GREAT GARDENSIdeas for Smart Gardeners

WITH MAGAZINE

Flea-market finds for the garden

A new spin on hanging baskets

The best vegetable to grow in pots

Bulbs to plant for summer color

S P R I N G 2 0 1 5

11

15

Spring for It

The Bulbs of Summer

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03 EDITOR’S NOTESpringing Forward

05 OUR FAVORITE THINGSGreat Gardening Gear

09 CONTAINER GARDENING Lettuce In

21 SMALL SPACESJust a Little Lift

19 KIDS GARDENING Room at the Inn

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I’m not sure I’ve ever more looked

forward to a spring than I have this

one, the spring of 2015. That’s because it’s

following the winter of 2014–15, which brought

record-setting, national-news-worthy snow to

the Boston, Mass., area, where I live and garden.

Despite my love of gardening, spring isn’t usually

my favorite season; I’m more of a summer and fall

person. This year, though, I can’t sing its praises

enough (even if it is a little slow in coming, with

our local temperatures holding unseasonably low

throughout March and into April!).

Wherever you garden, I hope spring unfolds

beautifully for you and puts any winter struggles

far out of mind. This issue of Great Gardens

includes a bunch of fresh-picked articles to help

you jump into the 2015 growing season. Grow

lettuce in pots, put a new spin on hanging baskets,

find use in the garden for flea-market finds, build

a bug hotel and more. Most of all, enjoy!

— Meghan Shinn :: E D I T O R

EDITORIAL

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Editor Meghan Shinn

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Meghan Shinn, Mary Leigh Howell

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CONTAINER GARDENING

FOR WOULD-BE VEGETABLE GARDENERS who are short on in-ground space or suitable soil, container gardening offers great possibili-tie., but it’s not without challenges. Although it does present options for small-space gardeners, many edible plants will require a relatively large pot. Another common problem: Keeping up with watering. Containers dry out much more quickly than the ground; they may need watering two or three times a day in hot weather. Finally, your growing space may not jibe with typical container subjects like cherry tomatoes or cucumbers that need a lot of sun. If your growing space is a porch or patio is covered or otherwise shaded, you likely won’t get much fruit.

But don’t despair! There is one plant in par-ticular that keeps container vegetable gardening

Lettuce InWhy and how to grow lettuce in containers

by Meghan Shinn

simple: Lettuce. Lettuce will grow in a smaller, shallower pot than many other edible plants. As a crop grown for its leaves, rather than its fruit, it can take a great deal more shade than many vegetable-garden subjects. In fact, a little shade can be a boon to the lettuce grower, because it keeps the plants cool and thereby prolongs the growing season. (Lettuce is usually considered a cool-season crop because high temperatures will spur it to bolt, or produce flowers instead of more leaves, and turn bitter in flavor.)

Lettuce also takes well to successive planting, a technique in which seeds are sown in staggered batches, which prolongs the overall season of har-vest. You might sow several pots of lettuce seeds early in spring, and then a few weeks after those have sprouted, sow seeds in a couple of other pots.

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After you harvest the first batch of lettuce, sow more seeds in those first pots. Meanwhile, your second group of pots is maturing toward harvest. By using successive planting, you can tailor your lettuce crop to exactly how much you can use and when, and avoid finding yourself with too much lettuce ready all at once.

Lastly, lettuce is more versatile than one may think, making it a good choice for a vegetable gardener with little space. You can choose to use some of your lettuces as baby leaves, or “cut and come again,” and let others mature to full size be-fore picking them.

Growing lettuce in potsTo grow lettuce in containers, choose pots at least six to eight inches deep. You can grow let-

tuce singly in narrow pots, or choose a wide bowl to grow several lettuce heads together. Make sure the container has drainage holes. Use a fertile potting mix that drains well, and mulch the top of the soil to conserve moisture and maintain the cooler temperatures that lettuce prefers. Site your pots in full sun or part shade and keep the soil evenly moist—not dry and not soggy. As spring turns into summer, you can keep your lettuces cooler and therefore productive by providing them more shade than sun.

Pots of lettuce can be dressed up by either planting differently colored and textured varieties together or by adding flowering plants. Pansies and violas are a great choice of blooming companion be-cause they enjoy the same conditions as lettuce—and their flowers are edible, too, making for a pretty growing space and a pretty plate. •

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springYard-sale season is prime time to find unexpected and inexpensive items for your gardenby Meghan Shinn

for it

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Ah, spring: it’s the time of new beginnings and fresh starts in the gar-den—and, serendipitously, in many other areas too. This is prime season for buying and selling homes, clearing out attics, garages and other storage spaces, sorting through household items and just gener-ally doing a great big spring cleaning. All of this leads to a ubiquity of yard sales, tag sales, garage sales, white-elephant sales or whatever else they’re called in your neck of the woods. Second-hand shops and

consignment stores also see an uptick in inventory that coincides with spring cleanups. All of this can be a great opportunity for the gardener with a creative eye and a thrifty bent.

It’s one thing to keep an eye out for used garden items, like pots, fancy trellises, benches and the like, but if those pickings are slim, don’t be afraid to look imaginatively at other goods. If you’re open to a whimsical look in the garden, there are few limits to the house-hold objects that can find a new life outdoors. Here are a few examples of thrift-shop and salvage-yard finds for inspiration.

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1. BATHING BEAUTY: A vintage tub can easily become a large planter. Its size allows for many possibilities of plants, from high-yielding edibles like this basil to an assortment of colorful annuals and perennials to a small shrub or dwarf conifer. Keep the drain plug open and drill additional holes, or seal up the bottom and use the tub as a container water garden.

2. SITTING PRETTY: Rattan and wicker furniture makes a quick-draining platform for drought-tolerant plants such as these colorful, textural succulents. Mound soil on the seat of such a chair and surround it with strips of plywood, small stones or other simple materials to hold it in place. Cover this edging with sphagnum moss to hide it if desired, as pictured, and plant away.

3. ON THE SHELF: Here’s a stepladder makeover: Add planks across the steps and supports to expand the number of pots the ladder can hold. Meanwhile, keep an eye out for outdated, unwanted serving sets and cookware that might make suitable plant pots. If drainage is a concern, these can also be used as cachepots, where the plant grows in a traditional pot that’s slipped within the more decorative container and removed for watering and other maintenance.

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4. AN EASY CLIMB: Use a stepladder as a series of shelves for potted plants and garden decorations for a simple and quick shot of vertical interest. Alternatively, plant fast-climbing annual plants like runner beans and black-eyed Susan vine at the base of the ladder and train them up it.

5. THE SHOE FITS: Cleaning out the bottom of the closet? Save those worn-out shoes! They can make cute homes for dwarf perennials, especially if they come complete with drainage holes—by design or from use. Do you garden with children? Young gardeners are sure to get a kick out of planting up their outgrown Crocs. •

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Plant them this spring to later enjoy their flowers in the garden or the vase by Mary Leigh Howell

SummerThe Bulbs

of

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Low-growing tuberous begonias do well in partial shade. Too much sunlight will result in burnt flowers and foliage, but too much shade will result in lush foliage and very few flowers. No type of fertilizer, including manure, should be in the soil mix. Begonia tubers must be lifted and stored in regions with hard frosts. Plant tuberous begonias with colocasia and caladiums.

This spring, take a few minutes to plant some summer-bloom-ing bulbs. Come the hot weather, you’ll be happy you did. They’re a great player within a colorful garden, and they also make for some of the best cut flowers to be found, with long-lasting blooms and sturdy stems.

Most summer-flowering bulbs like a location in full sun, with well-drained soil but regular watering. Once blooming

starts, deadhead spent flowers to encourage further blooms. “But don’t remove stems or foliage,” says Amy Dube, flower-bulb expert with Dig.Drop.Done. “They’ll continue to put energy into the bulb as long as they remain green.”

The spring-planted bulbs described in this article do just as well growing in containers as they do in the ground, and pots of them can serve as amazing (and movable) focal points or accents. Treating them as potted plants offers several special advantages to northern growers. First, you can get a head start by potting them indoors earlier in spring than you could plant them out in the ground. You’ll be rewarded with earlier flowers. Secondly, it makes storing tender tubers very easy. You can simply cut the tops off the plant in the fall and move the entire pot into cool (about 55˚F) storage. Keep it just barely damp by covering the pot with a plastic bag and misting the soil occasionally. Once nighttime temperatures remain above 50˚F in the spring, you can bring the pot back outside and begin watering it to wake your plant up.

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DAHLIAS offer bright, eye-catching flowers that can take the heat. At the back of the border or in a cutting garden, plant a dinner-plate variety—these 5-foot-tall plants have blooms 12 inches wide. Smaller-blooming types like dark-leaved, daisy-flowered mignons, 3- to 4-foot-tall collarette, and 16-inch-tall border, or topmix, varieties are easier to incorporate into mixed beds. Water dahlias sparingly when they’re first planted. Once the tubers have sprouted, water them deeply on a regular basis. Pair the tallest varieties with Oriental lilies or sunflowers, and the shorter growers with your favorite perennials and annuals. In areas with a hard frost, dahlia tubers must be dug and stored indoors for the winter.

CALLA LILIES (Zantedeschia aethiopica) have elegant, funnel-shaped blossoms that come in a rainbow of colors. Moisten the soil when planting, but offer no watering until the first sprouts appear. Each rhizome will produce multiple flowers. Callas do best with protection from hot midday sun. They can take full sun in cool areas, but in the South and the Interior West they must be planted in part shade. Pair them with iris or impatiens. Winter hardy to USDA Zone 9; store them indoors for the winter elsewhere.

RANUNCULUS’ romantic, layered blossoms come in red, white, pink, orange or yellow. Corms planted in early spring will bloom in the summer. (Ranunculus can also be planted in the fall for earlier bloom where they are winter hardy—Zone 8 and warmer.) Soak the corms in lukewarm water for three to four hours before planting. They like cool nights and sunny, but not hot, days. Keep the soil around the crown dry but the roots moist. Try them with poppies and pansies. Ranunculus are often treated as annuals even where they’re hardy.

Aptly named ELEPHANT EAR (Colocasia and Alocasia spp.) produce stellar foliage in a camouflage-like pattern of dark and light greens and yellows with a bluish-black stem. Some varieties, like ‘Black Magic’, have dramatically dark leaves. Elephant ears are well suited for container gardens, where they can be mixed with other shade-tolerant foliage plants like ferns and coleus. Keep the soil moist and feed the plant occasionally. Hardy to Zone 10; elsewhere, store for the winter.| GREAT GARDENS17

CANNAS love water (you can even submerge their pots in a pond). They are fast-growing plants as long as they receive lots of sunlight each day. Remove flower stalks that have finished blooming to encourage new ones to grow. Cannas’ tall, narrow shape and dramatic leaves make them good partners for ornamental grasses or dahlias. Canna rhizomes should be stored for the winter in areas colder than Zone 8.

The TUBEROSE (Polianthes tuberosa) is one of the most strongly perfumed flowers. Its blossoms appear in clusters at the top of a single stem, which rises to three feet tall out of a clump of grassy foliage. Tuberoses need a long growing season, so in cold climates you may want to start them indoors. The rhizomes are hardy to Zone 7b with heavy mulch, and should be lifted in colder regions. Tuberoses grow well and look good with crocosmia or agapanthus.

ORIENTAL LILIES have large, highly fragrant blossoms. A single stem will produce six to eight flowers. Some varieties can grow to five feet tall and require stakes to support their heavy flower heads. Oriental lilies do not like dry heat. Keep the soil moist at all times, but be sure it offers good drainage. Winter hardy in Zones 4–9 (depending on variety), they’re considered a perennial that can be left in the ground to re-bloom. Their best companions include phlox, salvia and sedum.

GLADIOLI are the long-legged beauties of the summer garden, growing up to five feet tall. For continuous blooms throughout summer, plant corms every two weeks in the spring. If they start to lean, add more soil around the base of the stalk for support. Plant them with other mid- to late-summer bloomers, like echinacea, lilies and salvia. In Zone 6 and colder, their corms should be

dug up and stored for the winter. •| GREAT GARDENS18

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BUGS. LOVE ’EM OR HATE ’EM? Most gardeners will answer, “It depends!” Insect pests can be the bane of one’s existence when they’re chowing down in the vegetable gardens that we’ve planned so carefully to feed us, or when they’re destroy-ing flower buds from the inside out and thereby pre-empting a much anticipated show. Beneficial insects, on the other hand—those that pollinate plants or actually combat the pesky bugs—should be welcomed to the garden with open arms. One way to do this is to open a bug hotel.

This is a project that young gardeners can eas-ily get on board with, too. It plays to their imagina-tions while offering a hands-on craft that includes steps appropriate for several different ages. Per-

haps most importantly, building a bug hotel is an opportunity to teach kids that insects aren’t crea-tures to necessarily fear or abhor. Learning the life cycles and ecological roles of various “good bugs” helps children respect and admire nature on one of its smallest levels.

So what’s a bug hotel? It’s a structure designed to shelter beneficial insects including ladybugs, spiders and certain wasps, which prey on insect pests; beetles, which contribute to soil health and structure; and solitary bees, such as mason bees and bumblebees, which pollinate plants. Different insects will use a bug hotel in different seasons, so one should be left up year-round. Including a variety of accommodations will attract and serve

KIDS GARDENING

Room at the Inn

by Meghan Shinn

For a fun and educational project, make a bug hotel

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HELPFUL RESOURCESSee inspirationgreen.com for photos of bug hotels big and small. For more on materials and maintenance, see “A Resource Guide to Insect Hotels.” Download the free “Building an Insect Hotel Habitat” from bbcwildlife.org.uk.t.

a variety of guests, as opposed to making every room in the hotel identical.

To set up your bug hotel, start with a structure with several compartments—or use a group of small individual structures that can be fastened or stacked together. If you’re handy, you can build a box or boxes for this purpose, but if you aren’t a builder, don’t despair. Brainstorm what items might be repurposed for your hotel; a few ideas: cinder blocks, fruit crates, an old bookcase, wood-en pallets, wicker baskets, shelf-style birdhouses, terra-cotta pots, lengths of pipe. Set up your structure and its rooms in a quiet area of the gar-den. Some insects like a cool, damp habitat, while others like warmth, so research the preferences of the bugs you wish to attract and place your hotel in shade or sun accordingly. Or make a multifac-eted hotel that can have a side facing north and another, south or west.

Next, and here’s where the youngest garden-ers can help, outfit the hotel rooms with nesting material for different kinds of insects. Solitary bees look for crevices in which to crawl, so stack tunnels of rolled newspaper or hollow bamboo,

or drill holes in blocks of wood. Fill some com-partments with garden debris, like twigs, stems, leaves, grass, bark and pinecones. Think about the motions of different insects and place their rooms on appropriate levels—bee tubes can go up high, while wood and stems for crawly beetles to chomp should be at the ground floor.It’s hard to say the effectiveness of bug hotels; they haven’t been studied much. That might be more reason to build one. Keep watch through the seasons to see what moves in and out, and make adjustments as needed. You just may end up with a five-star rating at your bug hotel. •

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SMALL SPACES

Just a Little LiftEye-catching alternatives to the typical hanging basket

EYE-LEVEL INTEREST WITHIN YOUR GARDEN needn’t be as expected as a coir-lined hanging basket—nor does it need to be as complicated as a full-blown green wall or succulent tapestry. Simply replacing that wrought-iron basket or hanging plastic pot with an unconventional container will elevate your garden design in every sense of the word. Take some inspiration from these uplifting examples.

by Meghan Shinn

1. Mail call! Wall-mounted mail boxes make good homes for small, shallow-rooted plants. They can be found in a great range of styles, patterns and colors and since they’re designed to protect your mail, they’re durable and weather resistant. Just be sure to drill or hammer drainage holes at the bottom.

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2. Tin can alley. Collect aluminum cans, clean them, add drainage holes (use a church-key) and dress them up with paint. To choose col-ors and patterns, take a cue from the plants you want to grow in them—or vice versa! .

3. The frame-up. Buy basic picture frames or find something similar to repurpose. Use a staple gun, heavy duty brads or super glue to attach pockets of breathable canvas to the frames. Plant with shallow-rooted, drought-tolerant succulents or bromeliads.

4. Just hanging out. Emphasize a collection of unusual planters, like these creamer pots, by filling them with one kind of plant. Ech-everias or sempervivums work well because they stay small and tolerate skimpy water-ing—great if you can’t add drainage holes.

5. Free to be. Look for vintage or antique items to use as unexpected planters. Hang-ing lanterns and bird cages make perfect display cases for trailing plants. Place the plant, nursery pot and all, right inside for the simplest path to vertical perfection. •

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