As I am writing this, it is raining outside and has been raining for a number of days. How quickly we get tired of rain even when we need it badly! Yet cool, rainy weather is more typical of June than the hot, sunny weather we were having earlier in the month.

 I just want to remind you not to forget to water your hanging baskets and any planters and flower boxes you might have. It is easy to forget about them during rainy weather, but unless the containers are directly under a drip off a roof, rain alone is not enough to keep the containers watered. Of course, by the time you read this, my reminder may be unnecessary because we could have beautiful sunshine.

 While we are on the subject of containers, not only do they need to be watered regularly, they should also be fertilized routinely. If the containers are planted with the relatively new varieties of plants such as the “Wave” petunias, fertilizing is essential to get the plants to grow and flower to their full potential. I use a water soluble plant food at one half the rate recommended on the fertilizer package every time I water our containers, of which we have a lot. It is important to water containers enough so that some water drains out the bottom. Most of our containers sit in saucers to catch the water that drains out. In cool weather, I dump the water after about 30 minutes. In hot weather, I don’t worry about them sitting in water for a while because our soil mix is porous enough to admit sufficient air to the roots.

 If you are new to container gardening, it may puzzle you why I am talking about good drainage and good water holding capacity at the same time. The two seem to contradict each other. But most plants need both water and air at their roots, which makes it important to find the proper balance between the two.   

 I mix my container soil in a wheelbarrow. A wheelbarrow load consists of 60 litres of two year old, screened compost, just as it comes out of the compost bin. To that I add an ice cream bucket of peat moss and two quarts of vermiculite, both of which provide water holding capacity and good drainage at the same time. I then add a cup of dolomite lime to counteract the acidity of the compost and peat moss, a cup of agricultural gypsum to provide calcium without changing the pH (acidity of alkalinity), a cup of slow release fertilizer that is available at local hardware stores and a sprinkling of water soluble fertilizer to provide some trace elements.

 We grow almost all our flowers in containers these days. We planned our garden that way when we bought our house 17 years ago. All our flower beds were planned so that evergreens or shrubs gradually took over, making it unnecessary to do much weeding as we get old. The containers are placed at strategic spots to provide splashes of colour and we don’t have to get down on hands and knees to weed flower beds. You can come and see the results during this year’s garden tour.