House Plant Pots

Sometimes, you just decide "enough is enough" with some plant pots.  The pots are ugly and mismatched, wrong-sized, etc.  But it never gets far enough up your To Do list.   Well, I sure have enough important things to do, but I've also been looking down the list for things that are more easily solved.

When I was transferred to a different office in 2000, was lucky enough to get a window.  But it was north-facing so no direct sunlight.  Caladiums or Coleus probably would have done OK, but I bought 2 Sandseveria snake-eye plants like these.  

They thrived!  By the time I retired in 2006, they were filled two 12" pots (and were greatly admired).  I brought them home, of course.  And I repotted them and divided them into 10 pots.  But they have been languishing by the basement patio door ever since in cheap ugly black pots of various sizes.

I decided it was time to fix that!  First thing was to get ten 8" matching pots.  And I wanted them in light green to show off the leaf colors.  That was harder than I expected.  Online, I checked Amazon, I checked Walmart, I checked Home Depot.  Green is not a popular color for plant pots.  I suppose they think you already have the "green" with the plants.

And there are 3 qualities of pots.  Cheap and thin plastic, sturdy thick plastic, and ceramic/terra cotta.  I wanted thick plastic.  And buying some of any of those is tricky.  I saw some nice ones for $4 each, but the shipping per pot was another $7, which explained the cheap price per pot, LOL!

But I eventually found some that were acceptable and $7 each with free shipping.  They look pretty sturdy.

They're are just going outside for the Summer, and I thought the pots should "at least" match.  In Winter, they can sit under low light and do fine.  So that problem is off the list...

But I had a second houseplant problem.  My master bathroom gets southern sunlight several hours a day, and I have grown variegated ivies there for 20 years.  Well, they eventually went all solid green, and then suddenly, they all died.  There is an end to every plant...

So I thought of what to replace them with (in a cleaned planter box and fresh soil).  I was looking for Coleus (which was ridiculously expensive per plant), but I found Caladiums at Home Depot on sale.  Caladiums don't need much light.  So it occurred to me that I could have 2 trays of them. 

I have 4 of these.

And 2 of these (or similar)...

One for the Master Bathroom with 3-4 hours of direct sunlight shade most of the rest of the day, and the other for the Main (windowless) Bathroom and then trade the trays every few days.  It should work.  

Growing Tomatoes And Some other Garden Items

I have 2 major problems growing tomatoes the past few years.  First, my enclosed raised bed garden is shaded by neighbors' junk volunteer trees as they have grown larger.  Second, a sunnier spot where I've grown them for 5 years has built up levels of tomato diseases and insect pathogens that just kill them.  I'll plant corn and some other crops there for a few years.

One problem with planting them elsewhere is that tomatoes like fairly soft rich soil and I don't really have space like that elsewhere.  So I thought about planting them in the best sunlight I have.  But that's where my meadow bed is.  And tomatoes don't like competition.

So I thought of using pots.  Tomato roots need space, so 5 gallon buckets are a bit small for my large heirloom tomatoes.  I looked at small trash barrels, but they were too large and a bit expensive.  So I looked up large deck pots, which were also expensive.

I did, however, find 10 gallon "nursery pots" at only $10 each in a pack of 10 pots.  That sounds perfect!  They arrived last week.

The first thing I noticed upon opening the box were some pieces.  Sure enough, one had a broken rim.  I was quite annoyed of course.  But get this,  they sent 11 pots!  So I still had the good 10 promised.  And the broken was is still actually functional.

So...  I'll put the pots around the outer edge of the meadow bed for the best sunlight.  I'll buy a trailerload of mixed 1/2 topsoil 1/2 compost from the local nursery and grow tomatoes in it for a couple of years.  Then I'll add that soil to the raised beds.  Or I'll put plastic trash bags over them and solarize the soil.

Solarization is usually used on large flat areas, but should work on pots just as well.  It might even work better.  One warning I read is that some harmful soil insects can move deeply enough into flat soil to escape the heat.  They can't do that in a pot!

That may seem like a lot of work.  But I love heirloom tomatoes!  And once you have had a homegrown heirloom tomato (not a chilled-for-shipping store-bought) one, you will never look at grocery store tomatoes the same way.

So I am hoping for a decent tomato crop after several years of frustration.

Flowers

The Mews have not decided who will host the Thursday Garden Tours and I haven't collected the pictures of the Saucer Magnolia and the Daffodil Bed as they bloomed for a slideshow yet, so I wanted to show the Happy Pansies in the deck pots for now...

The warmish Winter and soft Spring has let tem grow better than they have in any previous year here.

If the pots look like they have too many of some color and not enough of others, it is because they got all the ones that weren't blooming at the time I planted the outside large mass. 

I was expecting some randomness surprises, and I got some.  

But that was the point, LOL!

The massed planting is doing well, though the Winter weeds have grown suddenly.  I had dragged the scuffle how between them in January, but apparently the weeds either grew back or new seeds germinated due to me disturbing the soil.   

Maybe they looked better in March.  Fewer flowers but fewer weeds...

I would hoe again, but newer demands command attention for longer-term benefits.  I have perennials and self-sowing annuals to plant in the Meadow and Pollinator Beds, wild blackberries and other briars (and some poison ivy) to dig out in the back non-lawn area.  It took days with the brush-cutter to chop all the wild stuff down last Fall, so I don't want to let that escape again.

But the Pansies sure have been a pleasure since October!

Pansies 2

So, I had the pansies randomly sorted by colors (and a dozen of unknown colors).  I had the bed rototilled with a small electric tiller, my measuring stick, a large piece of plywood to reduce soil compression as I kneeled on it, knee-pads to save my aching knees, and a sharp trowel to dig holes for the pansies...

The first row was 12, the second, 11, the 3rd 10, the 4th 9, and the last 8.  It went better than I thought it would.  I get a bit better each time.  Each row is slightly offset from the previous.  And I had a dozen with no flowers, so I didn't know what colors they would be,  so I placed them in the center.  You can't get more random than that.

They will grow larger all Winter.  

Meanwhile, I had set aside some for the deck pots.  I planted those this afternoon and even some leftovers in planters to set out front (surrounded by wire mesh cylinders so the deer can't get at them), but it was too dark to take more pictures.  Sometime soon, though.