Get Creative With a Colorful Container Garden

You don’t need a large yard or a lot of space to create a beautiful garden. You can create beautiful planters or containers that fit any space with limitless plant combinations that bring beauty and joy to wherever you call home.

There are plenty of options to choose from when it comes to the size, shape and color of containers and planters — hanging baskets, window boxes, small and large containers for combination plantings, single plant containers and clusters of pots. Your options for the plants themselves are plentiful and diverse, too.

To create a beautiful container design, begin by choosing a container that suits your spatial needs. Most garden centers, retail nurseries and online shopping venues offer many types.

Next, choose the plants and arrange them in a design of your choosing. Keep them looking good until you want to change the design.

One of the great advantages is that you can change these out. Year after year, you can play with the plant combinations, colors, textures and themes.

A combination planter typically has what is known as a filler, a thriller and a spiller. If you haven’t heard these terms yet, let me explain them to you.

The thriller is the plant that is main attraction of your container planting. It will be the focal point of your design. Choose a plant that has some height and a striking flower form or color.

The filler is just as the name suggests. Use these plants to fill in areas to create a fuller look in the arrangement. Fillers are medium-sized plants, typically in a mounded form, that make up the bulk of the plant material in the container. You can choose just one type of plant for focal impact, or you can choose several different plant types of similar sizes.

Spiller plants are the trailing, cascading plants that flow over the sides of the containers and complete the arrangement.

When choosing fillers and spillers, a good rule of thumb is to use an odd number of plants — three, five, and seven and so on.

Symmetry brings a good balance to beginning designs. Although it is not required to have an equal number of similar or identical plants on each side of the focal point, it does bring a visual balance to the arrangement.

Be sure you bring different textures into the container planting and design. Add fine-, medium- and coarse-leaved plants. Use tall pieces that bring height for the focal point; shorter, mounding species en masse; and low-growing spiller plants to soften the edges of the container planting.

Lastly, use proportional sizes to match the container. For large containers, use larger plants; use smaller plants in small containers. The rule of thumb is that the tallest plant should not be taller than 1 to 2 times the height of the container.

Now is the fun part: picking the plants. Be sure that you use season-appropriate plants. For example, if you are creating a design for the summer, make sure you are using heat-tolerant, warm-season annuals and perennials.

Most trees and shrubs will be fine throughout the seasons, but be sure to use evergreen selections unless you plan to rotate them out with the seasons as you do with your annuals and perennials.

Here are a few suggestions of Louisiana Super Plants for each category for medium-sized containers.

Thriller plants: Suncredible yellow sunflower, Flamethrower coleus series, Fireworks pennisetum, Senorita Rosalita cleome, Intenz Classic celosia, Flutterby Tutti Frutti buddleia, Camelot foxglove series, Diamonds Blue delphinium, Jolt and Amazon dianthus series.

Filler plants: Beacon impatiens series, Babywing begonia series, Serena and Serenita Raspberry angelonia, Mesa gaillardia series, Butterfly and Lucky Star pentas series, Sorbet viola series, compact varieties in the Sunpatiens impatiens series, Kauai torenia series.

Spiller plants: Mini Vista Indigo and Vista Bubblegum in the Supertunia petunia series, Homestead Purple verbena, lemon sedum.

Heather Kirk-Ballard, Ph.D.
Consumer Horticulture Specialist

March

1. In the vegetable garden: Work compost and a preplant complete fertilizer, such as 13-13-13, at seven to 21 days before planting or laying mulch cloth. In south Louisiana plant beans, cantaloupes, collard greens, sweet corn, eggplants, herbs, mustard greens, okra, Southern peas, peppers, pumpkins, summer squash, tomatoes and watermelons. North Louisiana should wait until the beginning of April.
2. In the lawn: Make your first mowing at a low setting and remove grass clippings. Continue to treat cool-season annual weeds in the lawn. Let your lawns begin to green up before you start fertilizing lawns this month after March 15 in south Louisiana and after April 1 for north Louisiana.
3. In the landscape beds: Continue to enjoy your cool-season bedding plants that were planted in fall. They will have another outstanding display of color this early spring before it is time to replace them with warm-season bedding plants around the beginning of May.
4. Trees and shrubs: Spring is a great time to plant new trees and shrubs. Consider size, fall foliage change, flower interests and whether you want evergreen or deciduous trees or shrubs when selecting new plants. Apply dormant oils to control scales, whiteflies and other sucking insects on trees and shrubs that may be affected. Fertilize this month if you missed it in February. Begin your preventative rose spray program in early March. Alternate fungicides to control blackspot and powdery mildew. Treat in the early morning or late evening every week. Copper is a great organic alternative to other traditional fungicides.
5. Fruit: Apply fertilizer to fruiting trees that were not fertilized in winter now at the recommended rate. Recommended 8-8-8 fertilizer rates:
   • Blackberry – Half of a pound per plant.
   • Blueberry – Fertilize with 2 ounces per year of growth up to 1 ½ pounds.
   • Fig – 1 pound per year of 8-8-8 up to 10 pounds.
   • Citrus, peaches and plums – 1 to 1 ½ pounds per year of tree age up to a maximum of 8 pounds.

April

1. In the vegetable garden: Apply pine straw mulch to prevent weeds in the vegetable garden. The last week of April is a good time to side-dress vegetables planted in late March with ammonium nitrate, ammonium sulfate, calcium nitrate or potassium nitrate. Be sure to apply several inches away from the base of the plant and water in immediately to prevent burning. Stake tomatoes when the first flower clusters to prevent fruit from touching the ground and to help prevent fruit rot.
2. In the lawn: Fungal diseases are common this time of year. Keep an eye out for large patch and gray leaf spot. St. Augustinegrass is susceptible and centipedegrass is more resistant. Use fungicides containing maneb, myclobutanil, PCNB, propiconazole, thiophanatemethy or triadimefon every 10 days as the fungus persists. Control cool-season annual weeds, such as bedstraw, chickweed and henbit, from producing seeds that will be a headache next winter if not taken care of now
3. In the landscape beds: You can begin planting warm-season annuals, perennials and caladium bulbs this month. Thin border plants and clumping ground covers, such as monkey grass, liriope and hostas, this month. Use a 2-inch mulch layer on newly planted landscape beds to conserve moisture and to control weeds.
4. Trees and shrubs: Prune spring-flowering shrubs, such as azaleas, camellias, viburnum and spireas, after they have finished flowering. Fertilize after pruning. Powdery mildew can be a problem on the foliage of ornamentals. Control with fungicides containing one of the following active ingredients: azoxystrobin, copper sulfate, myclobutanil, trifloxystrobin or triforine.
5. Fruit: Thin fruit on your fruit trees this month. Thinning fruit improves the size and quality of the remaining fruit and can help reduce the spread of diseases.

May

1. In the vegetable garden: Now is a critical time to scout vegetable plants for immature stink bugs and leaf-footed bugs. If you see them spray soon. When they turn into adults, they are much more difficult to control. Continue to plant warm-season vegetables.
2. In the lawn: Be on the lookout for weeds. If weeds are present, you can apply a lawn weed killer labeled for use on your lawn. Early weed control before going into hot summer months is essential for the best turfgrass vigor. If your weeds are under control, you can encourage vigorous turfgrass growth by aerifying your lawn. Plug removal is the best method to provide air to roots. If you fertilized in March, you may go ahead and fertilize again late this month. Lay sod or sprig your lawn this month and throughout the summer, if needed. Trees and shrubs: Mulch trees. Prune ever-blooming roses back by one-third of their height to encourage a vigorous fall bloom.
3. In the landscape beds: Watering can be laborious in extended droughts in summertime. Consider installing a microirrigation system. Home installation kits and timers are homeowner friendly and readily available online and in stores. Be sure to buy a timer with a rain delay for days with rain. Next month is National Pollinator Month. Plant perennials, such as coreopsis, daylily, Echinacea, gaillardia, gerbera daisy, gaura, milkweeds, Louisiana phlox, passion vine, cardinal flower, sunflowers, bee balm, Mexican sage, verbena, rudbeckia, coral honeysuckle, rose mallow and irises.
4. Trees and shrubs: This is a good time to prune spring-blooming shrubs now through no later than July to encourage new growth. Be careful not to prune summer-blooming shrubs, such as hydrangeas, butterfly bush and crape myrtles. Azalea lacebugs can be a problem in late spring and into summer. Look for white mottling or spots on the tops of leaves and dark brown insects on the undersides of leaves. Use acephate or malathion to control and be sure to cover the undersides of leaves to control the insects that are found there.
5. Fruits: Bird netting may be necessary for fruit trees and shrubs this month. It is harvesting time for mayhaws, loquat, mulberry, peach, sweet orange, blackberries and blueberries this month.

Heather Kirk-Ballard, Ph.D.
Consumer Horticulture Specialist

Steps to success

1. Remove weeds and insect- and disease-infested plants from the fall garden.
2. Work the soil. Loosely till or spade your garden area.
3. Apply fertilizer or aged manures. A key to achieving heavy vegetable harvests is using adequate fertilizer. For example, most mixed gardens (all warm-season crops combined into one area) require a medium rate of fertilizer. There are hundreds of fertilizers to choose from. To keep the recommendation simple, I would apply one-half pound to 1 pound of 13-13-13 for every 10 linear feet of row in your garden space. That rate is assuming your rows are no wider that 48 inches. That is about 1 to 2 cups of 13-13-13.
4. Water that fertilizer in!
5. Plant!!! In south Louisiana plant in early-to-mid-March. In central and northern Louisiana plant April 1 or in late March if we are warm.
6. Water your newly planted seeds and plants within one hour of planting. Keep the ground moist, not saturated, throughout the life of the garden.

Vegetables to Plant in March

... and in April

... and in May

Enjoy the Garden,

Kathryn “Kiki” Fontenot, Ph.D.
Vegetable Gardening Specialist