By Darla Welles
Copley News Service
When Tom Champlin and his
wife, Marian, moved into a con-
dominium a few years ago, they
left behind a home with a lushly
planted yard.
So it was understandable that
he would not long tolerate the
bleakness of the condominium’s
small patio, which consisted of a
patch of concrete bordered by
dirt.
“I didn’t like to sit out here with
the sun glaring on the concrete
and nothing green or pretty,”
Champlin said.
He covered the concrete with
green outdoor carpeting, filled the
dirt border with hearty creeping
charlie and filled containers with
green and blooming plants.
Champlin selected plants that
are easy to grow and take little
care. He chose shade-loving Bos-
ton ferns for hanging planters in
the sheltered area of the patio,
and sun-loving annuals and peren-
nials for planter boxes that he put
on the open ledge of the patio wall.
He added night-blooming jasmine
for fragrance and easy-care
flowering cactus plants for winter
bloom.
Champlin’s easy-care approach
is but one way to beautify the
small patio and deck areas found
in condominium and apartment
complexes.
Gardening in these small spaces
can be as simple or as elaborate
as the individual gardener’s pa-
tience allows. The finished prod-
uct can vary as widely as the gar-
deners themselves.
Patio plantings can be inexpen-
sive, relying on common flowers
that can be grown from seed or
from small plants that can be
bought in pony packs of six each,
usually for no more than a dollar
a pack.
The least expensive containers
are simple clay pots, said Bruce
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4kawa, owner of a garden cen-
«er. The most durable, but more
costly, are redwood tubs or boxes.
Also good for larger plantings
are oak barrels split in half to
form tubs.
“You can really do a lot in a
small patio area,” Asakawa said.
“You can successfully plant al-
most anything except really large
ers. So the appearance of a patio
garden is really only limited by
the imagination and patience of
the person doing it.
“Some people don’t have the pa-
tience to start plants from seed.
For them the pony packs of plants
or small plants in 4- or 6-inch pots
are perfect. Colorful annual flow-
ers will bloom all through sum-
mer and into the autumn if you
keep pinching off the dead blooms.
“Perennial plants like marguer-
ite daisies usually need to be
pruned back during the cool sea-
son to keep them from getting
leggy and woody, but they're very
good container plants for plentiful
bloom and color.”
Geraniums are available in
many varieties. Some varieties
grow upright and are good for
planter boxes; others trail and are
good for hanging baskets. Their
blooms and leaves take many
forms and they are tolerant plants
that thrive even when occasional-
ly neglected, Asakawa said.
For shaded areas and hanging
baskets, Asakawa recommends
impatiens, begonias and ferns.
Also good for color are plants
grown from bulbs or tubers —
crocus, hyacinths, daffodils, iris
and ranunculas.
Cactus and succulents, like jade
plant and aloe, require little care
and can offer interesting shapes
and unusual blooms.
Many shrubs — flowering varie-
ties like azaleas, camellias and
lantana — adapt well to container
growing, as do some slow-growing
trees like star pine or ficus.
Patio plants
Copley News Service photo
s
in small areas.
American plant breeder Luther
Burbank (1849-1926) had a talent
for improvising. For example, he
made as many as 500 grafts on a
single plum tree and speeded
growth by inserting wedge-ended
cuttings into the tops of the host
tree’s branches.
Other growers grafted branches
to a limb sawed off near the trunk
— and waited twice as long for
¢ Fertilization
e Grub Control
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results.
Earthworms eat the dirt they
live in, or at least the edible leaf
bits, soil bacteria and insects that
By Patrick Denton
Copley News Service
When planning our family’s var-
ious garden beds, I find it a great
help to look at my garden journal.
In it I keep “idea” pages that con-
tain notations of pleasing plant-
ings that I've seen in someone
else’s garden, or in a picture or a
display garden.
As I'm drawing or writing up
the plantings for different sections
of my garden, I can incorporate
some of these ideas right into my
plans.
Some of my ideas are: a bed of
light pink astilbes and white can-
dytuft; dark opal basil with white
and red fibrous begonias; a bed of
purple petunias dotted with red
geranium accent plants and edged
with lemon drop marigolds; blue
salvia edged with dwarf yellow
marigolds; sweet peas edged with
annual baby’s breath.
Of course, a gardener’s choice
of flowers is a highly personalized
one. I only can say what would
please me. There’s no substitute
for a property owner going out
himself and scouting out what
sorts of shapes and colors give
him pleasure.
When drawing up a plan for a
vegetable garden, sketch the area
and mark the north, south, east
and west sides. Then, alongside
the sketch of the bed, make a list
of the vegetables you wish to
grow, in order of preference.
Now you are ready to sketch in
blocks of plantings. If you are
starting a new garden, the first
thing to think about is the perma-
nent plantings like asparagus and
live in dirt.
Worms’ castings, the material
they excrete, contain five times as
much nitrogen, seven times as
much phosphorous, 11 times as
much potash and three times as
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rhubarb.
If you wish to incorporate any
of these into your garden plan,
they should be sketched in along
an edge of the plot where they can
remain undisturbed. Asparagus
should be given full sun, while the
rhubarb will tolerate some shade.
As for all permanent plantings,
the soil where they will be planted
must be deeply dug and well en-
riched with manure, compost or
any rich organic matter you can
get your hands on.
Next, turn your attention to the
taller of the vegetables you have
chosen — the corn, pole beans,
trellised cucumbers and staked to-
matoes. These should be placed at
the north end of the vegetable bed,
where they won’t shade the other
vegetables.
I like to plant my rows running
east and west, contrary to most
directions given in garden books. I
feel the plants receive better sun-
light exposure when the rows fol-
low the path of the sun as it rolls
across the sky from east to west
each day.
As you move from the north end
of your plan down toward the
south end, you will be incorporat-
ing blocks of your favorite vegeta-
ble. Try to keep the root vegeta-
bles together, the peas and beans
together, and the cabbage-family
vegetables together, as this facili-
tates rotation of crops for best use
of soil nutrients.
At the southern edge of the veg-
etable garden you may wish to set
the whole thing off with a flower
border or a border of herbs, which
can be very decorative.
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