Gardener's Group discussion

Container gardening is my new passion after sustaining a serious spine injury two years ago. I can still walk but doing much digging in the dirt of my garden and extensive weeding is beyond me these days. I have to draft my husband and son to assist me to maintain the garden I have already and this year everything new has been planted in pots. I live in Central Illinois and we have had erratic weather all Spring. I have tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, acorn squash and peppers In pots . I also have numerous containers of Rosemary, several varieties of basil, fennel, germander, oregano, majoram, several types of thymes, chives( garlic and flat leaved), a Bay tree, mints, several varieties of sage, and parsley. I have a glassed in back porch so I winter over most of these herbs and save a little money by not having to replace them each season. This year I planted pots of Zinnias, marigolds, and cleome that I have scattered about the garden . They provide some constant color as the perennials cycle through. I tried Asters in pots but I must have watered them too much because they rotted out almost immediately . This is the first year I have planted everbearing strawberries in bowls and they seem to be thriving but have only had an occasional berry as of this time . I will leave them outside for the winter but hopefully will try to put them in a sheltered area. I have developed a great interest in edible landscaping so am also trying Hardy Chicago fig trees in pots and have a collection of citrus trees as well.
The long winters in Illinois drive me crazy. I endure them by having an indoor garden in my glassed in back porch. Usually it's filled with herbs, geraniums, dwarf citrus trees, hibiscus, a large gardenia,a 7ft Avocado tree, a huge Chinese fan palm ( rescued from the garbage at my former job years ago), Rex begonias, angel wing begonias, ferns, impatiens, coleus, hoyas, passionflower vines, lantana, bougainvilleas, and anything else I can fit in. I have even kept cherry tomatoes in there that were still fruiting in January! Last Winter was very bad for me spine wise so I could not keep everything watered and maintained as well as I usually do. I lost several of my best plants and was so sad when I was taking them all out for their " summer vacation" in the shady part of my garden.. I am determined to never let that happen again. Even if I have to hire someone to water. If you are a plant fanatic like me , your plants become almost as dear to you as a pet. I have a lot of pets too but we will not go there in this post !
I hope to find someone who is plant crazy like me in this group. I love outside container gardening but these days I do more inside than out and would love to share that with anyone who is interested in both and in experimenting with containers. Happy Gardening !

Hi, Viki! I have recently developed an interest in container gardening myself. I haven't done it as extensively as you but both my porch and back patio are becoming more crowded with potted plants. I have herbs in pots that have managed to survive over two winters on my patio. Blueberries, honeysuckle, trumpet vine, dahlias, caladiums, begonias, Asiatic lilies, and succulents are some of the plants that I now have in pots.

I'm always looking for new ideas for containers. I planted some annuals in old watering cans this spring and I also planted some indoor succulents in egg shells around Easter time.

I live in Pennsylvania so I, too, winter some plants inside. This year I am going to pot some more perennials and try to winter them in a protected area outdoors.
I'm looking forward to your future posts.

98% of my garden is in containers, but I don't grow indoors (no place for it here), it's all outside. To get me through the Winter, I usually have Amaryllis growing, stagger-starting them so they'll bloom about Thanksgiving through Valentines.

I mix annuals in pots in with the perennials in my flower beds. That way, no matter what, I have some color in the beds. I also have plants in pots on my porch and around my back step. It's too cold in winter in Minnesota to overwinter anything in pots outside. That's one reason I start seeds in milk jugs so it's not so costly to replant the pots in spring. Space issues and my cats keep me from bringing anything inside for the winter.

Hi! Anyone here interested in vines ? I love growing Morning Glories, moon vine, hyacinth bean, Scarlet Runner Bean , Cardinal Climber, Cypress Vine and my all time favorite , Mina Lobata. If you have a bright window these can be brought inside in pots for the winter and will keep blooming. Morning Glories, Moon Vine , and Mina Lobata will keep blooming all winter but usually my Cardinal Climber, cypress Vine, and Black eyed Susan vines poop out by January.. Might be that I keep my glassed in porch too cool and those particular vines can't take it. This year I am trying vining Sweet Peas inside because they like cool temps. I also will be trying to grow some different types of lettuces inside. It would be great to have homegrown lettuce during the winter..yum. I am a addicted salad eater.
It is about 90 degrees here in Central Illinois today and I have not accomplished anything worthwhile with my plants today. My spine has decided to immobilize me and gift me with intermittent , frequent , and severe back spasms..The only thing that helps is to stay in bed or my recliner until the episode passes, which can be hours or days. Thank God for muscle relaxants ! I despise sitting and lying in bed , so it's like torture... I end up worrying all day about my plants and pets. Its a huge effort for me to even go out to water. Yesterday was one of those days but it appeared almost everything survived my terrible neglect , with the exception of three small pots of " Million Bells", who were quite withered :-( . I brought them in to soak in a pot of water overnight in the hope they will be revived. The prognosis does not look promising. Hopefully today I will be out to water and defeat the heat attack early. It always shocks me how fast container plants wilt in the sun. Sometimes even if you have watered them just hours before. My Father has an elaborate drip system for his , set on a timer. I still depend on the good old flex hoses- which are the only kind I can lift anymore. Even those are a lot for me these days....
Thank- you all for responding to my first post. I wasn't quite sure how this group thing was supposed to go. I was very pleasantly surprised to see all of you writing here as well. Is anyone here interested in house plants or is there a different group for that?
It's almost noon now so I suppose I need to limp out to the garden and see what is happening. Have a great day playing in the dirt , if you can. Be well, Viki

I have a lot of clematis and also grow scarlet runner beans and morning glories on my garden fence. I'm trying black eyed Susan vines for the first time but they aren't doing much yet. They're blooming but not climbing.

I started using Soil Moist in my potted plants last year and now I'm dependent on it. You only need to mix a very small amount into the potting soil and it cuts down on the frequency I have to water my plants. It works well in hanging baskets and window boxes too.

As you probably already know, glazed pots and plastic pots retain moisture much better than clay pots.

I love house plants,too!

Cheryl S. wrote: "I have a lot of clematis and also grow scarlet runner beans and morning glories on my garden fence. I'm trying black eyed Susan vines for the first time but they aren't doing much yet. They're bl..."

I love scarlet runners. I used to plant them with sweet peas in my grandmother's garden. Also clematis along with wisteria next to it. I didn't know black-eyed Susan was a vine. Here it is a low-growing wild flower.

I have pink and violet morning glories, yellow Allamanda cathartica (a trumpet vine),
Antigonon leptopus which we call coralita, a very pretty, free flowerin pink vine, Clitoria ternatea, also known as butterfly vine but looks like its Latin name indicates (deepest purple), Passiflora foetida, wild passion fruit, very pretty small flowers and bright orange very sweet berries enclosed in a lacy calyx and another vine with bright orange fruit (that split open to reveal bright red seeds), Momordica charantia which is, I think, known as the balsam apple, but here we call it lizard food.

Then there are all the non-flowering ones, like monstera delicosa which grows up to the top of the coconut palms, some green, some gold and green variagated. It has a delicious pineapple/banana fruit apparently but none of my vines has ever set fruit. Epipremnum pinnatum (golden pothos) is another major climber. People pick it and stick it in water to grow in the house but it won't grow in water for me.

There are loads of vines stuck to my walls, crawling up trees, climbing over each other, providing ladders for rats to run up walls, and sprawling over the ground, some with tiny heart-shaped leaves, some with huge pinnate ones on long stalks and I don't know the names of most of them.

All the vines, fruiting, flowering and the rest, are all wild. I didn't plant any of them. Hardly anything I plant survives. It has too much competition.

The flower of the Black-eyed Susan vine is much smaller than the wild flower. The ones I have had are more delicate than the other vines you mentioned. I start it from seed in jugs and put it in a hanging basket. The flowers are yellow or orange. Very pretty. It also requires very frequent watering in hot weather.

peg wrote: "I started using Soil Moist in my potted plants last year and now I'm dependent on it. You only need to mix a very small amount into the potting soil and it cuts down on the frequency I have to wate..."

I have not heard of Soil Moist but will look for some as I do use some terracotta pots and they do dry out fast. Sounds like a good product. Thanks for the tip!!

Petra X wrote: "Cheryl S. wrote: "I have a lot of clematis and also grow scarlet runner beans and morning glories on my garden fence. I'm trying black eyed Susan vines for the first time but they aren't doing muc..."

Lazy Susan vines showed up in greenhouses around here about three years ago. It's an annual here and is a light weight vine with quarter sized blooms in butter yellow with brown centers. I love the blooms but so far mine haven't done much climbing. I think our cold June had a bad affect on them and I'm hoping the recent heat makes a difference.

Cheryl S. wrote: "peg wrote: "I started using Soil Moist in my potted plants last year and now I'm dependent on it. You only need to mix a very small amount into the potting soil and it cuts down on the frequency I ..."

You only have to use a little bit on your pots. If you use too much, the granules expand and push the soil over the top of the pot. I bought a large container on Amazon and it is lasting a long time. I love the stuff.

Hi everybody! My passion for bulbs almost killed one of my dogs today :-( My ShihTzu, Muffin , took it upon herself to eat a StarGazer Lily bulb . She literally will eat anything not fastened down. I had a bag of bulbs hanging on a peg in my laundry room. I suspect one of my cats knocked it down and then Muffin devoured the largest bulb. I woke up to find this and then spent two hours conferring with the ASPCA Poison control and my vet deciding what to do. Turns out that type of Lily bulb is highly toxic to cats and usually not to dogs. I will be spending the rest of the day monitoring her closely while intermittently planting all my left over bulbs ( found a bunch on sale). There is never a dull moment in this household! I am going to try Nerine Lilies and Peruvian Daffodils in containers today ...as my spine allows. Guess I should get started :-) Its a gorgeous day here , I hope it is where you all live too !

Viki - I hope your dog is all right. Poor thing. I hope she suffers no worse than a tummy ache.

I just looked up Peruvian Daffodill because I'd never heard of it and was so surprised to find it is a wild flower here. It is one of four varieties of spider lily. One of the varieties, the most common one, has very skinny petals and scarcely any centre and is the most strongly scented. Then there is one with a white cup in the middle and then the one you call Peruvian Daffodill (I'm going to call it that from now on).

There is another variety that is the same as the Peruvian Daffodill but the spikes are very tall and the flowers are larger and it is pink. People plant them on top of graves here quite often. They form huge clumps with lots of heavily-scented flowers, very lovely.

This is the pink lily.

Petra X wrote: "Viki - I hope your dog is all right. Poor thing. I hope she suffers no worse than a tummy ache.

I just looked up Peruvian Daffodill because I'd never heard of it and was so surprised to find it is..."

Thanks, Petra. I love the pink lily. I might have to look for some bulbs myself.

peg wrote: "Cheryl S. wrote: "peg wrote: "I started using Soil Moist in my potted plants last year and now I'm dependent on it. You only need to mix a very small amount into the potting soil and it cuts down o..."

thanks for the info. Do you know if it's sold in garden centers or is it only on line?

Our lowbush/dwarf blueberries, four varieties, are in quarter-barrels and have done well with the recent transplant from the old barrels. We also grow a purple clematis, sedum Autumn Joy, and some crocosmia in larger containers, and I've got a wallflower started this year. There are always annuals and greens in pots and baskets. The rest of the vegetable garden is primarily raised beds. We just added two columnar apples in containers, one of which is bearing this year. What I know nothing about is when to harvest the apples.

Cheryl S. wrote: "peg wrote: "Cheryl S. wrote: "peg wrote: "I started using Soil Moist in my potted plants last year and now I'm dependent on it. You only need to mix a very small amount into the potting soil and it..."

I have seen it in some garden centers. Some only sell it in small envelopes which would be useful if you just wanted to sample it. This year I bought a larger container from Amazon.com.

peg wrote: "Cheryl S. wrote: "peg wrote: "Cheryl S. wrote: "peg wrote: "I started using Soil Moist in my potted plants last year and now I'm dependent on it. You only need to mix a very small amount into the p..."

Thanks for the info. I'll see what I can find.

All my pots are starting to come into their own and look gorgeous right now. Since I start some of the plants from seed it takes a while for them to get going.

I have a question for those who do a lot of container gardening. How often do you change the soil in your pots . . . or do you?

Kimberly wrote: "I have a question for those who do a lot of container gardening. How often do you change the soil in your pots . . . or do you?"

I put new soil in all my pots in the spring and repot in the fall if I am going to bring the pots inside. I mix compost into the potting soil for outdoor plants. that seems to provide enough nutrients to keep the plants going throughout the summer.

Kimberly wrote: "I have a question for those who do a lot of container gardening. How often do you change the soil in your pots . . . or do you?"

I change the soil every spring and add a couple of big scoops of a combination of compost and cow manure to the potting soil. The pots usually do very well until late August. If they start to look exhausted I give them a shot of Miracle-Gro every couple of weeks until frost. Outside plants do not do well in the house in the winter here--too dry, so I try to keep them going outside as long as I can.

I change the soil for annuals in the spring, and repot the perennials every couple of years but top dress them in spring. Since soil in containers can become nutrient-poor and salt-heavy, I dump it onto areas of the yard that need fill but aren't picky, or into my compost to be revived, or around trees and shrubs, which don't seem bothered by it.

Thank you, Peg, Cheryl and Osho. That helps know what to do with my potted plants.

I just discovered growyourgreens.com. Has anyone else seen his soil and gardening videos? He's fantastic.