HUNTSVILLE — The Huntsville Library and the Walker County Master Gardeners recently sponsored a container gardening program.  

Perhaps you or your neighbor attended? At any rate, four master gardeners presented ideas and experiences, suggestions and problem solving, and answered many audience questions. If you didn’t attend, here are some highlights.

One of the attributes of container gardening allows that containers come in all shapes and sizes.

Consider that a gift basket might come in a wicker basket or a colander or even a flower pot depending upon its theme. A container garden may use anything from clay pots to a rotted out tree stump to an old canoe or anything in between. Your own imagination is your storybook of ideas! Use it!

Even raised beds are containers. When one grows potentially large plants, it is easy to understand why container size is important. The raised bed should be no more than four feet by four feet across to allow us a relatively easier “pot” to reach into and tend rather than say, eight feet by 12 feet. Even with raised beds and smaller containers, there are issues to be addressed daily such as watering, pest control, and feeding.

The versatility of design when using containers is infinite. For example, if you live on a lake or pond and happen to have an old unusable canoe or boat, how about growing those herbs in that vessel! What a conversation piece! One of our master gardeners has done just that and it is as lovely a container garden as anyone could want.

If you are truly eclectic, you might consider an old tire, a grove of very large old cans (placed to look artistic in an area), a wheel barrow, strawberry pots, old tea kettles, a deep bird bath, you just name it!

This writer could suggest other containers ... some odd and abstract, and others truly off the wall. I think she has mentioned the back of an old pickup truck once already in a previous article.

A garden placed in various containers can change places with the seasons. Certain plants – annuals – will not winter over, but perhaps you will want to try. Putting them into a greenhouse or lighted garage might give them enough warmth to make it through a temperate winter. For instance, herbs such as basil might survive in an indoor setting. You might experiment with other annuals. However it’s usually best to save seeds to plant in spring, or purchase new plants.

Or one may start their plants in a pot and transplant them to a larger one or into the ground later. Plants grow best with lots of space for their roots. It is important to pay attention to the tags on plants for growth dimensions. If you have a plant with the potential to grow to one foot, use an 8-inch diameter pot. If the plant will grow to three feet, you need a 24-inch diameter pot. Also, there needs to be holes in the bottom of any pot to allow for proper drainage.

Suppose you use a half whiskey barrel for a tomato plant in summer. At summer’s end when there is no more fruit to bear, you still have that barrel and it needs some gussying. Perhaps you planted marigolds around the tomato plant and they are still fairly decent. Just pull out the dead tomato plant and into that “hole” place a medium-sized clay pot with a flowering plant happily growing over its sides and you have a terraced floral effect. At the end of autumn, when the marigolds are spent, pull them out along with the center pot of whatever, and plant a mound of pansies.

Perhaps you would like to utilize a small space either in an existing garden or in the home. A large pot of a favorite green plant such as ivy growing, perhaps, on a trellis will help the gardener take advantage of vertical spaces and still have room for other things. In a well-lit window in the home or on a sun porch, a vertical garden adds vivid greenery and creates healthier air to breath. One might even train ivy to follow a wire around the upper wall of a well-lit room.

Obviously container gardening allows one to garden on a small scale. Perhaps you love herbs and enjoy cooking with them. But, alas! You live in an apartment or condo. Have you considered a hanging basket of herbs hanging in a bright window? Or perhaps you have one small area in your landscape that has the sun you need to grow delicious tomatoes. Raise or contain it!  

There are so many options to container gardening, and with so many potential gardeners there are many ideas!

Other aspects of container gardening will add to your success in growing. Potting soil mix, mulching and feeding, integrated pest management and watering are all important with containers – perhaps more so – as they are with traditional gardening. Keeping your plants properly hydrated in a container is often more difficult than in-ground plantings.

While a good drip irrigation system is recommended, a good potting soil that contains coarse organic materials helps hold in water. Check with your plant nursery or read the bags of soil. The cheapest soil is often not the best. Additionally, the gardener may add a few layers of newspaper inside the pot before the soil or cat litter (in the bottom) to help retain moisture. A good layer of mulch over the top has been proven to help moisture retention as well.

Find out more about container gardening by calling the Texas AgriLife Extension Service for information. The LEAF-PRO method of planting is highly recommended; and the agency (Tam Road and Highway 75 North) has free informational brochures. Also, watch for future gardening programs that the Walker County Master Gardeners and/or the Huntsville Library plan for the community. The community can learn so much simply by utilizing the free programs offered them!

For more information on the Walker County Master Gardeners, please call (936) 435-2426 or go to www.walkercountymastergardener.org/ The WCMG website is a bounty of useful gardening information and citizens are encouraged to peruse it often.

If you have any questions about the information in this article or any of the Extension programs, please contact the Walker County AgriLife Extension Office at (936)435-2426, or walker-tx@tamu.edu. Extension programs serve people of all ages regardless of socioeconomic level, race, color, sex, religion, disability or national origin. The Texas A&M University System, U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the County Commissioners Courts of Texas cooperating. A member of the Texas A&M University System and its statewide agriculture program.