Container gardening is all about art and personal expression using plants as the medium.
It isn’t about doing everything perfectly. There is no right or wrong in creating art. It is about individual taste and preference, desired use in the home or garden, and willingness to experiment. Container gardening makes plants the star of the show. It encourages explorations around colors, textures, and diversity in both plants and containers, allows gardens to be fit into unique spaces, give individual plants a new look when paired with complimentary plants, allows northern gardeners to grow tropical fruits year round, and creates edible works of art using vegetables plants.
Container plantings are simply a “bouquet with roots”.
They are an indulgence for the senses. You can smell sweet, flowery or spicy scents, wallow in the flavors of fresh-picked vegetables or fruit, listen to leaves brush against each other as they sway in the wind, touch the course textures of the leaves, and take in the colors of the rainbow as the blooms explode from their sepals. Container gardens allow a gardener to provide instant color and instant fun anywhere, anytime.
While container plantings may be an indulgence for the senses, most require minimal commitment. No need for digging, weeding, or mulching. They fits all budgets and all spaces. Just add water and a little fertilizer now and then and you can enjoy lush plants, beautiful blooms, tangy fruit, or yummy salads – even if you are convinced your thumb is black versus green.
We mustn’t forget the role plants play as food and shelter for other interesting creatures.
Placing container gardens in your landscaping, patios or simply hanging them outside your window allows you to witness the exchange between plants and animals. Songbirds, hummingbirds, butterflies, and moths visit container gardens to taste their nectar and spread their pollen. For those who spend a good amount of time working indoors, container gardens are your gift to yourself – a means to interact with a bit of nature, if only for a few minutes a day.
There are many reasons to try container gardening.
Maybe you don’t have the ideal setting for a full garden but have the perfect spot for a container. Maybe you need privacy around a patio or pool but don’t want to commit to planting trees. Maybe you are looking for an instant impact. Maybe you love those little gems that don’t really fit in a big garden. Or maybe you simply want to enjoy plants with minimal maintenance. Whatever your reason may be, container gardening is for everyone.
Creating and caring for container gardens stimulates your creativity during the building process and brings enjoyment as you nourish its growth. But like true art, it also requires some technique. In this series we will explore both.
By Liza Cameron, Hennepin County Master Gardener volunteer
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