Container planting of herb and flower combinations

A person I know not all that well recently killed himself thereby shocking everybody who knew him. A gentle and quiet soul, nobody sensed anything remote to this coming. There was a lot about the man that I did not know, chief among them his driving interest in plants. I never heard him speak on the subject. This one interest of his overlaps one of my own. I'd like to have some nice potted plants for my own terrace and for them to include the herbs that I use for cooking and a few vegetables too, but also flowers so the whole thing is attractive,  but frankly, I do not know what I am doing. I do have a knack for killing pretty much every plant I touch, and my efforts look like a mess. Up close they are a mess. From afar they are the envy of the whole building. People around here say so, "Oh, so you're the guy with the plants on the balcony." But that is only because everybody else is worse, or has no interest at all. 

When the friend died I looked through his pinterest page which turns out to be vast. Tons of plants are listed, all of them designer-type container plants. One of the pins said, "This picture is from a book by Pamela Crawford." I looked at her website that links to her YouTube videos. Read a bit, watched a few. I put her name in Abebooks search and bought the first book on potted plants that came up.

Easy Container Combos: Herbs and flowers. 

The idea is potted herb gardens can be jazzed up with flowers. The book is filled with ideas about what to keep in mind and how to go about to pull it off successfully.

I read the book last night. It is easy. Lots of pictures. As much a thick magazine as a book. It refers back to her site and to her own products. Profiteering? Possibly, she seems to make everything she talks about readily available. But it looks to me like she is actually trying to make things readily available for beginners to get started right off while profiting from that by the way. The cost of supplies seems reasonable. The impression I get is she learned through mistakes. 

This cheers me greatly. That is how I learn.

By making every mistake possible. 

More than once.

The reception was held at the dead person's house, a bit eerie being there the first time without him, the place claustrophobically packed with people, only a few of them I knew, but all were in outright awe of his front yard and back yard gardens composed of large planters surrounding the perimeters with every combination of flower, foliage, herb and vegetable known to gardening in striking combinations and in full leafage, full bloom, full fruition all around, bizarre combinations one might not consider unless they were driven, bursting out and pouring over large glazed ceramic containers. I noticed dark eggplants hanging among flowers, and chile plants pendant within non-chile plant foliage, strawberries where strawberries do not belong mixed with non-strawberry plants, and orchids with tons of various types coleus, sweet potato vines, spikey Ti plants jutting up all over the place, upright blooming fiery celosia, large elephant-ear type leafy Caladium leaves boldly suspended in mid air everywhere, fuzzy fennel and dill filling in, begonias all over the place, to name only a few. 

He was not into cooking, apparently, there seemed no special emphasis in the gardens on herbs nor vegetables and little of food and nothing of cooking was pinned on his pinterest page, nonetheless these plants did fill out the containers in his gardens here and there.

I concluded by reading Pamela's book last night that killing plants is how one learns about plants. When people tell you they kill every plant that they touch, that they have a black thumb, that means they are learning. That is your cue to encourage them to keep trying -- to keep failing. Here is one of Pamela's bloopers:

photo. Pg. 62

The centerpiece is coleus with cilantro at each end. It looks like the cilantro is ready to bolt. She thought the coleus would grow tall but the cilantro outgrew it. Ha! It is the sort of thing that I do. 

Success:  Basil, with coleus, begonias, and golden sage. photo. 

Pg. 55

Wow. I have success with basil but it cannot grow that tall, and parsley and cilantro too this year. And mint does very well in my situation on my terrace with its oddly limited afternoon direct sun. Petunias also do well in railing troughs, and a strawberry is hanging over the edge that I did not plant.  I did kill several strawberry plants in their own pots by under watering and by insufficient light and another for reason unknown.  

It was pure pleasure reading about Pamela's failures. That she killed plants by using the wrong potting mix, killed plants by over watering, killed plants by letting them dry out. By over fertilizing. By insufficient sun. By too much sun. By piling dirt around the stems, By using pots without holes. I've done all that and still do. 

I enjoyed immensely reading about her failed experiments. That really did cheer me. She is far more experimenting than I, and that make me feel normal by comparison 

"We planted 1,736 vegetables; 1,345 didn't work. Herbs fared better. We planted 1,470 and 1,350 worked. Most importantly, we learened what to do wand what not to do to grow herbs and vegetables in containers and how to grow them with flowers."

Goodness, that is a lot of experimentation. A lot of failure. I am beginning to really like this woman.

What killed me though is her saying that rosemary is the easiest of all herbs to grow. I just murdered two rosemary plants this season, and I had such hopes for them. Both turned brown and croaked right off. I still do not know what went wrong. I kind of do know, but I don't. And now reading this I am encouraged to keep trying.

Most entries reaffirm common sense. Common sense to me, maybe not to somebody else. For example, the sensibility that simplicity works very well, not everything need be complex.  Pg. 36 (The 1st ribbon indicates a good plant to choose)

However sometimes the same thing  will not look very good by itself, they can benefit with a little help. Pg. 40/ Pg. 41

Or perhaps a lot of help.

And that leggy herbs can be filled in with flowers at their base. Pg. 42 / Pg. 43

Or perhaps overtaken with more showy plants.

And that plants with the same size and shape leaves will not be interesting together. 

photo Pg.  48 

While plants with tiny leaves and plants with large leaves combine very well. Pg. 49

All that is common sense. These ideas are natural, they needn't be taught, but I find  the examples given to be excellent anyway. In my own case I can see where I went wrong. This book is reaffirming I am in control to change things around as they go. I am not necessarily locked into what is originally planted as I keep imagining, that I have the power to change things as they develop, and change things for next year.

[Anecdote alert]

Years ago I walked into a happy hour club unaware the club was celebrating its anniversary, five years or some such. One of the patrons, a florist no doubt, supplied each table where people stand while having drinks and conversing with some type of small plant arrangement, the type planted in dirt, not flowers. Filling an uncomfortable lull in conversation I indicated to the plant arrangement on the table and said, "No flowers. All foliage. The person who arranged this was mindful to juxtapose leaf shapes, size, color and surface textures. These sword-shaped leaves right next to flat palmate leaves, these dark leaves right next to light lime green leaves, these fuzzy leaves next to these leathery leaves, variegated leaves next to boring flat color leaves, serrated leaves next to smooth edged leaves, dark maroon leaves next to light green leaves, spiky leaves next to shield-like leaves, tiny multiple leafed plant next to large single leaf stems. This arrangement is a study in contrasts, and all this is packed into a tiny classical overall triangular shape." Or something like that. The man looked straight at me as if I had stepped off a flying saucer and said directly to me, "I did not realize that plants can be talked about that way." 

[end anecdote]

The book is like a thick magazine, not a regular book. The other thing that killed me is the top cover band says, "… series: Vo. 4" 

What? 

I thought I bought her one single book, her magnum opus on container plant combinations.  Not so. Pamela has other books besides this one. And here I thought I had learned all there is to know. Damn. Foiled again. 

So last night I bought her other books on the subject and I will read those too. Devour them as I did this one. I expect they will overlap quite a lot and say the same thing over and over and over and over, until my eyes glaze, you know, drill it all in until it all becomes internalized. Things like, use potting mix, not topsoil, not  garden soil, nor potting soil for containers. All that is too heavy. The key word is mix.

I did not know that. I did not know there is a difference. I will need to read that again. Maybe four or five times before I get it. I'm really slow on the uptake sometimes.

Really cram the plants in there together. 

I did not know that either. I thought that was bad. I thought they must have room to grow. I expected if I did that then I'd be water boy all summer once they got going.

And use easy fertilizer. The slow release kind. I am cheered reading that Pamela killed plants with fertilizers several times.  Not just a few times, mind, several times. That is the part that makes me so happy. She too makes the same mistakes repeatedly before finally learning. So I am not the only dummkopf around, and she has become a success, an expert in her own area. ( I almost wrote "field")

Fertilizer fail pg. 10

Ha ha ha. Good one, Pamela. That surprises me. I expected her to recommend careful fertilization attention every week. Not so. 

I bought used books instead of new, what the heck. New is too expensive for repeaty material. They always look like new anyway. Almost always. I've come to think used books  are usually some unappreciated gift somebody received who thought to themselves how can they profit most from the book, by selling it, that's how. Fine! I'll take it for cents on the dollar. I saved quite a lot of cash that way since Abebooks and Amazon came up years ago, and man, do I ever learn a lot from them. 

I will devour these like I did this one last night. The remaining books that I bought and expect much repetition are :

Easy Container Combos: Vegetables & Flowers (Container Gardening Series) 

Instant Container Gardens

Easy Container Gardens (Pamela Crawford's Container Gardening, Vol.2)

Container Gardening: 250 Design Ideas & Step-by-Step Techniques