Pot Gardening - Fushias Basic Needs

The best conditions for fushias are humid and cool, as they are woody and tender plants.

People grow them with great success in coastal areas, with plenty of humidity and fog. Though, some types, like the Mme or the Mephisto will do better in dry and hot inland regions.

A lot of people love to use them, because they do so well in the shade, in areas like the north side of a building, with an open and high shade. In shades that are dense, such as that of a low branching tree, the fushia will make less flowers and they will get leggy.

But, if kept directly under the hot sun, they will dry out. If you want to grow them in warm climates, you can do it best in lath houses. At the same time, keep them out of the wind, as they have brittle branches and delicate flowers.

Also, they need plenty of moisture. When plants need more water they wilt. If you put them in a container, you will need to water them regularly, usually each day. They also need a good drainage, so put in the lower part of the container pebbles or cinders to make sure the water runs free.

Don't let these pots to sit in the water though, and make sure you sprinkle the leaves during hot weather, to increase humidity and get rid of dust. The best soil for fuchsias is the acid one and rich in organic matter. The best combination to use for them is one part peat moss or leaf mould, one part garden loam and either dehydrated or old manure.

Use large containers for these plants, so they can develop fully during the summer, when it's their growing season. If you have a small plant, use a six inch pot. If you grow two or three in the same pot, use a twelve inch pot. It's better if you start with plants that are young, though it will also work with vigorous and healthy larger plants.

If you don't treat fuchsias as annuals and you winter them in containers, scoop a bit of soil from the top, so you enrich the growing medium. After that, put in its place some mixture that is fresh. When spring comes, take them out of the containers, cut some of the roots and the tops and put them back in pots with fresh soil. If you cut the back branches before the growth starts, the plants will branch much better.

Increasing Your Supply

If you want to grow your selection of fuchsias, take cuttings that are three inch long in the spring, put their ends in a hormone powder, and the lower part of the stems in a half sand, half leaf mould mixture.

Don't leave them in the sun and either cover them or spray them to make sure they don't dry out. After the roots form, put them in small pots, with a mix of leaf mould and light loam. Besides the spring, you can also make cutting in early fall or late summer.

While they grow, fuchsias need to be fed regularly, so put liquid fertilizer in them once a month, according to the directions found on the package. A good method is using fish emulsion, once a month.

If you want to keep them dormant during the winter, you should keep them at 45 to 50 degrees, and water them only once in a while, so the wood doesn't shrivel. The fuchsias that are designed for outdoors use will live even at 25 degrees. If they're not designed for cold weather, keep them in cool rooms, cold frames, sheds or greenhouses.

Some of the insects that usually attack these plants include white flies, aphids, leaf hoppers, red spiders or mealy bugs.

An insecticide should be used and applied at regular intervals, to keep the insects at bay.

Favorite Bulbs Gardening In Pots Advice

Since bulbs are great when grown in boxes or pots, below you can see a few favourites:

Blue Lily of the Nile or Agapanthus.

It's a plant with strap leaves, evergreen, fleshy rooted, that usually grows in urns and tubs on steps and terraces in summer time. They're easy to grow, but they still need a room with no frost, that is well lighted.

The Calla Lily, which is seen in a lot of European gardens, is easy to grow outdoors in regions that are warm, as well as put in pots in Northern regions. The most popular one is the white one, that has leaves in form of a heart.

Put them in pots during February or March, and when the weather is better take them outdoors in large pots. If they're kept in part shade or full sun areas, they will do quite well, but they need a lot of water to grow. After the foliage is ready, rest the bulbs to grow again.

The Dahlias are free flowering and colourful. The varieties that are large and tall can only be put in large boxes or planters. The smaller varieties can easily be put in smaller containers.

They can grow up to one or two feet, so they can be cultivated in tubers, with part shade or average soil. If it's February, they can be raised in seed sown indoors.

If the tubers are kept in sand or peat and the place is frost proof and cool, these plants can be grown for a long time. Make sure to sprinkle the bulbs during winter if they are shrivelling.

The Gladioulus have leaves shaped like spears, hued spikes and they flower during the summer. They can be kept outdoors only after there is no more danger of frost. Keep them four inches to six inches deep and at a six inches apart distance.

It's best to plant several containers at a few weeks in between, so you have a bloom succession.

The stems should be staked before the flowers open. Once the colour of the leaves becomes brown, lift the corms, cut the foliage and after that dust to control thrips. Keep the corms in a place that is dry.

The Gloxinias are flowers that appear during the summer and have tubular and large blooms that have the colour purple, lavender, white, pink or red. The tubers should be started indoors and only taken outside when the weather is good.

They should be kept in a place that is sheltered from rain or wind, so the leaves aren’t injured or broken by them. Pick any place when it comes to houses with low broad eaves, and place your lines of window boxes and pots.

Lilies are hardy and gorgeous flowers, that come in a wide range of colours. And these days, it’s even possible to have a garden full of lilies, from the month of May until the frost arrives. First, the Lilium pumilum variety appears, after that come the Olympic or Golden Chalice Hybrids, Madonnas and the auratums.

If you plant in the fall lilies such as tulips and daffodils, by spring the bulbs will turn into flowers. If you live in a colder region, lilies should be grown the same way as the Dutch bulbs, when it comes to outdoors during the winter. Put a few of them in two feet wide and two feet deep, together.

If their size is small, put them in a small pot, about six or eight inches in size. The larger ones put them in ten inch pots. Once they flower, you can put the pots out of sight and let them be. You can buy during the spring lilies grown in pots, which you can put into containers, without disturbing the roots.

You can put a number of them in the same container, combining for example grape ivy, English ivy, dwarf annuals or vinca. Once they flower, you can take them and put them in your garden.

Tuberose is a summer flower, that has either single or double flowers, it’s white, comes with a narrow foliage and lasts a long time.

If you live somewhere where you have shorter seasons, you should keep the bulbs inside, two months before you plant them outside. Put them in six inch pots and use liquid fertilizer in them.

They need a soil that is well drained, rich and a full sun. You should start from the beginning each year, as these flowers don’t do well the second year.

Fushias Gardening In Pots and Boxes

If shade is what you're looking for when you choose your plans, then fuchsias are the best option for you, and they look great to top it off. They are usually placed in window boxes, pots or in hanging baskets, and many also call them lady's ear drops, because of their beauty and grace.

There are a lot of varieties to choose from, hundreds probably, and among them you will find double or single varieties, white, purple or rose shades, and also the hanging and upright types. You can usually find them a lot in the state of California, because of their moderate winters and cool summers.

In most cases, you will see fuchsias of the upright variety, which are best when placed in containers, but you will also see the hanging varieties. If they are cared for properly, they can reach a very respectable size. Five feet is the length of the Reiter's Giant variety, which has a dark red and purple colour.

If you choose the Mephisto variety, know that it can be even bigger than that. If you want something smaller, you can go with Camellia, which is red and white and 3 feet long, or the Alice Hoffman, that has a length of only two feet and it's pink with white.

Tree Types

A lot of people love the tree varieties of the fuchsias, species that are trained to grow into the form of a tree. Anyone can make such a variety if they have the patience, taking a 4 inch cutting and tying it to a stake that is 4 or 5 feet high.

Then, you pinch it when it reaches a height of 2-4 feet and leave it free to branch out. But, be careful not to take any leaves from it, as it needs them to make food.

Some nice varieties to use when making a tree form are the Storm King (white and red), the Muriel (red and purple), the Flying Cloud (white) or the Gypsy Queen (red and lavender).

These tree varieties are best placed either on ranch houses patios or on terraces, though they can be used in any garden or house and still look great.

For Hanging Baskets

If you ask them, a lot of gardeners will say that fuchsias are best when kept in hanging baskets, as you can see their great looking blooms at eye level. In this form they can be used with great success to decorate entrances, walls, lath houses, walls or patios.

Put them in boxes of red wood or in plastic containers, because if you use lined wire baskets their roots dry out if you don't put more water in them.

Varieties suited best for planting in baskets include the Claret Cup (white and red), the Anna (carmine and magenta) and the Muriel (red and purple). And if you're looking for varieties that are more brilliant, you should pick from one of these: Aurora Superba (orange), Marinka (bright red), San Fancisco (orange red and carmine rose) and Amapola (pink and rose purple).

In most cases you will want to grow but one variety in each of your containers.

Espaliers and Pyramids

If you want to use fuchsias in raised containers or planters, you can use them to create espalier forms on fences and walls, where there isn't enough space to grow other plants. You do need patience and time for this, but it's not difficult to master. Create first a trellis of wire or wood, that has between five and seven tiers.

After that, make sure you train the plant while it grows, pinching it so that it branches out and doesn't have bare stems. Some of the varieties that can be used for this include the Coquette (rose and blue), Dr. John Gallwey (white and red) or the Falling Stars (scarlet and red).

Or, you can create pyramids out of them, similar to the English ivy plants. It's hard though, as they tend to break easily, so a steady hand and some patience is required to tie them in a nice form. They can be placed for maximum effect at entranceways, when they're fully grown.

The Beauty Of Fushias Gardening In Pots and Boxes . . .

Geraniums Gardening In Pots and Boxes

Geraniums Gardening In Pots and Boxes

Wherever you will travel in this country you will see these great looking flowers in a variety of colours, such as pink, scarlet, rose or red.

They can be seen everywhere, from boxes put in the windows of suburban or country houses, on rooftops, patios, terraces or in boxes on fire escapes, as well as on the porches of cottages, nicely arranged in hanging baskets.

Everyone loves these flowers, as they represent hospitality and warmth. If you want something to shock with their beautiful colour, you can't go wrong with them.

They are widely spread across Europe, used as bedding plants when they are pink or red. In northern and western countries of Europe, geraniums are put in pots, window boxes or tubs, at the entrance of gardens, both in the country and the city.

In the Mediterranean area, the varieties that exist there can grow as high as six feet. The varieties that resemble ivy grow from rooftops, balconies and garden walls, cascading over them and creating a spectacular view.

It's quite easy to grow the geranium. It's a great looking flower, and at the same time it needs very little care, living in conditions that other plants can't stomach. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have its own preferences, like staying in the sun, though it can also sit in the shade.

It doesn't like rich diets or a lot of moisture, and will become yellow if kept in a humid environment for too long. If the soil is too heavy in nitrogen, it will make only a few flowers. Even so, geraniums will grow quite well in a lot of different conditions.

While most people call it geranium, you should know that it's not entirely correct, as it is part of the Pelar gonium genus. The name, coming from the Greek language, means stork-bill, and it's in relation to the form of the seed. Still, the name that most people use to describe this plant is geranium.

GREAT VARIETY OF TYPES

This genus includes a lot of different types of plants, and you will see them in deciduous, perennial, shrubby, annual, tuberous, stem less, fibrous-rooted or long stemmed forms.

However, they can all be used in gardens and put in containers. You could make a garden only with geranium flowers and still have diversity by growing double zonal, fancy leaved, Martha Washington, Lady, ivy and other geranium varieties. That's not taking into consideration the more odd varieties such as the climbing or cactus types.

Zonal, Fancy- and Scented-leaved

Some of the characteristics of the zonal geranium include the rounded green leaves with markings on them, that are circular and dark. Most of the types that are offered by florists are from the double type, and can be planted in window boxes or gardens in the spring.

Some of these include the types Fiat Enchantress, Mrs. Lawrence, Olympic Red, Better Times or Pink Abundance. As for the single varieties, the best looking ones are the Apple Blossom, the Barbara Hope, the Nuit Poitevine, the Ecstasy or the Helen Van Pelt Wilson. They are gorgeous plants and should be kept in a place where you can admire them.

If you want a flower that you will love even when they're not bloomed, you should pick the variegated geraniums, because of its nicely coloured leaves. A lot of people think that the foliage is better than the flowers in this variety. Some of the best varieties include the Skies of Italy or the Miss Burdett Coutts.

Use them in pots, along with geraniums with green leaves.

Biennials and Herbs Gardening In A Box and Pot

Biennials and Herbs Gardening In A Box and Pot.

Canterbury-Bells have the most beautiful lavender, blue, pink, purple and white bells, but unfortunately they die shortly after flowering.

These flowers can be bought in spring time from every garden centre and if you want to attract everybody’s attention you can mix them together. If you want, you can even grow your own specimen from seed planted in June or July.

Foxgloves are very delicate plants with tall spikes and bells. The seeds must be put in soil in June or July and the young plants must be kept during winter in gardens or cold frames, covered with marsh hay or evergreen branches.

New English hybrids have flowers all around the stems and some old foxgloves have bells on one side of the spikes. During spring you can find and enjoy pot-grown rosettes.

Veronica, heuchera (coral-bells), helenium, showy stonecrop (sedum), scabiosa, Japanese iris, lythrum, platy-codon (balloon flower), tritoma, shasta daisy, heliopsis, peony, gaillardia, pentstemon, columbine, monarda (bee-balm), lavender, oriental poppy, liatris, anthemis, gas plant and butterfly weed are only a few perennials and biennials. Other rock garden plants are: basket-of-gold, arabis, viola, snow-in-the-summer, ajuga, aubretia, thyme, primrose, dianthus and auricula.

Many people use herbs when they cook because they have a great fragrance. In your personal garden you can grow parsley, fennel, marjoram, mint, sage, chives and sun-loving rosemary. Scented-leaved geraniums are cinnamon, rose, peppermint, apple and lemon.

Mrs. Frances R. Williams of Winchester, Massachusetts is a well-known lady that tried years after years to raise herbs in her garden and one day she decided to move her garden on her nine-foot square porch. That was mainly because back there the sun was lighting it until late in the afternoon.

12 low bushel baskets and 4 eggs cases filled with half-rotted compost to within 4-inches of the top. The next step was to spread everything with 3-inches of fertilized soil.

She planted savoury in half egg cases and in the other half basil. In addition to this she planted also narrow-leaved French thyme, lettuce-leaved basil, sweet marjoram and dill.

Mrs. Williams also grew in other baskets red and yellow pear, small-fruited red cherry and yellow plum varieties of tomatoes. The plants were easy to grow because they needed no daily watering because the containers were holding moisture.
Back on the other side of the house was shady and she grew open heads of leaf and Bibb lettuce in compost-filled bushel baskets.

In the last few years, people started to use containers in order to grow vegetables. It’s great to plant white-fruiting eggplants in individual pots and be admired by everybody.

If you have a contemporary terrace, a few large planters of rhubarb will look beautiful along with containers with onions, small tomatoes and carrots.
The personal garden is the best place for you to grow miniature plants and vegetables and nowadays this is a popular hobby.

Older English people enjoy growing small plants in containers raised to waist level.

Cacti are the best options if you’re living in a hot and dry climate or if you like to travel and don’t want to worry about the plants back at home. Their forms are amazing and you can decorate your garden in so many ways.

Cacti are very easy to grow. All you need to remember is that they need a small pot filled with lean soil.

In small low tubes you can grow water plants and water lilies while in larger tubes you can put the Egyptian lotus because this latter has big leaves and blooms.
Last but not least, the Bonsai (also called Japanese dwarf) is both a plant and an art form. Is a popular plant and everywhere on the market you can find instructions on how to grow and care for them. If you think you can handle a bonsai, you can buy one from a garden centre or nurserymen.