive in pots, but tomatoes require vertical support as they grow. Be prepared with some tomato cages or plant petite varieties.
