Hot Pots
Anne Jaeger
Talk about some hot pots for very cool parts of the city…. Wow! Just set your eyes skyward in the Pearl, Park blocks or historic Irvington and you can’t help but see the creativity packed into pots all over Portland.
Don’t you wish someone would sweep in, bring all the pots with them and leave them for you to enjoy? It’s only a matter of money, honey. Take my friend, Sara Swangard, for instance. The 30-something sales executive for a publishing company lives in a great condo in Irvington. She was at her wits end this summer. The message Sara sent sounded something like this “SAVE ME!” Sara couldn’t stand living another year with a barren terrace “I kept the blinds down all year so I wouldn’t have to look out there.” Sara wanted me to bail her out and make some suggestions. She confides “I do not have a green thumb and I’m not interested in gardening of any kind.” So, being the great “delegator” that I am, I passed the buck to a real professional; Lynn Snodgrass from Drakes 7 Dees Garden Center and Landscaping at 165th and SE Stark. Drakes stepped in with a tailor made a scheme. It’s perfect for Sara. Lynn Snodgrass says “Condo owners choose that lifestyle because they don’t have a lot of time for gardening. My goal was to come up with low maintenance pots with maximum beauty and plants which require minimal gardening experience.” Bulls-eye! Lynn’s advice? Measure the space and come up with a plan right away.
And this plan gives the rest of us insight into how we can do it ourselves. Great garden containers begin with the pot. Snodgrass was very clever here. She chose light weight manmade Italian clay (reinforced resin) pots and light weight metal pots (copper with a charcoal stain.) Even close up you can not tell the Italian pots are not made entirely of terra cotta. And yet they are light enough that one person can lift them alone! Oh and here’s the other tricky thing about these pots; weight is a consideration, especially for the people on the deck below you! “Spend the extra time and extra money looking for classy pots” because Lynn says you’ll have them forever. “Stay away from real terra cotta on a terrace. It shows salt stains and will crack during extreme temperature changes of hot and cold.”
So, lesson one: Plan the space before you shop. Then get convincing pots (that look like the real thing) you can rearrange at will or take with you when you move.
Next, Snodgrass picked plants that would look great all year and augmented them with easy annuals (See info) The annuals last until frost and are replanted next year with something snazzy again. Sara’s favorite pot is a tall charcoal stained copper pot with a Cryptomeria in it. “Tall doesn’t necessarily mean wide” according to Snodgrass and the taller trees makes visitors feel safe and enclosed without blocking the view.
Lesson two: Use some shrubs and trees that will last forever, but don’t forget to provide pops of color with easy care annuals. Lynn Snodgrass chose red and white geraniums because they’re no fuss, no muss and match Sara’s colors inside. Here, the inside pattern repeats outside.
The final thing that makes a big difference is grouping the pots together. Lynn Snodgrass used the same technique as the hot new garden designers Little and Lewis, the book authors who live on Bainbridge Island. I recently interviewed David Lewis and George Little for the “Smart Gardening” television show on public broadcasting nationwide and learned some great tips about grouping pots. They rearrange their pots all over the garden and NOT just on a terrace. They use pots to hide empty spots or camouflage other plants which aren’t performing. David Lewis says “We’re great fans of simplicity and allow each great architectural plant to hold its own” alone in one pot. Architectural is shorthand for something big with interesting shape or form. “If you use just one or two plants in each pot then group the pots together, you come up with a movable bouquet of plants and texture” he says.
Thomas Hobbs, author of “The Jewel Box Garden” says the same thing. While at his famous nursery in Vancouver BC, I recently overheard him tell customers Dean Richards and Bryan Common “Just put one or two plants together in each pot for a big fat Wow!” So clearly, this is a trick all the designers use.
Now, let’s get back to our “30 something” living in Irvington. Sara has almost doubled her living space, instead of shutting it off, she uses her outdoor terrace as another room. “I open my blinds every day. I eat breakfast out here and entertain my guests ‘al fresco’ when ever I can.” Now for Lynn’s on going advice to Sara “Don’t cut corners with fertilizing (do it on a regular schedule) and don’t forget to water. Even in Oregon, pots need to be watered in the winter!”
So after running with the big dogs of design, do you believe the days of overstuffing our pots are over? Naw, I don’t think so. Although, the one plant, one pot theme certainly gives us an opportunity to make our own “movable scene stealers” where ever we put them. And listen, if you run short of ideas, just look up. There are definitely some great pots in cool parts of this city.
All Weather Potted Plants
*‘Sekkan’ Cryptomeria japonica
*‘Blueberry Muffin’ Rhaphiolepis
*”New Zealand Flax” Phormium
*‘Sunset’ Manzanita Arctosphylos
* ‘Snow White’Chamaecyparis lawsoniana
*’Sweet box” Sarcoccoa ruscifolia
*’Wanford Page’ Boxwood Buxus
*Photinia fraseri
*Dracaena
Summer Color (Easy care) Annuals
*Geranium
*Marigold
*Stock
*Sweet potato vine
*Calibrachoa
*Lamium maculatum
*’Silver bells’ Dichondra
*Osteospurnum
*’Creeping Charlie’ Lysimachia
