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Growing plants in outdoor pots saves time and water, allowing you to grow plants that might not do well in your native soil or are too cold tender to overwinter in the ground. -- David Salman

Growing Plants in Containers
-- By David Salman, President, High Country Gardens

Container gardening continues to be one of the most popular gardening techniques; and for good reason. Growing plants in outdoor pots saves time and water, allowing you to grow plants that might not do well in your native soil or are too cold tender to overwinter in the ground. And it allows gardeners who live in condos or apartments and don't have any ground to cultivate to enjoy home horticulture.

But, before we discuss what plants to grow, let's review some “how-to-grow” techniques that will enhance your container gardening success.

Pick the right sized pot. Go big! If the pot is too small for larger growing plants, you'll never be able to keep it adequately watered.

Use a good quality potting soil. Never fill pots with soil straight from your yard as this will cause problems as it compacts, causing poor drainage and a fatal lack of air to the roots. Use a bagged “soil-less” mix and supplement it with a few big handfuls of good quality compost and some Yum Yum Mix fertilizer.

Don't fill the bottom portion of the pot with rocks, Styrofoam peanuts or other materials. This technique is touted to save soil and make the pot lighter in weight. But this creates a “perched water table” where the soil can become water-logged and sour (from lack of oxygen). Just put a piece of screen, a piece of broken pottery ("a shard") or an angled pebble over the hole in the bottom of the pot to prevent soil from falling out of the pot while allowing water to flow out the bottom.

Plant an Olla in the middle of the pot. These porous clay vessels are an ancient way to provide moisture to plant roots. Especially if you travel frequently, the ollas provide the pots with a slow release source of water. And it takes the guess work out of the “when to water” decision. Simply refill the olla until it just overflows every couple of days.

Use water absorbent crystals. These crystals
(absorb many, many times their weight in water and slowly release it to the tiny roots that grow into them. Use both ollas and water absorbents to further reduce the frequency with which your containers will need water.

Use pot feet under the pot or saucer. This promotes good drainage and prevents staining of sidewalks and patio surfaces.

Where possible, place containers so they are in the shade after 1 or 2 pm in the afternoon. This really helps prevent “fried” plants when the soil becomes too dry. And it reduces the frequency of watering, especially for hanging basket containers!

Use succulents for containers in the hot afternoon sun. If afternoon shade is not an option for your containers, use heat tolerant, water thrifty succulents like Agave, Yucca, cacti, Dasylirion, Sedum, Iceplants, Aloe, and others. Many of these types of plants can live in pots for many years.

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Selecting Plants for Containers

With our late Spring High Country Gardens Container Gardening edition coming out in April, it's a great time to be thinking about how you're going to design your potted gardens. We concentrate on using annuals or cold tender perennials for our designs.

However, you should also consider planting your pots with long blooming perennial varieties. Many folks will then transplant these perennials into their flower beds in the fall as they empty and clean the containers at the end of the season.

For Flashy Color; If you love bright yellows, oranges and reds, long blooming, sun and heat loving perennials like Gaillardia 'Arizona Sun', Achillea 'Moonshine', Coreopsis 'Sunray' and Stachys coccinea make a dynamite combination.

For Semi-shade Areas; Dwarf Golden Spur Columbine (Aquilegia chrysantha 'Little Treasure') can be surrounded with Corsican Pansy (Viola corsica) and 'Coral Canyon' Twinspur (Diascia integerrima).

Use Ornamental Grasses whenever possible. They make stunning focal points in pots and catch the late afternoon light with their flower spikes/seed heads. Silky Thread Grass (Nasella tenuissima) is one of the best with its finely textured emerald green foliage and shimmering flowering spikes. Plant with it with long blooming perennials like Appleblossom Grass (Gaura 'Cloud of Butterflies') magenta Iceplant (Delosperma 'Blut') around the edges.

For a Formal Look Using Grass; 'Karl Foerster' Feather Reed (Calamagrostis x acutiflora) grass is the best upright grower for use in urn-shaped pots around entrances and alongside ponds and pools.