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Planter boxes are wonderful for giving form and emphasis to your
garden. Many modern houses are frequently designed with built-in
planters, and traditional houses have them at entranceways, on
terraces, and beside garages. Planters come in a variety of
durable materials for outdoors, such as concrete, wood, brick or
stone.
There are two types--the permanent planter box attached to the
house and the movable one bought or built to suit a particular
need. Some gardeners maintain several for replacement as plants
pass their prime. Planters are rectangular, square, oblong,
triangular, hexagonal, circular, or free form. Like pots and
tubs, their value is largely architectural.
Permanent Planter Boxes Stationary planters outdoors must be
planned with care. Those attached to entranceways or the front
of a house should be designed in proper scale and proportion,
and with good drainage facilities at the start, for unlike the
portable type, they cannot be moved or easily replaced.
It is important not to place them over ledges or other
obstructions through which water cannot easily pass. Usually
these planters are open to the ground. If the soil is clay, some
should be removed and replaced with a layer of stones or cinders
to insure drainage.
Movable Planter Boxes Mobile planters can be carried, pushed, or
wheeled to various positions. Desirable construction materials
include wood--with redwood, cedar and cypress heading the
list--metals, fiberglass, plastic and various synthetic
products. Whatever you buy, make yourself or have made, be
certain beforehand that you know what the material looks like,
how it behaves under your weather conditions and how durable it
is. A greater investment in the beginning will pay off in the
end.
Choosing The Plants When selecting the plant material, give
thought to scale. In large planter boxes, trees and shrubs,
including needle and broad-leaved evergreens, should be grown.
With annuals, rely on tall kinds, like cosmos, African marigolds
and cleome. If planters are long, repeat one of the plants for
unity and harmony. Usually some trailing plants are needed along
the edge to soften it.
Permanent planter boxes require trees and shrubs for year-round
effect. Except in the very large planters attached to big
buildings, use small or dwarf types.
Among trees for colder climates, consider Japanese maple and its
varieties, ornamental magnolias, flowering cherries, including
the weeping forms, Tatarian maple, flowering dogwood, birches,
dwarf forms of Scotch, red, and Japanese black pines, upright
arborvitaes and junipers and fastigiate trees, as the upright
European hornbeam or linden. The flowering crabs are superb,
especially the white-flowering Sargent, which remains low and
spreading.
Among evergreen and deciduous shrubs, there are the Japanese
yews, spreading and ground cover types of junipers, dwarf
arborvitae, shrubby evergreen euonymus, skimmia, cherry laurel,
mahonias, leucothoe, dwarf Hinoki cypress, the convex-leaved and
other hollies, camellias, azaleas, dwarf rhododendrons,
fothergilla, flowering quinces, heathers, and the mugo pine.
Several specimens of trees or shrubs make a pleasing combination
with one type of ground cover or trailer, like dwarf Japanese
yew with English ivy, Korean boxwood with myrtle, or dwarf
Hinoki cypress with pachysandra.
Planters also need flowers for color. You can start with spring
bulbs, like daffodils and tulips, continue with annuals, and
finish the season with chrysanthemums. For a pleasing edging,
there is the permanent English ivy. Except for small planters,
flowering plants are best combined with shrubs. For planters
that are three feet or longer, petunias and geraniums, though
colorful, are not tall enough.
Planter boxes can give excellent architectural character and
focus to open spaces. They soften the hard edges of buildings
and bring color and textural variation to what otherwise might
be a dull and unattractive area.
About the author:
COPYRIGHT 2006 Helen Wall is the owner of http://www.plantergardening.com, an
informative website especially created to help you get the most
out of growing container plants, choosing the right pots, bulbs,
seeds, plants, shrubs, bonsai trees, gardening tools and
accessories. For your success there are tips and techniques for
both indoor and outdoor container gardening.
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