(ARA) – Container gardening is a great alternative for people
who don’t have the time or space for a full garden or flowerbed.
Often, however, container gardeners may feel they have to choose
between beauty and practicality. When you can only plant so many
containers, what do you fill them with – flowers or veggies?

“Both,” says container gardening guru Pamela Crawford, author of
“Easy Container Combos: Vegetables and Flowers.”  “It’s possible to
artfully combine flowers and vegetables in single, stunning,
beautiful containers,” she says. “Practical and pretty can go
side-by-side on your patio, deck, balcony, or even interspersed in
your landscape.”

Author of nine gardening books, Crawford was a seasoned floral
container gardener when she decided to tackle the task of figuring
out a way to make vegetables look pretty in containers. “Did I ever
get a surprise when the first 100 or so vegetable combos looked
just awful,” she says. By the end of the growing season, she had
planted 1,768 vegetables, all transplants from Bonnie Plants, and
arrived at some insight into how you can make a container garden
both beautiful and bountiful.

Here are her top container garden tips:

1. Less is more – Keep it simple

“My first container attempts included mixing too many different
vegetables in the same container. The results looked like a
mish-mash,” she says. Instead, think simple, like one tall
vegetable in the center surrounded by a few flowers. Upright
tomatoes with begonias and coleus planted along the edge are quite
attractive. Or, plant one tall herb, like rosemary, and surround it
with a shorter vegetable, like lettuce.

2. Use pretty pots and hardware

Even tomatoes look good in attractive pots, supported by nice
obelisks or attractive trellises. Try planting one crooked-neck
squash in the middle of a large, ceramic pot. Or plant a tomato in
a Talavera (bright-colored geometric design) pot with an iron
obelisk to support it. 

3. Pick your pot pleasure

Almost anything can serve as a container for your garden –
flower pots, pails, buckets, wire baskets, bushel baskets,
washtubs, window planters, even large food cans. Larger veggies,
like tomatoes and eggplants, will need a larger container, at least
5 gallons for each plant. “Use the largest containers you can
afford, and that you have space for, especially with warm season
vegetables,” Crawford advises. “The plants will look better and
last longer because the roots will have more room to grow.”

4. Don’t forget drainage and do consider color 

Whatever type container you choose, remember proper drainage is
vital. Your container should have holes at the base or in the
bottom to permit drainage of excess water. Color is also a
consideration. Dark colored containers will absorb heat that could
possibly damage the plant roots. If you must use dark colored pots,
try painting them a lighter color or shading the container.

5. Flowers look fabulous combined with vegetables

Interesting looking plants like squash, okra or crooked neck
squash can stand alone in a pot. But others, like eggplant and
spinach, look much better accented with flowers. Beans, lettuce,
peppers and spinach are among the easiest veggies to start with in
a container. Veggies that require little space, like carrots and
radishes, or that bear over a long period of time, like tomatoes,
are also great for container gardening. 

Steer clear of artichokes, asparagus, corn, pumpkins and
potatoes, which don’t look good, are too big for a pot or require
you to dismantle the whole container garden in order to harvest
them.

Flowers that pair well with vegetables in containers include
dragon wing or wax begonias, coleus, fountain grass, lantana,
lavender, pansies and purple-heart tradescantia.

6. Stabilize with centerpieces surrounded by smaller plants

Floral container gardens usually look best with a large plant in
the center and smaller plants around it. The same holds true for
combo containers that mix flowers and veggies. The large plant is
called the centerpiece. Great vegetable centerpieces include
peppers, tomatoes and eggplants. Collard greens, cabbage, kale and
mustard greens make good-looking cold-season centerpieces.

7. Don’t break the bank

Warm-season vegetables do much better in large containers with
at least a 16-inch diameter. Since attractive, large containers can
be expensive, look for less expensive alternatives if you don’t
want to break the bank. Since many warm-season vegetables fall over
without support, try wooden trellises painted in contrasting bright
colors to help support the plants. 

“I used to avoid placing vegetables in planting containers
because I thought they were unattractive, but now I know better,”
Crawford says. “Now I will always have vegetables tucked in amongst
my flowers.”

Courtesy of ARAcontent