robably the most important thing to consider in planting any garden is what
your primary interest is in doing so. Are you planting solely for the practical
value of growing some of your own
vegetables? Are you into
herbs and want to get the freshest
available? Are you just trying to spruce up the appearance of the space in
which you are planting with some
flowers? Perhaps your goal is a
combination of all of these. With a bit of planning, integration of these three
types of plants into your overall garden scheme is relatively easy. To give you
an idea what is involved with each type, below are some suggestions for each.
More selection ideas can be found in The National Home Gardening Club's
Container Gardens.
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Vegetables
There's nothing like preparing a meal that includes vegetables fresh picked from
the garden. Not only do fresh vegetables excell in flavor but in vitamin content
as well. Certain species of vegetable are particularly ideal for container
gardening in as much as they can be grown in individual containers (unlike, say,
carrots which require a large area of continuous planting space). Here are some
ideal vegetable choices:
- Peppers
- Tomatoes
- Broccoli
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Herbs
Herbs add another nice dimension to the garden. As with vegetables, fresh herbs
have more flavor. If you use herds medicinally, their healing strength is greater
the fresher they are. Some examples of pottable herbs are:
- Parsley
- Rosemary
- Chamomile
- Sage
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Flowers and Decorative Plants
What garden would be complete without some flowers amid a wash of green foliage.
Interspercing climbing plants and plants that drape downwards with ground-cover
plants and plants that are more localized in one place is a good use of vertical
space. This is an especially good implementation for small balconies like mine
where horizontal space is at a minimum. Trellaces can be fashioned from bamboo
shafts and the like. A sturdy metal plant stand can be added to give plants
elevation. The following mixture of plants has all of these characteristics
represented:
- Impatients (localized)
- Clamatis (climbs)
- Goldmarie Bidens (drapes)
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