Category — Containers

In my case, that title should read, Never For Strawberries. For growing strawberries in strawberry pots in my area poses several problems.

First of all, in our hot, dry, rainless summers, any fair-sized terracotta pot can dry out, killing the contents, in the course of a single relentless sunny day. A largish terracotta pot, like a strawberry jar, might take two. Those of us who tend to be distracted by things in life other than gardening learn this the hard way.

The first year I got my strawberry pots, I innocently put strawberries in them. Since I have very few garden spots involving full sun (my second strawberry pot problem), I used alpine strawberries, white alpine strawberries to be precise, which I got from a specialist catalogue at a very special price. They were alpine strawberries with runners (most alpine strawberies don’t have them), which appealed to me: I could propagate more, because at this price, I wasn’t going to be able to afford to buy them.

The first year I put strawberries in the strawberry pot, the plants in the bottom of the pot went dead after a few weeks. I realized this was because watering from the top meant that the water either evaporated or ran out the side holes before it got to the bottom.

I regrouped. I set up my simplest bottom-watering system, which is to put the pot in a plastic bulb bowl – with the plug still in the hole, so the bowl holds water. This way , the plant has a reservoir of water to draw on, and, in the case of terracotta, the pot itself wicks up some of the water, so it’s a little less porous (read: liable to dry out the soil).

This time, the bottom plants did well, and the top ones died. Same problem, only in reverse. I did try watering from the top and using the bottom-watering system as well, but this was tiresome, and I never did get any strawberries.

I planted the strawberries somewhere else, and retired the strawberry pot. A year or two later, I was overwhelmed with my usual fall influx of spring bulbs. I thought: I’ll just use this strawberry pot as a bulb pot. After all, I don’t water them; they like to be dry in summer. And the terracotta will ensure they get drainage.

So in went my antique maroon-dark Philippe do Comines tulips at the top; in the side pockets went tiny, early-blooming Iris danfordiae.

And for a few years, all was sort of well. The I. danfordiae bloomed the first year, but needed replacing in each coming year, so while they accepted the strawberry pot, they weren’t exactly happy there.

The Philippe de Comines bloomed for a couple of years, then went blind. (On reviewing this post, it came to me that I should explain this. My tulips did not look at an eclipse or a Day of the Triffids meteor shower and suddenly become unable to see: what happened was that they continued to put up single spears of leaves, but didn’t bloom. That’s how bulbs go blind.) When I finally dug them up, they had split into many tiny bulbs, ready to be grown in a bigger space, so they could mature and bloom. They had always looked a little short for the tall strawberry pot, anyway.

I transplanted Philippe de Comines into other containers. That left the strawberry jar empty. Where it sat until recently, when I was in dire need of transplanting one of my lavenders.

Looking around for pots – if there were a portrait of me as a gardener, it would be me looking around for pots, preferably in a noble pose, like stout Cortez and his companions, viewing the ocean and each other with wild surmise* – looking around for pots, I spied the strawberry pot. Empty.

I had to peel back the root layers from my lavender; it really had gotten awfully  potbound, and the pot it was in was wider than the strawberry pot. But much shallower, I reasoned to myself (or perhaps to the lavender). The strawberry pot would give the lavender more root room, and after the radical cutting back I’d given it on top, I expected great things. Since it’s one of the more compact lavenders (knee-high ‘Rosea’, with pink flowers – really mauve in my climate and soil), the proportions should be right for the strawberry pot when it grows out. At least that’s the vision.

But what about the side pockets? While cleaning up in another large container, I was inspired: here was one of the places I’d dumped my little bearded iris roots. Since I hadn’t had a place for them last fall, I just slipped them into any container that had a spare slice of room. They weren’t doing very well, because they didn’t have much sun in those crowded conditions. They were alive, though, which had been the point of the exercise.

Now I thought: what about putting them in the side pockets of that strawberry jar? Bearded iris don’t like being buried deep; they actually prefer to be partly out of the soil, so they’ll be all right in there (soil tends to settle and sift from the pockets, leaving the roots of whatever’s in them exposed). Neither one of them has to have water to barely survive, so an occasional summer watering would probably keep them in decent shape. And the combination might look cool in that pot, grey-greens against dark terracotta.

So that’s where I put them. The iris and lavender are waiting: will they be the final epoch of my strawberry pot? Or will it need renewal next year?

Next post: about those alpine strawberries and what happened to them

* leaving out the mass murder bits. For those of my readers who know Cortez only from Keats, his progress through the Americas was marked by the kind of slaughter, torture, and lies that the Nazis (or some previous U.S. governments) could have taken pride in.

I’d actually intended that this combination planter would be tulip ‘Gypsy Love’ with crocus ‘Gypsy Girl’. But as life would have it, the ‘Gypsy Love’ tulips had either died out some time ago or, in a night of passion, thrown their label into an entirely different pot. Instead, I’d planted the hyacinth ‘Gypsy Queen’   These are some of the problems a literary-minded gardener faces.

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t have planted a crocus with a hyacinth: the bloom times are just too close. Fortunately, ‘Gypsy Queen’ is always the latest of my hyacinths to bloom, so I may just squeak by with this combination.

Meanwhile, over in the ‘Rijnveld’s Early Sensation’ pot,  the mix with Ornithogalum nutans ‘Silver Bells’ is working out more the way I’d imagined. Little tufts of ornithogalum (I’d thought they were crocus before I looked at the label; I haven’t grown ornithogalum before) have popped up amid the sturdy stems and leaves of Rijnveld.

Up on top, it looks like this:

 As usual, bloom time has not been the only consideration in making these combinations (well, in making one and having one made for me). Plant height is something that needs to be kept in mind, and I’m still experimenting with that one.  It’s easy to see that the hyacinths will have no trouble rising above the little crocuses, but I’m not sure if the ornithogalum will suffer from the shade of looming daffodils. Time will tell.

Another consideration is the requirements of the bulbs you’re planting together. All of these bulbs come from the Mediterranean, where they have the same rainless summers we do here. So I plant them in containers that get no water in summer; after the bulbs die, I drag the containers out back where the foliage can die in peace, and leave them, except for fertilizing and transplanting, until next spring.

Planting two kinds of bulbs in one container not only saves me buying more containers; it also means I don’t have to drag containers to the back until I get the second show. (I can move them off the porch, though, to give room to something more spectacular, until the second flush of flowers presents itself.  Then I shuffle the pots around again.) When the hyacinth and ornithogalum bloom,  I’ll be taking pictures of them in with their defunct buddies. So far, these are two combinations that seem to be working – even if one of them is an accident.

Every fall I have more bulbs than I have pots, so every fall I compute the relative blooming time and size of bulbs in an attempt to cram as many bulbs as possible in each pot, and buy as few pots as possible.  Every pot with large bulbs in it has room at the top for small bulbs, if you can work the combinations and the bloom times right. Then you get two shows from the same container.

Hyacinths are big bulbs, buried deep, but I’d always considered them to be so early that there was no point in planting anything in with them. Planting hyacinths with something else was equally problematic: hyacinths are too big to put in with tulips, they’d get in each other’s way.  You can’t put them with lilies, because the lilies will want water later in the season, and the hyacinths need to be dry.  So I just planted hyacinths by themselves.

The older hyacinth varieties I grow perennialize really well for me, so I had a number of pots with open real estate, as it were, if only I could figure out how to use it. In the last few years, I’d been experimenting with more small, early-spring bulbs, and it gradually dawned on me that some of them bloomed significantly before hyacinths. So they could get their flowers out without being overshadowed by looming hyacinth foliage. At least that was what I hoped

The suspense is gone out of this narrative, because the picture at the top of the post shows you it’s working. But the experiment has also unfolded another, unphotographed, secret of succession.

‘Katherine Hodgkins’ came out this year just as Iris danfordiae was fading. Since I’d just planted the I. danfordiae this year, and Katherine Hodgkins is in its second year, they may bloom farther apart next year. (Bulbs tend to come up later in their first season than they do in subsequent years – assuming they last.)

That means I’m making progress in my attempts to line up a couple of months’ worth of irises.  So far, I have Sylvia’s Iris unguicularis  ‘Mary Bernard’, which will bloom in winter, well before Iris danfordiae. ( Iris reticulata might fit between the two.) Then comes ‘Katherine Hodgkin’. I still need to fill in the gaps, never mind sorting out the later-blooming bulbous iris types to keep irises in my garden as long as possible. Meanwhile, I’ll need to work out how to keep them perennial. This is a project that could keep me happy for years.

The Art Historian and I reached the large terrace where the watercourse goes underground. We met up with a fellow gardener by this pot of  linaria and what looks to me like some form of pelargonium (if it isn’t a geranium, or a heuchera: if you know this plant, take pity and let me know, too).  It was one of those annoying moments when the name of the cultivar – ‘Festiva?’ – is right on your tongue, but somehow not formed enough to quite turn into a word. (Identification for this one, and the red-twigged plant, would be a relief, too.)

A terracotta urn of forced tulips next to the linaria started a conversation with the chance-met gardener, who said he prechilled and planted tulips every year. My hat is off to someone who thinks this far ahead this far and works this hard to have tulips in a hostile environment.* I’m sure they look great in containers in his yard or on his porch. Yet somehow the tulip pots stuck among the brilliant tropical lushness of the Getty just looked out of place to me, a Georgia O’Keefe flower in a Betye Saar painting.

But if tulips with tropicals don’t strike my fancy, I can still appreciate the designer’s urge  for bold new combinations. Robert Irwin’s motto, “Always changing, never twice the same,” is carved into the garden’s plaza floor, which according to the Getty website, “[reminds] visitors of the ever-changing nature of this living work of art.”  Irwin’s vision includes the people inside his artwork.  Instead of the broad allees of formal European gardens, long stretches where people can see and be seen in large groups, Irwin’s meandering paths and spirals take you in a flow pattern where you see only a few people at a time – and you hear even fewer. It feels as if you are on your own personal journey.

Descending a deep, precipitous turn in the path, and the Art Historian and I were suddenly tiny Borrowers in the giant world of the trellises, now revealed in their hugeness.

Further along, the Art Historian and I admired this much simpler pea or sweet pea trellis (in LA, peas get planted year-round, which is why they can have already climbed so high in mid-February). It’s made out of 1 x 1s glued together, although it could as easily be made from scrap wood or twigs (in which case you’d have to use twine or some other form of attachment). To our eyes, the pea trellis made an impressionistic picture with bold plant combinations, unlike the forced tulips and incipient roses we saw.

Unusual combinations are the order of the day in this garden, with its particular pallette of art, climate, water supply, and huge foundation for support. Where else would you find brugmansia and osier willows growing next to each other? (The osier willows are the red and yellow twigs in the background.) The brugmansia flowers had only a subtle, slightly lemony scent; it was midday, after all, and they really wait for the night.

This oxalis/grass/succulent/large bulb combination is a gratifying mosaic of color and shape, though all plants have a similar smooth texture. It’s also a combination that would be difficult to grow as a perennial garden in most places, though it could serve as inspiration for similar low-water combinations to fit your own climate.

Nasturtiums, tropical grasses, and what looks like agapanthus make exuberant fountains of color together. I can’t help thinking this would make a great container combination.

While most of my attention was drawn by unusual combinations, single specimens got a look, too. I found the stems of this tropical grass-like plant

as photographable as the leaves.

The orange-tinged ephedra (an almost abstract plant) was new to me.

And while I have long held the opinion that gold leaves are sick leaves, this sunstruck gold succulent (what can it be?) just bursting into flower might open me to a whole new world of understanding.

The center of the Getty garden is a beautiful example of monocropping – of azaleas? (Yes, they’re Kurume azaleas: I checked the Getty website.)  The pool is shallow enough that the gardeners can wade to create the strokable-looking roundness of the maze. My friend at the Getty says the gardening staff works hardest of all. I believe it. Everything in the garden was beautifully groomed, without ever being stiff or unlivable. All hail Getty gardeners.

So here’s my advice. If you’re in LA, forget the museum: go see the Getty gardens. I have only one complaint: there are no botanical labels.  (You may have guessed this from  the vague plant attributions and  lack-of-identification sniveling throughout these posts. And unfortunately since I’ve been to the website, I can’t whine quite as heartily: they do have a list of some botanical and common plant names there. But still. On with my plaint.) While this is probably for reasons of high aesthetics, it’s a little frustrating to the gardener looking for inspiration. Since they label the art inside with names and dates, why not do the same for the art outside?

*There are such things as tulips which need no help in non-chill climates, but they are species types, not the large and ebullient garden ones we saw here.

Last month, Sylvia (from England) revealed the winter flowers of her garden. When I found a flower on my ‘Freckles’ clematis one morning, I decided to follow her lead. To me, it’s amazing to find things flowering when, every night, I am draining my pipes so they won’t freeze.

‘Freckles’ (a Clematis cirrhosa cultivar) is pictured at the top. I wrote about it earlier this year, describing it as a winter-flowering clematis. I didn’t know how right I was. Since it’s a selection from the Beleares, where they don’t have much frost, or may not have any: huge, old bearing fig trees are common, some of the rosemary grows well over your head, and almonds have green fruit in March), I thought this clematis would shut down for business once the weather got really cold. It hasn’t. Not only have I got this flower, the leaves are still fresh and green.

All pretty sparse, as you can see, but I’ve had this clematis for less than a year. Can’t wait to see what it does next winter.

Another flower that is gracing my doorstep is the ever-beautiful Iris danfordiae. A small iris, all head and no stem, it has a fresh mild fragrance which you can enjoy more of in the house. I put Iris danfordiae in shotglasses or tiny jars, one or two at a time; they last for a few days. I like to put them someplace handy, like the kitchen table, so I can lift the whole bright nosegay up and sniff it for refreshment. They’re also great for sickrooms, because they’re small enough not to take much room on the bedside table, low enough that someone lying down can really see them, and easy to sniff from a prone position.

Those of us who plant bulbs in containers can bring these treats up close, where we  can see (and smell) every bit of drama as they unfold. Since no porch is big enough to hold all the plants I want to have close to me, I like getting to rotate plants in their prime so that they’re nearer to me. It helps that I plant bulbs in lightweight fiber pots, easier to schlep.

Iris danfordiae has always been an annual for me, but this time may be different. In Janis Ruksans’s well-named book Buried Treasures, I found a possible cure. Ruksans (his name is spelled incorrectly, as I don’t have diacritics in WP –if anyone knows of how to do them, I’d be grateful to know) – Ruksans tells of how I. danfordiae tends to split into tiny grains after flowering. This would explain the disappearance of my bulbs. His solution is to give them a good dose of fertilizer and plant them more deeply, 15-20 cm (about 8 inches), about twice as deep as you’d ordinarily plan a bulb this size.

So I planted my Iris danfordiae deep this year, and next year will tell if that tactic works in my area and in pots.

Violets are great in containers, forming a kind of miniature groundcover which allows other plants to grow through later in the season. Right now, they’re in their own,  coming out in strength. This unnamed passalong variety I got from the yard of my friend and former bandmate, Dan Scanlan. He lives in a twenties-era house which has a lot of plants from the old garden in it, including these violets. When our band rehearsed in his garage, these violets scented the entryway every February. I remarked on them so much that he gave me a few clumps.

I’m fascinated by violet varieties and history – at the beginning of the twentieth century, they were the most popular cut flowers in the U.S.  I’ve bought fancier named varieties, in search of exotic beauties – but this nameless Viola odorata, living on in abandoned homesites and old gardens around our county,  is the one I keep liking the best.

The final flower – and I do mean ONE flower – is even more common than the violets. For some reason, one of my Dutch Master daffodil pots is far in advance of the others. I can’t think why; I planted them all last year (usually, an old, established pot will bloom before a just-planted-this-fall one). And they were all pretty much in the same place, so none got more sun exposure than another. Just another of the mysteries of garden life.

Dutch Master is a common hybrid: too old to be new and different, to young to be antique. Yet when it is blooming on my doorstep in winter, it’s not common at all.
Next post: A letter from Sylvia. All about hellebores.