Horticulture Principles and Practices

placed inside the container directly over the drainage hole to help keep the media
from washing out, but usually are not necessary. Polystyrene peanuts can be placed
in the bottom half of the container below the media to reduce the weight of really
large container gardens.
One criterion for a container purchase would be weather resistance. No one wants
to spend a lot of money on a container they love just to have it get wet, freeze, and crack
the first winter in the garden. Italian and Asian terra cotta containers vary widely in cost.
They are porous and therefore dry out fast and need more watering. Being porous, they
could break in winter. Their color goes well with plants and many landscape settings, but
they are heavy to move around. Plastic and poly-resin containers look good and are less
expensive. They are non-porous and light weight but sometimes have thin walls that can
break. Asian glazed containers come in many colors. They are affordable but heavy, and
they are non-porous and therefore freeze tolerant. Concrete containers are affordable,
very heavy, stainable, and long-lasting but they are porous. Fiberglass containers are
light weight, affordable and look authentic. Metal is a newer look and attractive, but can
get very hot when placed in the sun.
The container can be any shape or size; however fourteen inch and larger containers
hold more media. The increase in soil volume in a large container is beneficial for
reducing frequency of watering. A large container holds more plants having the potential
to be more colorful and textural, thus pleasing to the eye. Hanging baskets and
rectangular troughs are vessels that will hold mixed plantings to hang from arbors, light
poles, and window sills.
Container gardens can be filled with plants from early spring using cool season
annuals and spring blooming perennials and bulbs, for example. In the summer, they can
house heat-tolerant annuals, tropical foliage plants, summer blooming perennials, herbs,
succulents, etc. Fall and southern winter container gardens can be made using frost tolerant
(This item omitted from WebBook edition)
FIGURE 2 This Flower Color Wheel is similar to an
artist’ s color wheel but uses names that florists
commonly use to describe color. This color wheel
divides the primary color of violet into three additional
segments to include indigo (bluish violet) and fuchsia
(reddish violet) because there are so many variations
of violet in flower colors. Designed by Terri Starman Photographed
by Kristen Eixmann
FIGURE 3 The maroon (a shade of red) coleus
‘Compact Red’ adds depth and draws the eye deep
into the otherwise pink (a tint of red) monochromatic
(one color) container garden. Different flower forms
(daisy, cluster, and star-shaped) and foliage forms
(upright, bushy, and trailing) are design elements that
make this container garden interesting. Agastache
and dracaena back each other with their vertical
forms to establish the height of the container garden.
Argyranthemum ‘Comet Pink’ serves as a filler plant;
verbena ‘Babylon Pink’ takes the corner position and
bacopa ‘Penny Candy Pink’ fills the edge position.
Designed by Terri Starman Photographed by Lori Osburn
354 Chapter 11 Growing Houseplants