www.mapleridgenews.com - THE NEWS - Friday, October 8, 2010 – 23
THE NEWS/home&gardening Make most of fall, winter containers A
your containers, but they also combine so fter a hot, dry summer and a very well with all other plants. wet September, our containers Broadleafed plants add the fulliness and have paid the price. colourful fill often missing in fall containTired, stressed plants are showing up evers. erywhere, and now it’s time for a change. My all-time favourite is ‘HeavAs summer gives way to fall, enly Bamboo’, Nandina domesit’s an opportunity to add a fresh tica, especially with so many new autumn look around our homes to forms available today. lift our spirits just like the refreshThe deep rich red of ‘Summer ing fall breezes. Sunrise’ (Zone 6) provides a We have never had a better secolour ‘wow’ for anything pink, lection of plants to create an excitgold or silver. ing new look in our fall containers. The compact forms, N.d. ‘Gulf Through innovation, our indusStream’, ‘Harbour Dwarf’ and try has done an amazing job of ‘Moon Bay’ (Zone 6) are nice to putting together a grouping of blend with ornamental grasses new and old plants that thrive in and evergreen perennial foliage fall and winter conditions. Gardening plants like heucheras. From bergenias and new ‘hot’ foLeucothoe has for too long been liage heucheras to evergreen sag- Brian Minter underutilized in container work. es, lysimachias, vincas, sedums, The compact Leucothoe ‘Scarletta’ (Zone tiarellias, ajugas, euphorbias and colourful 6), with its bronze new growth that turns ivies, there is an amazing showcase of brilliant scarlet in late fall, is one of those container plants to blend beautifully with ‘wow’ plants. winter pansies and violas. Callunas and ericas, especially the ones Evergreen ornamental grasses have with colourful foliage like Erica ‘Mary never been as front and center as they are Helen’ and ‘Golden Starlet‘, add both today, and their soft flowing look provides flower and foliage, and the ericas will hold the charm we have been missing in our those flowers through winter. container displays. The new long blooming ‘Bud Bloomers’ From the new varieties of carex, like are also a welcome addition. ‘Everest’ and ‘Strike It Rich’, to the bronze The containers themselves are where stems of Carex testacae (Zone 6) and the we all need to kick it up a notch. If the new fescues, like ‘Golden Toupe’, there is container doesn’t say ‘wow’, why are you a wealth of colour and textures available using it? today like never before. Tall and thin or low and round are the Even the pure black Mondo Grass (Ophimost pleasing forms. Everything in the opogon ‘Nigrescens’ (Zone 6), surrounded middle is just ‘the same old’. with the silver foliage of Dusty Miller Low containers look great on pedestals ‘Cirrus’ or pure white violas, offers an too. opportunity to create a new and stunning If you can find antiques that fit the style look in fall containers. of your patio, so much the better. Funky trees and shrubs can be real eyeRemember, as winter approaches, that catchers in containers as well. Anything frost can split clay and poorly fired ceramwith an unusual form or shape gets my ics. vote. Also make sure to use very well drained The amazing Cotoneaster corokia (Zone 7) looks like sagebrush gone wild. Tall, thin soils by adding 1/3 fine bark mulch. Most of all have fun. Reach out a little Cedrus atlantica (Zone 5) and C.a. ‘Glauca with your fall look and create the ‘wow’ Pendula’ add a blue, tall, slender look to look you’ll be sure to appreciate and enjoy add that all important vertical element. all fall and winter. Weeping beech, both the green Fagus Remember too, that as any plant passes sylvatica ‘Pendula’ (Zone 5) and the Fagus its prime, quickly replace it with another. sylvatica ‘Purpurea Pendula’ (Zone 5), proAs most of these plants are perennials, vide great form and balance to any planter. they will easily find a home in your garden. For a tall, thin look, try the golden and green Irish yew, Taxus baccata fastigiata Brian Minter owns and operates Minter (Zone 5). Gardens just outside of Chilliwack. All of these trees not only add form to
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Remember, as winter approaches, that frost can split clay and poorly fired ceramics.
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