Van Bourgondien

Containers with Class

One thing you learn if you do a lot of container gardening, either indoor or out, is that almost anything can serve as a container in a pinch - and that some unlikely prospects can end up looking quite elegant with a bit of attention.

Sure, you can go to the store and buy a flowerpot. This is the easy and often sensible way to go. But what if you find that you have an extra few bulbs to pot up and are fresh out of traditional containers? Let's look at some of the options.

What qualities do good containers have? The primary concern is that they will hold water without dripping everywhere. Or that they can be lined with plastic or foil so that they won't drip. In fact, if they are big enough that you can just drop in an ordinary plastic nursery pot, you've got it easy. But watertight is important.

So is drainage. Most plants prefer not to grow in swamps - it makes their little roots rot.

This may seem to contradict my contention that the pot should be watertight - but we have options here. One is that you have a container with a drainage hole - and a saucer to sit it in. (Tabletops are no fonder of excess water than plant roots.) The other, if you are a careful waterer, is to put plenty of gravel, perlite or other materials that promote drainage in the pot before you begin to add your potting soil. Two inches of gravel below the soil mix in a good deep pot will relieve excess water problems. And if you pick the pot up and get a sense of how much it should weigh when properly watered, you will be alerted not only to dry spells, but to excess water that needs draining.

My own favorite technique is to use a plastic pot with a drainage hole, and put that into a larger, attractive container that holds gravel or other fast draining materials. This has a double advantage - it keeps the roots from waterlogging, and the moisture from any water that does drain into the gravel will humidify the air and keep the plant happier. And you can always hide the interior pot by using moss, or sphagnum or Spanish moss on top, which also has a nice decorative look.

But what can we use as an attractive container?

Your imagination is your only limit. That, and your budget.

Baskets and old wooden crates, for instance, look terrific with plants in them. You can line them with plastic (double thickness) and plant directly in them, or put a tray in the bottom to catch runoff and simply place different pots of foliage and flowering plants into it, hiding their tops with sphagnum or decorators moss. Just make sure that the basket or crate itself isn't getting wet or the container will rot.

Metal containers can also be pretty spectacular. My own favorite is an old copper wringer-style washer that I have planted with tall white Calla lilies and white 'Candidum' caladiums. It's so deep I have at least a foot of vermiculite/perlite and styrofoam packing material layered in the bottom before I even started to add dirt and plants. When using a large container you want light drainage materials to save your back.

Old copper boilers also look good with almost anything - although my guess is that the dwarf Canna 'Apricot Ice' would look fabulous in them.

Brass spittoons (either real or the reproductions that are relatively easy to find) make nice containers - and are of a shape that will hide a plastic pot easily - which means you can put in temporary plantings and switch them whenever the fancy strikes you. Old galvanized washtubs (you can paint the exteriors if you like) are often deep enough to hold a good layer of drainage material before you start adding dirt.

In a pinch, even a coffee can can be made attractive. Try taking a large square of material, sitting the can in the middle of it and then bringing the material up around it and tying it in place with an attractive bow or cord. Black velvet with gold cord can look downright elegant, while burlap tied with raffia has a nice, rustic look. Lace and pink satin ribbons can look romantic - I'm sure you get the idea.

And don't overlook the possibility of clear glass bowls. I used salad bowls to plant paperwhite narcissus this year, and got the unexpected bonus of getting to watch the root system grow and expand.

Finally, there is good old terra cotta. You can but plastic look-alikes now that are real foolers, except for one thing - they don't age in that graceful way the real thing does. Terra cotta is one of those materials that looks better as it weathers and gets a sort of patina. If you are using your terra cotta outdoors then paint it with some buttermilk or yogurt to speed up the process. Pots in the shade should soon start looking romantically mossy, while those in sun will get an attractive white bloom on them.

If you are gardening indoors, though, you can fake it with paint. Standing way back from the pot with a can of white spray paint will give you a fair imitation of that white bloom. Moss green paint thinned and rubbed over a pot will give it an aged look. But giving terra cotta a brush wash can give you all kinds of surprising effects. Deep blue paint, rose-pink, or coral all seem to look surprisingly good - and can complement the flowering plants inside. Just use two parts water to one part paint and either rub on with a soft cloth or brush on loosely.

An interesting but happy discovery I made one year was that using semi-gloss black spray enamel on terra cotta with a sculptured relief made it look like the black Jasperware made by Wedgwood. You could do an even more convincing imitation of Wedgwood by first painting the pot solid semi-gloss white, then painting the black over it and quickly rubbing it away from all the raised parts of the design.

The one thing to remember is to keep the container relatively plain. Flowered china cachepots are lovely if you are growing ivy or plain green plants - but they would compete with a flowering plant for the eye's attention. Give some thought to making the container attractive - but make sure that the living plant within it is clearly the star attraction.

As you can see, your choice of containers for those prized container plants really is only limited by your imagination. Take a look around the house and you will probably find endless possibilities, from the homey to the starkly elegant. And if it's not quite right, remember that paint or a fabric covering can work wonders.