The next meeting of the Yorkton and District Horticultural Society will be on Wednesday, April 20 at 7:00 p.m. at SIGN on North Street. Our special guest will be Lionel Hughes from Prairies North magazine talking to us about gardening ideas from the magazine, and how they choose those wonderful ideas for our reading pleasure! Everyone is welcome! As we’ve discussed before, you don’t have to be a member to come and hear the wonderful speakers at our meetings — if the topic interests you, please feel free to come!
Let’s sit down for a few minutes with a cup of tea and chat about the gardening season which is getting closer! I know you are probably getting all tingly about I like I am! I can’t wait to start planting up our containers! I was looking at one of our Time- Life Gardening “Encyclopedia of Gardening” books: “Decorating With Plants”. While this volume talked a lot about using plants and flowers to decorate in the home, I discovered that many of the ideas could be used outside in our gardens or in our containers as well. So let’s take these ideas outside!
One idea was “the impact of massive plants”. The photo with this information showed a bright, contemporary room, done all in white and rattan, with all the impact coming from massive plants in very large baskets. We can do that in our containers by choosing plants that have lots of “oomph” just by the size of their leaves. With various leaf textures, we don’t have to focus solely on blooming plants.
Another idea was “interiors that echo exteriors”. This photo was of a lovely bathroom with a big window at one end overlooking a south-west terrain. In the bathroom, they had large clay pots with assorted cacti. So let’s change this idea around for our outdoor containers: if you have a certain style in your garden, perhaps planting a lot of blooming annuals, you might want your containers to echo this by planting similar flowers or colors. Or, if you have mainly junipers, cedars or shrubs in the “background” of your yard, gentle grasses in muted tones in your containers would be an excellent “foreground” to set the tone and welcome guests to the garden.
The third idea was “tranquil oasis”. This showed a photo of a very serene looking room full of plants that blocked the window looking out on a busy city street. So taking that idea outside for our containers or garden: if there is a busy scene beyond our gardens, or perhaps we want some privacy, we can set up our plantings to enclose our own little space. We can do this by setting containers with taller plants in a row to create a backdrop, or set planters on stands or boxes to create even more height, or, in a garden, plant taller plants like corn or sunflowers to create a screen of beauty and privacy.
Quite often, the book mentions “outdoor rooms”, which is a nice way for us to look at our plantings. The book suggests that we should consider that too-crowded plants can compete with each other, and can sometimes look cluttered. So aim for fullness but know when to stop! We can choose to combine square and round containers for interest, and we should maintain a focal point with one extra special plant in a container, or one extra-special container among our other containers. And if you have the right situation, don’t forget beautiful hanging baskets!
Only 47 more sleeps till the May long weekend, the traditional “planting time”! It may be sooner or it may be later, but either way, we’ll enjoy it! Have a great week! Visit us at www.yorktonhort.ca
