WATCH: Potting up flower pots and 3 great plants for hanging baskets, window boxes

In years past I couldn’t lift a pot or even a large stone without finding a commune of slugs or snails had attached themselves under the base or along the edges but this year the little gastropods seem to have vacated the garden.

Maybe they are lying in wait elsewhere and biding their time but I expected them to be out in force by now following the wet and mild winter we have had in Ireland. Maybe there was just a better offering elsewhere. I wonder if any other gardeners out there have noticed less little gastropods this year too.

So far, and again I should touch wood here, not a single seedling has been lost to slugs, snails, leatherjacks, earwigs and vine weevils or other insects. That’s bound to change at some point but the lack of snack attacks has been great for hardening off my young charges and getting them ready for a life of outdoor living.

This past week I have been potting up some of the hardier flowers that can withstand a bit of cold in large planters with different combinations for what will hopefully result in some interesting and colourful displays in pots for the front of the house and if you are growing your own or getting plug plants from the garden centre May is the ideal time to get busy with window boxes and big pots.

So what works well together? It’s really up to you, your taste and the effect you want to achieve. I like an explosion of colour, all the colours, dark flowers and light all thrown together. With mixed colour seeds you don’t know what you are going to get and that is part of the enjoyment of bedding them in before they flower- whether they look great or not, it will at least be interesting.

3 star attractions for window boxes and hanging baskets

If you are growing or buying for window boxes trailing flowers are brilliant and there’s some which will provide a mass of large flowers all summer long while some upright plants can provide a stunning backdrop. I think the best three for window boxes or hanging baskets are Swiss pansies, lobelia and petunias.

Pansies and their smaller ancestors, viola, are a great upright plant with big showy vibrant flowers that will work well at the back of your window box or the centre of your hanging baskets in all shades of red, blue, yellow, pink, white and purple. For maximum impact, Swiss pansies have very large flowers and are great summer growers. You can also get winter pansies which will provide a pop of colour in the dull, colder months after most plants have died off.

Petunias are tricky to grow from seed – they are very slow growing, die easily and need a lot of heat and sun so you may be best buying them at the garden centre as young plants when the hard work has already been done. I have some growing from seed but it has been a lot of work for little reward. However once they get going there is no stopping them and they provide curtains of trailing flowers with trumpet-like blooms in all hues all summer long.

Lobelia meanwhile are tiny little flowers with a trailing habit that look amazing when planted in amongst the petunia and attract numerous beneficial smaller insects into the garden. Lobelia comes in shades of white, blue, navy and pink/purple and bring forth profusions of flowers all summer long. As a bonus they are easy enough to grow from seed. Like petunias, you get two different types of petunias – upright, which are great for planting out in the ground, and the trailing variety so make sure you check the labels when picking them at the garden centre.

With these three alone, as long as your make sure they are well watered and fed with plant food every week or so, you will have created stunning window boxes and hanging displays in no time, but there are numerous other hardy enough great trailers and container plants which work well in pots. Pot marigold (calendula), as the name suggests, are easy germinators and easy growers in pots, as are sweet pea as long as they have something to climb up. Both can survive a bit of cold weather and even light frost unlike many other annuals so are good options for getting a head start.

Other trailing flowers which do well in pots are trailing fuschia, geraniums and verbana as well as trailing nasturtiums, although the latter can take over so is best planted in its own container rather than being mixed in with other plants. Some people like to mix in other trailing plants with produce foliage only and there are some stunning varieties out there. If you are not sure what would work well in your area, ask the experts at your local garden centre and they will keep you right. Take into consideration how your garden is positioned and how much sunlight it gets. Petunias, pansies and lobelia prefer full soon to partial shade but not every plant does so again, if in doubt, just ask.

That’s all for this week and if you’d like to get in touch about gardening or if you have any tips or ideas for garden boxes, email [email protected] with the subject line ‘Gone To Seed’. ‘Til next week!