Last year as I was wandering around my local garden center, I spotted the most unusual container that was an immediate must have for me.  I quickly went and picked up the container, hoisted it to a worker to get the price, only to find out that the containers were made special for a client.  I was heartbroken and just as I was getting ready to leave, the worker came up to me and said she had found one extra that I could have.  I was overjoyed and took my little planter home and gave it a place of honor amongst my other planters.

It wasn’t that the planter was particularly beautiful with a black plastic that looked like several small tires stacked on top of each other but it was the original idea behind it.  I had actually gone on the sole purpose of finally buying the impatients in the hanging bag, something that I had wanted for several years but kept forgetting to buy, and it ended up that for another year I was missing out on the impatients.  The newest container was done in a similar style to those of the impatients except it was a hard plastic tube like container that had holes cut out of it and a white pipe running down the center of it.  Shooting out of the holes in black plastic was streptocarpella, also known as Lady Slippers, in a deep blue.  It was a beautiful contrast of blue, green and black and made an excellent addition to my patio.

The white tube was perforated and you watered the container by pouring the water down the tube; the water then dispersed throughout the soil for complete saturation.

My garden center offers new plantings each year as long as I drop off the planter in the fall and pick it up in the spring.  Unfortunately, fall is a busy time of year for me and I missed the deadline for the drop off.  I also forgot to plant my own seeds in the spring (I know I was on the ball this year) so when I realized that I had this unique planter to play with, I was at the garden center picking out some annuals for the new season.

This is when I had a stroke of genius.  The garden center didn’t have any Lady Slippers so I decided to buy some Lobelia and some miniature pansies.  I filled the planter myself with the Lobelia coming out of the holes and the pansies finishing off the top.  I was very happy with what I had finished with that I wanted to share.

If you would like to make one yourself, find a tube like container, or make one yourself and cut wholes around the width and up the length of it.  Fill it potting soil until the lowest hole, put in a young plant of your choice,  and secure it with more potting soil. When you get about 2 or 3 inches of soil, plant a white tube with holes drilled into it, in the center of the planter.  Make sure you duct tape the bottom so it doesn’t fill up with soil.  Continue to do fill in with soil and plants until all the holes are filled.  Top it off with the same plant or another one.

After a while, the plant should spread out to cover the entire planter.  The pictures that I took of mine are after only two weeks and they are starting to cover very nicely.  Next year I will try to get it in in time or at the very least try for the Lady Slippers again since the effect was wonderful.

Happy Gardening

Sirena Van Schaik

Tags: , Annuals, Container Gardening, containers, lady slipper, Lobelia, miniature pansies, streptocarpella, unique containers

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