Containing your garden

LORIE KLEINER ECKERT SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN

For anyone whose dream of puttering in a garden is on hold until a mate and a home in suburbia can be found, the advice of the day is this: don't let weeds grow around your dreams. Now is the time for all future gardeners to break out their trowels, dibbles and spades. While that white picket fence you've imagined may not be a part of your reality, a garden in full bloom can be – even in the smallest of apartments. The path to this goal is container gardening.

Like all fields of study, there is a lot to know about gardening and an entire vocabulary to be learned. For those who do not know annuals from perennials or biennials from bulbs, a guidebook is mandatory and I recommend Daria Price Bowman's Container Gardens. It is a part of MetroBooks' Easy Gardens series, which says a lot. It is also a feast for the eyes. It offers 10 different theme gardens and gives a watercolor rendering of each garden in bloom, plus close-up photographs of each plant featured in the design. But more important than the frame-worthy illustrations is the cookbook-like approach that the author takes. The recipe for each of her gardens has a short, specific list of plant ingredients. This is not to limit you in the plant world, just to help make sure you are not overwhelmed, as you might be with other books that are more like plant encyclopedias.

The most manageable garden in this book contains only four plants while the most involved has 13. So pick the most intriguing theme – perhaps the Hummingbird and Butterfly Garden, the Hot Color Garden, the Children's Vegetable Garden or the Fragrant Garden – and get ready to plant!

All the basics for beginners are offered first, both general gardening information and concepts specific to gardening in containers. Thus Bowman discusses such things as planting, pruning and deadheading plants and also plant hardiness zones - which plants grow best in which climates. She then goes on to choosing and preparing appropriate containers and to all the ingredients needed in a good commercial potting mixture. What's most interesting, though, is that some very general topics – such as watering, fertilizing and winter care – take specific twists when applied to this form of gardening. Daily watering is recommended, as the small volume of soil in pots is very vulnerable to evaporation. Likewise, with limited soil, there are limited nutrients available to the plant and so frequent fertilization is also a must. And again, due to so little soil, changes in temperature are more sudden and severe, making winter care a large consideration.

Bowman's clearly written explanations make her gardening tips seem obvious yet a lot of trial and error would be required for novice gardeners to figure out the important things she makes simple. One surprising pointer is that heavy planters filled with soil mix and plants may jeopardize the structural integrity of a deck, porch or balcony, making pot placement a concern. Additionally, backyard soil should not be used for container gardening as it is too heavy for most plants and can harbor insects, diseases and toxins. Beyond discussions of plant hardiness zones, Bowman also mentions that the containers themselves must be chosen with hardiness in mind, as some may crack if left outdoors through an especially cold winter. And, surprisingly, there really are best and worst times to water a container garden. To avoid quick evaporation, it's best to water in the morning before the sun is strong. And unless drainage in a pot is excellent, it's worse to water at night, as a plant may get diseased if its roots sit in water overnight.

Following all this advice can surely lead to a garden in bloom, but more importantly, it can also help a single person's life bloom. A world of new friends awaits you: those people who also speak the language of plants. So be sure to chat with the folks you find perusing the garden books at libraries and bookstores, those who are shopping for plants at nurseries and those who are checking out the hand tools and planter pots at flea markets. You can also think about joining a gardening club or a tour group visiting some famous gardens of the world. Through gardening you can put down roots to a more full life and through container gardening you can do it now, no house – or spouse – required.

Lorie Kleiner Eckert is a nationally syndicated singles columnist. Her book, I Need A Man's Pants to Wash, contains 52 essays on the single life. She can be reached by writing P.O. Box 714, Loveland, Ohio, 45140, or via e-mail at leke0212@aol.com.

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