One more day until Container Crazy CT’s workshop on container gardening with powerful perennials and tropical plants. The lucky ladies signed-up are in for a treat! Want to join us? There are just a few seats remaining for tomorrow’s hands-on workshop. You get instruction, tips, and insider info as you pot up your beautiful container gardens and patio pots.
You may wonder why should you use perennials in pots in the first place? Well, here’s just a few of the bene’s:
MORE LIKE A TRUE GARDEN
Perennial plants give your container gardens and patio pots a true garden feel when combined with other blooming annuals and textural plants. How many times have your seen a garden stuffed with only annuals? Not very often I am sure – and it would be too much color in my opinion, and a huge waste because annuals won’t winter over or return. Perennials give your container gardens and patio pots the feel of a true garden in a pot.
A mix of perennials and annuals with a thriller topical – Looks like a garden in a pot!
ARE LESS DEMANDING AND FUSSY
Perennials are less demanding because they are a little bit tougher. They don’t need to be deadheaded, cleaned up, or pampered on a routine basis or throughout the growing season over and over again. You basically clean them up after their flower cycle during a set period of time based on their particular bloom cycles, whereas annuals need this attention regularly because they bloom constantly. You can spend more time enjoying perennials than pampering them.
Stachy monieri ‘Hummelo’ has textural foliage and is a tough perennial
NOT AS MUCH WATERING
Some perennials don’t require as much watering as delicate and fussy annuals do in the season. With the right soil environment and growing space in a pot from the start, you can pretty much expect the perennial to proceed with what it is used to doing – growing and blooming on queue for you. Learn what is right to use to grow the best powerful perennials in container gardens at the workshop.
EXTENDS YOUR SEASONS
Perennials can take colder temperatures than annuals, so many perennials may be put out earlier than annual plants, giving you an early start to container gardening outdoors in the spring. And perennials may be left out later when fall arrives as well, allowing them to go dormant in the pot before overwintering them. There are many ways to do this which we discuss in Container Crazy CT’s workshops.
Stachys monieri ‘Hummelo’ – Easy to transition to the garden
BLOOMS ARE EVER CHANGING
Perennial’s blooms are ever changing, they don’t sit idle. Perennials tend to be like the “star cast members” in a patio pot and container garden. They add interest and change up your container garden display sequentially. Imagine having some color in your pot from a perennial plant that blooms through spring, then a different perennial in the pot sends up its blooms in July and continues to September, and meanwhile a mid-summer perennial plant bloomed in the pot. You have action happening all the time.
Blooms open on perennial ‘Hummelo’ while foliage carries a strong textural design.
FOLIAGE FOR LONG LASTING TEXTURE
Perennial offer a wide array of showy textures and colors in their foliage, and some are known for being fantastic foliage candidates to mix up your design in your pots. The color of the foliage stays true as it grows and shows. Embrace the foliage – it is what makes your design stable and long-lasting. When a perennial isn’t blooming, it is working in your container as a foliage feature, whereas most annuals do nothing if they are not in bloom. Foliage is architecture in your pot.
Digiplexis ‘Berry Canary’ is Berry Nice Indeed, makes a beautiful flowering filler or thriller in a pot! Zone 7 plant. There will be some tropicals at the workshop too ! Let’s mix it up.
SOLO CANDIDATES ARE LITERALLY ONE AND DONE
If you like it super simple, pick a stunning pot and plant it up with one perennial which will grow wider, taller and fuller in your pot as it progresses from season to season. That is ‘One and Done’ baby! You only have to overwinter the pot and roll it back out to your favorite spot outdoors every spring.
SIMPLE STEPS TO OVER WINTERED MORE WAYS THAN ONE
They can be over wintered in the pot to regrow every season when stored properly, and there are several ways to do so, which we will go over in Container Crazy CT’s workshops this May. Because perennials return, they are reusable without repaying the following season. Unlike annuals which get tossed, perennials are here to stay in your pots and gardens – no replanting required. They act in a double-duty fashion, and we explain all of this in our workshops.
Ensete (Red Banana) is unrolling – getting ready for the Workshop tomorrow!
Container Garden Workshop – Session One
Saturday, May 16th – Tomorrow
11 am (start time); end time anywhere between 2-3-4 pm (up to you!)
Cost: $15 to register + price of plants purchased at class for your container/patio pot – we have lots.
To register, call 860-977-9473 or text
Rain: No worries, we have coverage for us and our plants
Happy Friday Everyone,
Cathy Testa
860-977-9473
containercathy@gmail.com
Container Crazy CT 