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Anyone have experience with these kinds of plants in containers?
I'm in suburban MD -- Zone 7a and want to try a couple of Dwarf butterfly bushes, peonies, and hydrangea in 20 inch plastic containers in a south facing porch. Also want to try day lilies, lavender, and rosemary in containers. (I have them in ground ground but never tried containers)
Tips, suggestions, recommendations? for these or others in containers. Also looking for LONG bloomers.
(these will be behind boxwood winter gems, so I do need tall plants. I've been doing perennials -- larkspur, hollyhocks, crocosmia, amsonia, butterfly weed, cosmos and phlox...and want to try something new.
Thanks.
(also the less self-seeding the better.)
ETA: for a couple of years now I've have some spotted lady's thumb (polygonum persicara) in a couple of my pots. Anyway to get rid of that without starting over completely?
They all will do well in containers, but if you are thinking long term, like a few years, try to get the largest terra cotta pots or wine barrels for the plants, they allow the soil to breathe better and the roots to spread out wider. Use a good planting mix, do not put gravel in the bottom of the pots and top dress seasonally with a good compost. I have rosemary, lavender, butterfly bushes and one hydrangea in a pot. The lavender and rosemary are over 13 years old and the butterfly bushes were planted from pots into the ground nine years ago and were about 3 years old at the time. They are huge now with trunks over 18 inches across and about 20 feet tall.
^^ Thanks so much. I think I'm going to give them all a try. In the past I had a butterfly bush in the ground and liked it, but I'm not really doing anymore in ground plantings. I DO have four peonies in the ground -- and about a dozen daylilies that I love, they were here when I bought the place 11 years ago. The ones for the containers would be new.
I think my rosemary in the ground died don't know why. May be too cold here?
I don't have gravel in the bottom of the pots -- but I DO have packing peanuts.
I'm NOT the best at regular feeding/fertilizing. I do want to get better with that.
I'm not really INto gardening, but like it as a 'dabblier' -- and it's a chance to be creative and cultivate some beauty. I started with containers 10 years ago....and what I have now has been the same for about 5 years. It's never happened before -- I'm sort of bored with what I have and want to try some new things. I just never thought I'd ever want to scrap them all and start over......
2) I've never had any luck with containered Salvia...I wonder why, I keep trying because it's so pretty, but it's just not performed well.
I DO recommend some things I've loved
-- that did well....phlox, gaura (LOVE it), crosomia, chelone/turtule head, amsonia, butterfly weed, amaranthus, amaryliis, cosmos, hollyhock, larkspur
-- that I loved but that didn't do well: Iris, agapanthus (it's too cold here), jacob's ladder, red hot poker (darn thing has never bloomed!)
((In the ground everything I have EXCEPT the rosemary has done well: peonies, daylilies, sedum (autumn joy), firepower nandina, euonymous, Iris, astilbe, lenten rose.))
Full size butterfly bushes can mature over 10 ft tall, so you may want to carefully choose named dwarfs. Dwarfs are generally about 3-4 ft tall and include some of the less common colors such as yellow.
I have 2 young butterfly bushes that I put in containers last year and am overwintering in my garage right now. My garage has windows and gets afternoon sun and the bushes are still producing leaves, albeit very light green leaves. I'll probably need to repot one of them at the end of this year's growing season since I think it'll outgrow it's container. I also have a young sourwood tree in a container in my garage right now that I plan to put in the ground this spring and a few mums that I bought extremely cheap towards the end of fall and didn't feel like throwing away.
If you do place plants in containers, you'll definitely need to bring into the garage or someplace out of the elements during Dec - Feb/March in our zone. You won't need to water the plants much, only when they get dry. I water mine maybe once every 3 weeks.
Thanks everybody!....
The Lo and behold Blue chip are supposed to get max 2x2-ish. The lazy gardener in me doesn't being plants inside and I don't have room in the garage to over-winter, so this will just have to be my 'project' for this year, so we'll see how it goes. I do mulch heavily and I am willing to wrap them in place but that's about it.
I'm also looking for stuff that I like that might not need watering every other day. I have 16, 20 inch pots. And during the summer they're a PITA to water. Because of the craziness of where they are no hose is convenient and so I go back and forth like 6 times with milk jugs. Like I said we'll see.....
^ if you mulch heavily in winter and wrap the plants during very cold/windy days (like yesterday), they have a high chance to survive
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, so this will just have to be my 'project' for this year, so we'll see how it goes. I do mulch heavily and I am willing to wrap them in place but that's about it.
