It's good to be able to have plants around the house. They add that personal touch that helps turn a house into a home. Having pots that can be planted with bulbs to flower over the winter or early spring gives variety to those that remain as more or less permanent feature plants. It's the same for the garden too - plants for the season intermingled with permanent planting. However the size of container needed for outdoor planting is rather different from those for indoors.
So what best to use - a variety!
Heavy clay pots are ideal for permanent display and our garden has several used for Clematis. Plastic pots are all very well but few convince me that they aren't plastic, and do I need plastic in the garden? How natural a material is this in a natural environment?
We have used wooden half barrels before and I rather like these for early year bulbs and then use them again for Summer display but now filled with bedding plants - Geraniums for instance. There is a downside though. After being filled with damp soil for several years these wooden tubs tend to rot away and disintegrate. Replacements need to be found, and that isn't either all that easy or a cheap matter.
Last year we had seen some half barrels advertised as being ex-whisky use, enquired, only to be told that they were not available any more. We thought that the same could be the case this year when a similar mailing from the local Farmers Mart arrived. Enquiring revealed that there weren't any locally, the sizes were smaller than advertised, but ...... two would be ordered for us and they would be arriving in the following week. 'We will phone you!'
Surprise, surprise - phone call to say that two had arrived and saved for us - come and collect or ... We went to collect and discovered we had a choice of half barrels. Two selected, and paid for. No reduction in price because they were smaller than those originally advertised! Take them or leave them!
Have you tried fitting two half barrels onto the back seat of a small saloon car - they did just fit with an inch or so to spare, and no barked knuckles either loading or back home unloading although there are a few marks on the seat!
The general disintegration of the half-barrels over time must be associated with drainage through the soil fill. Of course there will have to be stones or crocks at the bottom but drain holes obviously help a lot. So the issue to be faced was drilling holes through the 1" base wood - and how many. I thought five would be enough in the first I attempted - one hole in the centre and four roughly symmetrically placed towards the edge. So out came the old Black & Decker drill that M and I bought in Colchester all those years ago before we were married. It's been rewired a couple of times and the on/off switch modified but it still works well enough. And I have a 1" wood bit - really suitable for a 'brace & bit' but if carefully fitted will go into the electric drill clutch. Surprisingly quickly the holes were drilled - lots of small wood cuttings and a sweet smell from what was previously sherry and whisky soaked wood.
The second half-barrel was just as easy to deal with but six holes this time because there was a centre join in the wood fillets - six roughly symmetrically placed holes.
Now for the filling with both soil and potting mix - then a settling time before the planting. Will it be Geraniums or Begonias or something else?
