Tropicals & Tender Perennials: Tropical Garden #91 - February 2011, 0 by plantladylin

plantladylin wrote:
dyzzy: I agree, that is a lovely photo of your garden with the Agapanthus and Canna's. Some Canna Lilies are pests here in Florida, wanting to spread everywhere. I only have one clump of the blue Agapanthus left in my yard. I gave some to neighbors and gave a large white one to my next door neighbor last year.

Debra: I'm not real particular about containers for my plants either, if it will hold potting medium it's fair game for a plant!

My husband gets aquarium salt in large five gallon buckets and I confiscate empty ones every so often to use for holding potting soil (because somehow the bags always get torn) and I also use them for filling with water and liquid fertilizer. I fill the bucket with water, measure in the amount of fertilizer/plant food for 5 gals and use an old pitcher to bail out the water for watering plants. I have one bucket that I use for storing birdseed. It has a handle so it makes it easy to carry around the yard when filling the feeders, and with the tight lid it keeps bugs and moisture out to keep the seed dry. Those big buckets also make great containers for larger plants. I drill holes in the bottoms, fill them with potting medium and in goes a plant. When we had five cats we bought kitty litter in the big plastic pails and those were handy containers too! I always said I was going to at least paint the outsides so they'd look prettier but somehow never got around to doing it.

Speaking of unusual planters, I still have a cloth purse (embroidered with my name) that my sister gave me back in the early 1970's. I've used it as a holder for a potted plant many times over the past 20 years! I thought about putting potting soil directly into the cloth interior but figured it would last longer if I just used it as a cache pot and sit the plant pot down into the purse. The handle is used for hanging it. I don't remember what's in the purse right now, I'll have to go out and look when it stops raining ... if it ever stops raining! I can't really complain though because we need the rain, it's just been cloudy and drizzly here for a couple of days making it damp and dreary. We are supposed to have storms this afternoon and tonight with a slight possibility of severe weather. They are telling folks to have their weather radio's on tonight. It's supposed to rain here all week. yuck ... but at least temp's are warm, it's going to be 78º today!

This is a picture of my "purse planter" from a couple of years ago: