Village Gardens
Imaginative screening using enamelled containers
Rusted metal planters
PERFECT PLANTERS A
s we head towards the end of the growing season and just before it’s time to plant next
season’s bulbs, we have a breather to take stock, to sit and enjoy the last of the roses and plan the garden for next year. If you live in parts of Bordesley and
Alvechurch, you probably have to work with heavy clay soil – two days of sunshine and it’s like digging con- crete; a few days of rain and the earth “glugs” when you try to dig a hole. Clay is OK to grow shrubs and trees, for making pots and for the kids to use as Play Doh! That’s not to say it isn’t fertile for roses and a few other plants, but to try and create an her- baceous border or to grow bed- ding plants isn’t much fun. If you don’t
mind rolling up your sleeves and getting down to a bit of hard digging, then one solution is to
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Judy Lawrance, flower photographer, shares ideas for the next growing season.
replace the whole of the soil with topsoil – a mammoth task – but if you don’t quite have the energy or inclination to do that, then another obvious way to add colour to the gar- den is to use planters: any size, shape, colour or style. The more unconven- tional, the more interesting! Penny Disbury, fea- tured in the August issue of The Village, is the “queen” of planters. A prolific gardener, Penny grows all her bedding plants in containers.
Bee on flower
The Village October 2018
Calibrachia grow- ing in teacups made from old
car tyres; geraniums planted in a discarded
porcelain washbasin, including taps; petunias smothering an old iron bedstead, and trailing this and that from hanging watering cans and wall planters contained in picture frames. If it’s big enough to hold soil and easy enough to drill drainage holes, then Penny will use it! So really anything goes if you’re brave enough to try. Salvage yards and junk shops are
great places to pick up chimney pots, old tin baths, dolly tubs and stone troughs, all at reasonable cost. Place them in a border, among dull coloured shrubs, a dark corner where there’s not much sun, or on a patio to add interest and a talking point. The latest trend, rusted metal rings,
can be purchased from some garden centres. They are simply lengths of mild steel, bent into tube shapes and welded together. They don’t have a bottom as they just sit on top of the soil. The bought kind are already rusted, but if you are able to get someone to make them for you, you can choose the diameter and height to suit your garden. A good winter will see them
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