Inspiring ideas for container gardens

I love container gardens because they create an immediate impact. They provide a chance to experiment with new or different plant varieties and play with colours, textures, and unique forms.

But there is also the opportunity for creative interpretation. Who doesn’t love a container design that gets people talking?

In today’s column, four container gardeners share their ideas and recipes. All are actively involved with their local garden clubs. Let’s go first to Brandon where Gwen Beam and her nephew, Cory Messel, share in the joy of container garden design.

Beam has served as the program director for the Brandon Garden Club for more years than she can remember. Beam has an amazing collection of face and head-shaped planters. Some are displayed in large groups and others are displayed separately.

“I don’t know why, but I just have a thing for faces,” she says. Beam selects plants that match or enhance the unique personality that she sees in each planter. In one elegant example, Calico Kitten Crassula (also known as Crassula pellucida Variegata) gracefully frames the contemplative face of a large head planter. A mix of echeveria succulents and aeonium with large waxy leaves create the illusion of an elaborate dress which Beam has accented with smaller, jewel-like trailing succulents such as Ruby Necklace (Othonna capensis), Elephant Bush portulacaria, and Dancing Bones, a species of cactus with a pendant habit.

A richly colourful design with aeonium has been created in another head planter. Beam has combined the more compact Mardi Gras aeonium which has pink-burgundy rosettes and lemon-yellow variegation with the dark red to bronze-coloured succulent leaves of the imposing Giant Red aeonium. Fine Gold Leaf sedum adds a pop of brilliant lime green colour to contrast with Coral Reef sedum. She has also tucked in two Vermillionaire Firecracker plants with tubular flowers that will attract hummingbirds.

But perhaps the most awe-inspiring vignette is the grouping she has created with 12 head planters. The first time I visited Beam’s garden, her eclectic collection of head planters drew me in instantly. But now she has taken it to a whole new level with head planters arranged on steps, pedestals, and concrete ledges. Each one boasts a different hairstyle creatively crafted with an imaginative assortment of plants.

“I like finding cool stuff to go into the heads and changing it up every year, it’s more fun that way,” says Beam. It’s clear that she is having fun. She has decorated her designs this year with Crassula String of Buttons, Twister Juncus, Cryptanthus, Sedum Ogon Japanese stonecrop, Callisia repens (turtle vine), Little Shimmer sedum, Baby’s Tears, Live Wire grass aka fibre optic grass, lemon thyme, Dancing Bones cactus, and artemisia.

Beam uses a combination of Pro Mix HP soilless mix and Sea Soil in her containers. She fertilizes her plants with a fertilizer that is formulated especially for cactus and succulents. In the fall, she lifts her tender plants and overwinters them indoors.

Where does Beam find her fascinating head planters? Some are gifts, she says, and others she finds in Brandon at The Green Spot Home & Garden Centre, The Little Shoppe, or the gift shop at Lady of the Lake.

Cory Messel is the treasurer of the Brandon Garden Club as well as the manager of the restaurant at Lake of the Lake in Brandon. Messel enjoys creating container gardens to compliment the distinct garden rooms that he designs in his home garden. Like his aunt, Messel has an eye for interesting and dramatic design.

Messel says that his favourite container design this year features an extraordinary Calathea Rattlesnake, a stiff upright plant with striped, wavy leaves and deep purple undersides. Messel has underplanted it with succulent Senecio Ruby Necklace for a simple, but showstopping container design. Copy that!

In another intriguing design, Messel has combined Colocasia Lime Zinger, Dragon Wing White Begonia, Lime Heart Solar Power Ipomoea, with trailing Muehlenbeckia. His selection of plants with their different shades of green, contrasting fine and coarse textures, and white accents creates a beautiful effect in a weathered cedar container.

“I use Pro Mix HP and Sea Soil in all my containers along with slow-release fertilizer,” says Messel. “A few times in the season I fertilize with Miracle-Gro 20-20-20.”

Renata Cook, president of the East Kildonan Garden Club, is a Winnipeg gardener who skilfully combines several different types of annuals in her recipes. She enjoys taking full advantage of vivid colour. In a large, tall container with a square shape, she has planted Canna Tropicana, Canna indica, Cosmos Sulphureus with bright orange flowers, and SuperCal Petchoa Sunset Orange. Trailing plants include Lantana Shamrock Peach and chartreuse potato vine for a distinctly tropical look.

For a roomy rectangular black container, Cook utilizes Canna indica Purpurea with its dark green leaves flushed with purple as the thriller in her design. Chocolate Cosmos floats above a densely planted arrangement with Thunbergia Sunny Susy Rose Sensation, cuphea, Nicotiana Marshmallow, Crazytunia Mayan Sunset, Lantana Manto, geraniums in double peach and pink that are just getting ready to bloom, snapdragons, chartreuse potato vine, and nasturtium in yellow and peach.

To ensure a lightweight mix with good aeration and micronutrients, Cook mixes equal parts of Pro Mix HP Mycorrhizae, well-rotted manure, and OMRI Sea Soil organic compost. She fertilizes her containers with Evolve Organic Fertilizer. “I mulch some of my containers with coconut coir during dry months, but it has been way too wet to mulch this year,” says Cook.

Pamela McFarlane is vice-president of the St. Vital Agricultural Society which this year is celebrating its 113th Annual Fair and Display on August 9 and 10. McFarlane has designed several container gardens in raised bed containers using a mix of flowers, fruits, and vegetables.

“For propagation and pollination, I always include different varieties of fruit, flowers, and vegetables in the same box as they grow to different heights and also need different light levels,” says McFarlane. In two galvanized feed containers which she purchased at Princess Auto, McFarlane has planted Egyptian walking onions, chives, and Asiatic and martagon lilies. An Allium is planted in the centre of the design flanked by Smokey Saskatoon and a Morden rose.

In another raised bed container, McFarlane has combined two Amish Paste tomatoes with a Cinderella pumpkin plant and Sweet 1000 cherry tomato. In a galvanized container, McFarlane has combined three bronze leaf canna lilies with an orange flowered Gaillardia and underplanted with white lobelia.

With the different heights of the finished design, this colourful design will have a lot of interest in a small, sunny corner next to her front steps, says McFarlane. She waters her containers as needed and fertilizes with a dilute solution of Evolve Organic Rage Plus.

Are you inspired to create one more container garden? Local garden centres are brimming with plants. Share your photos — I would love to see your designs.

colleenizacharias@gmail.com

For advice, ideas and tips to keep your outdoor and indoor plants growing, sign up to receive Winnipeg Gardener, a free monthly digital newsletter Colleen Zacharias writes for the Winnipeg Free Press at: winnipegfreepress.com/newsletter/winnipeg-gardener