Down To Earth Garden Club

I love planting big pots. You have so much more control over color and composition than you do in the ground. I've fallen in love with the combination of coleus and asparagus ferns for a shady pot. Does anyone else have a favorite combination? Share your ideas for next year. And don't be surprised if I swipe them for the Brady Street lot. I've got 4 pots there now.

It does take 3 or 4 years before you get a perennial bed blooming all season. I find it kind of hit or miss since things don't always bloom when you think they should.
The new wave petunias are a great filler.

Keep in mind, this is luck and not knowledge. I have spring bulbs, next comes lavender, pincushion and some unidentified which blooms spring, summer. I also have a combination of lilies which bloom in sequence until late summer. I throw some inpulse buy annuals and leftover annuals from my containers between everything. The annuals usually last until the frost.

It is difficult to plant a bed that flowers all season without using annuals. How do you handle it?
Most of my beds are big enough to have at least a couple of perennials blooming all the time. Another thing I have discovered is that colored leafed and variegated plants help when little is flowering. What other tricks do you use?

I'd plant them without splitting them and dig them up after the first frost.
If MJ ever figures out how this forum works she is going to tell you how to store them. She is our expert.

The Down to Earth Garden Club will meet in the Smeal Conference room on the PSU/DuBois Campus at 7:30p.m.

Thanks, all, for the info.  It's too late to plant anything now, but next year it'll be looking nice.  Thanks for the tips!

The site is beautiful and informative.  Great job Golfy, Rich, and Jan too for the great info.

I was given a box of Canna Lily Roots(?) last night. Some had sprouts. Which should I pick to plant? Will there be time this late in the year for anything to happen? I might as well ask now-how do I dig them up to winter? Do I split anything?

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Thanks!