Podcast with Avid Container Gardener

This weekend I interviewed Kathy, an avid container gardener who has a beautiful mix of plants in containers on her pool patio and

shady areas around her yard. Hope her selections help you!

Here's the link to the podcast:

http://www.utterli.com/u/utt/u-ODUxMjE3Mw#utt-ODUxMjE3Mw

Soil Testing

In the interview with Dr. Thomas, he mentioned that soil testing was key. Here is a clip on how to do your own soil test:

Horticulture Professional Answers Fertilizer Questions

This is an e-mail I did with horticulture professor, Dr. Paul Thomas on fertilizer. He co-taught my horticulture and greenhouse management class last semester. Hope this answers some of your questions on the topic.



What fertilizer is best for plants in the summer months?


The best fertilizer for your garden plants in summer is happily the easiest to come by. Granular fertilizer with an N-P-K analysis of 10-10-10 or 8-8-8 will work great for vegetables, shrubs, young trees and flowers. The only time you need special fertilizers are when fertilizing azaleas, rhododendrons, and other acid-loving plants. For these plants, an acid-forming fertilizer is best.


What is the best way to apply this fertilizer?


Fertilizer application may seem easy, but we kill a great many young plants by spreading it improperly. First, follow the label or bag rate recommendations to the letter. The detailed recommendations are there for a reason. Fertilizers are all very different and you need to pay attention to how much is recommended. Secondly, when spreading the fertilizer, keep it off foliage and stems. Be especially sure not to allow small piles of fertilizer form up against stems. This is almost always fatal. Keep the fertilizer at least an inch away from stems. Thirdly, always water the plant after fertilizer to wash off the fertilizer dust from the leaves and to being the dissolving process that allows the plants to take up the fertility. Failure to do so yields burn damage on leaves and dessicated, shriveled stems. Fertilizer burn can also be an entry pathway for plant disease.

How often should you apply fertilizer?

For most vegetable, flower and shrubbery plants, applying fertilizer every three weeks during the growing season is the most you would ever do. Trees and shrubs do not need to be fertilized after the spring flush of growth is over, usually by the first week of July. Flowers and vegetables grow continuously, and there for need a steady source of fertility. You can usually stop fertilizing flowers and vegetables in August. Remember that over-fertilization can reduce flowers and sometimes retard growth in vegetables and flowers.

Should different fertilizers be used in the cooler months?

If you live in the south, where pansies, dianthus and other cool crops such as broccoli, kale and cabbage, can be grown all winter, a fertilizer that is high in nitrate is best. Summer fertilizer usually is a mix of ammonium and nitrate, which together forms (no surprise) ammonium nitrate. In winter plants have problems taking up ammonium, so sticking with nitrate only fertilizer products is recommended.

Is it safe to fertilize vegetable plants? Is there a stopping pointfor fertilizer application prior to harvest? If so, how long?

Because most vegetables grow continuously during the entire summer, it is safe to fertilize on a steady schedule. However, once a plant has produced nearly mature fruit or vegetables, you should consider backing off the amount of fertility. In general, most common garden vegetables can be allowed to grow without additional fertility by the first week in August. Alternatively, applying half the rate to plants such as indeterminate tomatoes will keep the plants strong until first frost.

Walter Reeves - Gardening in Georgia

I keep mentioning Water Reeves and his show "Gardening in Georgia". He is a retired Extension Agent from Georgia and is emmensely knowledgable about gardening. You should check out his show if you're at all interested in gardening. It comes on Georgia Public Television (GPB) on Wednesday nights at 7pm and again on Saturday at 12:30 and 6:30.

Walter Reeves is a recent discovery for me as my father told me about him and his show just a few weeks ago. I'm not sure how I gardened before I watched "Gardening in Georgia!"

Ferns for Southern Gardens

I had a comment about ferns earlier. After watching "Gardening in Georgia" with Walter Reeves today, I have more information on ferns for you. Here is a list of ferns that are suitable for Georgia's climate:

Japanese Holley Fern – Resembles a Japanese Holley.
Japanese Painted Fern – Grayish and purple coloring.
Dixie Wood Fern – Tall and skinny
Christmas Fern – Evergreen
Autumn Fern – Bronze coloring, spread wide and pretty tall.
Tassel Fern – Hairy
Deer Tongue Fern – Doesn’t really look like a traditional fern, more like lilly leaves but wider.
Peacock Fern – Blue/Green Coloring
Cinnamon Fern - Red spores that stand up like cinnamon sticks.
Resurrection Fern – Grows on trees, turns brown in winter.

Most of these ferns are suited for shady or partly shady areas.

Garden Annuals Quick Guide

As I was searching for a list of garden annuals (plants that will come back year after year) to create a economical garden, I came across this quick reference guide on Walter Reeve's website, www.gardeningingeorgia.com. This is a publication authored by my last semester's Horticulture teacher that offers headings such as "Annuals Suitable for Containers." The plants under this heading would be great for your patio garden or elsewhere in your yard! The quick guides are at the bottom of the publication. Happy gardning!

http://pubs.caes.uga.edu/caespubs/pubcd/b954.htm

Container Garden Recipes and Hardiness Zones

For those of you interested in creating container gardens for your outdoor spaces, this website is a great resource. It offers container garden "recipes" that are very pretty. They have taken all of the guess work out of creating a container garden for any area (full sun, shade, or sun and shade). They offer a  list of plants to buy, what kind of container to use, and where to plant each plant in the container for the best effect. 

Here it is: http://www.simplybeautifulgardens.com/containers.aspx

Also, gardeners must know which hardiness zone you live in so that you plant plants that are appropriate to that zone. For example, North Georgia is in hardiness zones 7a - 7b while and Middle Georgia are in hardiness zones 8a - 8b. If you look on the tag of the plant at the home improvement store, it should say which zone the plant is best suited for. Here is a website which contains a map of all the hardiness zones in the U.S. Plants grow best in their appropriate hardiness zone. Here is a website which details all of the hardiness zones in the U.S. - http://www.garden.org/zipzone/

Happy container gardening!

How to Pot Plants

Potting your new plants may seem self explanitory, but I would like to suggest a method that has worked for me for those of you who may not know how.

Step 1: Gently remove plants from plastic packs that come in by squeezing the plastic container and gently pulling on the base of the plant.

Step 2: Fill new container about 1/2 - 3/4 full with potting soil.

Step 3: Gently break up root ball of plant by pulling apart slightly at the base of root ball.

Step 4: Place plant in new pot and fill pot up the rest of the way with potting soil.

Step 5: Press soil down gently around base of the plant.

Step 6: Water plant until soil is fully moist, but not drenched.

Step 7: Spinkle about a tablespoon of slow-release fertilizer, like osmocote, around the soil.

Thistle?

I was running last week and saw this weed and thought the bloom was beautiful. Does anyone know what it is? Just curious.

Pictures of Tomato Plants, Container Garden, and Perrenials

This is a picture of my tomato plants and container garden. In the container garden, the burgandy and lime green foliage plants at the very back is the Alabama Sunset Coleus. The orange flowers on the left of the pot are the Profustion Zinnia. The yellow flowers on the right of the pot are Duranta. The white flowers in the center/middle are Vinca. The white/greyish foliage in the front of the planter is Dusty Miller.

The tomato plants are in the pots on the right of the picture. The pots (they seem smaller in the picture) are about 5 gallon pots. I put two "Better Boy" tomato plants in each pot. I even have 5 little green tomatoes growing on my bushes. You cannot tell from the picture, but I had to put metal wire cages around my tomato plants to support them as they grow.

These are my perennial cone flowers. The one's in the far left back pot with the fuzzy, rounded leaves are rudibekia, the yellow cone flower. The slick, pointed-leaved plants in the center, front pot and the small pot on the left are echinacea magnus, the pink coneflower. These will eventually grow too big for these pots and will need to be transferred to the ground or bigger pots. The tall plant on the far right is Phlox and will need to be divided and planted in the ground or in larger pots when the plants get big.

All supplies, such as pots, saucers, plants, and cages, can be purchased at a local home improvement stores.

Tomato Plants and Container Gardens

Plant Selection:
Choose plants that you love or plants that produce something you love. If you don't enjoy the plants in your garden, you won't give them the care they require.

I began my garden out of necessity becuase I love tomatoes, but can't necessarily afford the high dollar produce from the grocery store. I bought Better-Boy Tomato plants from a suggestion from my horticulutre teacher.

I also picked out flowering plants that I liked and plants with pretty foliage to plant together in a pot, creating a container garden. When you plant a group of different plants all together in one pot, commonly called a container garden, you should have a mix of different textures and shapes to create an interesting and eye-appealing mixture. My horticulture teacher, Dr. Terri Hamlin suggested planting "Thrillers, Spillers, and Fillers." Thrillers are large and interesting. In my container garden my thriller is the Alabama Sunset Coleus becuase of its brightly colored, large foliage. Spillers are plants that fall over the side of the pot. In my container garden my spiller is the Bacopa as its small green foliage and white blooms fall gracefully over the edge of the pot. My Fillers are the Vinca, Profusion Zinnas, Dusty Miller and Duranta. They are pretty, flowering and take up the rest of the room in the pot. One important tip about container gardens is to grow plants in the same pot that require the same light and water requirements. For example, all of the plants in my container garden require full sun.

Lastly, I wanted to grow some flowers that look good in a cut flower arrangement. For these I picked out Black-Eyed Susans, a yellow cone flower, and Echinacia, a pink cone flower, that are hardy perennials (meaning they will grow year after year and not die). These perennials grow large so I spread them out amoungst 5 pots and will probably have to transfer them to my parent's yard in a few years as they may outgrow their pots.

Why Start a Patio Garden?

I love flowers. From childhood, going to the home improvement store with my mother and picking out plants for our yard was exciting. The colors and shapes were amazing to me and I couldn't get enough. I loved planting, too. I would rather be outside digging in the dirt than almost anything else. 

When I moved out of my parents' home into an apartment, I longed to beautify our bland patio and stoop, but with limited funds I couldn't. However, as an agricultural education major, I was required to take a greenhouse management class. We were responsible for growing bedding plants for a plant sale at the end of the year. It was a lot of work, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. 

After the plant sale, the students in my class and myself split up the  remaining plants. I took many home to my parents for their yard, but I kept a few for myself to help me fulfill my dream of creating a container garden on my apartment patio.

With this blog I will explain the process of maintaining my container gardens and hopefully inspire other who have limited yard space to create their own patio paradises!