Containing the season’s enthusiasm Keeping the planter colour and interest going well into winter STORY AND PHOTOS BY JODI DELONG
utumn sneaks up on us. The days get shorter, the sun rises later and sets earlier. The air is gloriously warm most days, and cooler at night. The vegetable garden has been profuse, and we’ve canned, frozen, dehydrated, and enjoyed its bounty. There’s still some bloom and colour from perennials, shrubs, grasses and some annuals. Yet, many aren’t ready to stop enjoying our gardens, both in-ground and in containers. The answer? Refresh your container plantings. If you’ve been deadheading, cutting back, and fertilizing faithfully, you still have plants in bloom. But sometimes we get busy, and the petunias get leggy, and the million bells are down to dozen-bells, and some annuals have set seed and given up. Come that first frost, tender annuals like nasturtiums will turn to compost. Time to refresh and enhance with other choices that will last through the fall—and even beyond.
Container planting 101 There are three main components for container planting: thrillers, spillers, and fillers, and you can use these throughout the gardening season, with a little modification according to time of year. Thrillers are the eye-catching plants like canna lily, dahlia, ornamental millet, gaura, or any other showy plant—taller than many, and with that wow factor. Spillers are the cascading types of plants: trailing verbenas, lobelias, petunias, thunbergia (brown-eyed Susan vine), calibrachoas, portulaca, among others. These create a vertical downward look, or you can train them to grow upwards for more of a thriller effect. Fillers are all those delightful plants that we stuff into our planters to give them that full look: including foliage plants like coleus and
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components. Buy the best quality medium you can afford, preferably one that includes compost, perlite or vermiculate for better drainage, and slow-release fertilizer. If you’re using a large container, make sure you have it placed where you want it, as containers filled with soil and plants can get heavy.
Fall colour choices
A selection of choices for autumn planters: hardy ornamental kale, sedum, pansies plus some more tender coleus, with accent spikes from a peacock willow in the centre. Persian shield, heliotrope, marigolds, pansies, nasturtiums, African daisies, and more. Before you plant, select your containers and fill them with good quality potting mix. The joy of containers is that you can use pretty much anything as a planter—from shoes and skates to ornate glazed urns, to cast iron tea pots, kettles, wooden barrels, or trugs. The containers must have drainage holes, or you can set a slightly smaller pot with drainage holes into your ornate planter. It’s fine to buy premixed potting medium for your planters—not everyone has the time or energy to mix up batches of various FALL 2021
• Ornamental kales and cabbage are completely irresistible, with their lacy foliage and bright colours. They will also look great well into winter. • Annual grasses are eye-catching delights, boasting variegated or richly hued foliage (including burgundy, bronze, silvery blue, and more) and of course showy flowerheads. Among the most popular are fountain grasses like Fireworks, but also look for ornamental millets, “hair” grasses, and others. • Fall-flowering beauties include quintessential chrysanthemums in a rainbow of hues, plus asters, upright sedums, and pansies. • Did you know you can grow late-blooming perennials in containers? (See page 44). You can either treat them as annuals and let them go to sleep when the rest of the plants do, or else overwinter them in the container and grow on next year. • You may find you have enough seed heads of some garden plants, such as echinacea and baptisia, or perennial grasses, to incorporate into planters for fall and winter. Branches of berries from native shrubs such as northern bayberry and Canada holly, or colourful rosehips also work well. • The holiday season grows nearer, and who says you can’t start your décor outdoors a little earlier? Evergreen boughs are always popular, but don’t forget twigs from red stemmed dogwoods, twisted hazel, peacock willow, even pruned branches from lilacs.
