Sanhedrin Nursery – Garden Blog

• Cage or stake tomatoes while still small so that you can train them as they grow.

• Roses bloom all summer with their abundant flowers in so many different colors. Choose some now when you can see their lovely flowers.

• Paint trunks of young fruit trees with Tree Trunk White. This will keep the soft bark from sun-burning which leaves cracks for borer insects, the most common cause of death of young apple trees.

• Petunias, in bright pink, red and purple, will add beauty and color to sunny borders all through the summer.

• Look for a colorful plant or a useful tool for Dad for Father’s Day. A fruit tree might be just the thing, or a pair of Felco pruning shears.

Color Combinations for Flower Pots

How do you take a nice big pot, fill it full of plants and finish up with something that not only looks great but grows great too? Think ‘Thriller’, ‘Filler’ and ‘Spiller’. 
 Thriller stands for the tall plant in the combination. It is often a spiky tall accent which can be in the center or in the back of your combination.

Filler will be the center bulky or eye-catching special plant. It can be round or grassy, but it’s the center of attention.

Spiller, of course, stands for the hanging plant that falls over the edge and continues the line on down onto the container surface. If it is a basket, then you have lots of ‘floppy’ plants and you might want to vary the look with different colors or textures.

Use plants with different textures of foliage or flowers. If all the plants have narrow long leaves that is boring. The same with all big fat round foliage. Try to have different types.

For professional looking results, consider following a color theme. Use all one color, such as all blue flowers, for a monochrome look. Pastel flowers provide soft colors that are most effective in gentle light, shade or morning sun situations. Vivid bold colors look best in bright sun. Red, yellow and orange flowers look great in terra-cotta planters.

Here are some ideas for colorful combinations. Let a colorful grass or New Zealand flax arch from the center, flanked by pink and purple petunias and plum-colored Heuchera with rose calibrachoa tumbling over the side of the pot.

Use Kong Coleus for the tall centerpiece, with a Figaro Dahlia, yellow or red, in the middle and colorful portulaca draping over the sides.

Start with a bright-colored Gerbera daisy, plant Northern Sea Oats grass behind it and fill in with yellow million bells to tumble over the front of the pot.

Another good summer mix is a combination of pink or purple petunias, with dusty miller, and a heavy border of white sweet alyssum. Put the taller dusty miller towards the back, fill in with the petunias, and finish with the white alyssum.

Use Victoria Blue salvia for the spiky plant, pink verbena for the spiller and a purple-leafed Heuchera for the filler.

Zonal geraniums have bright, colorful leaves. They are perfect for the eye-catching filler plant. For a lime-green effect, choose a yellow-leafed geranium, add some dark-leafed fibrous begonias, and let yellow calibrachoa hang over the sides.

For a shady area, start with a green-and-white variegated Hosta. Add color with impatiens and Non-Stop begonias.

Add some new life to your container garden display by exploring different color combinations in your flower pots. You will be surprised at the very different effects you can create.