It occurred to me while reading a gardening magazine sipping tea at a bookstore the other day, there is little new in this magazine for me to learn. I guess that comes when you get older and have garden for a life time, at less that is how it seems. I decided then and there I should spend a month writing about the little habits I have formed for myself over a life time of trying to do is successful in an easy manner. So this is the first.
Pots that are sold in the spring have always been a big temptation for me. The rustic Italian Terra cotta look that is featured in the movies, in the glossy pictures with the vineyards in the background and the bountiful gardens are stage pots. I have found them to be more work and trouble than they are worth.
In the heat of the summer terra cotta dries out very quickly and it becomes a twice daily job of watering any plants that are in them. Oh, I understand that some very expensive imported varieties are better because they are sealed on the inside but the cost puts those out of my budget. Terra cotta is also much more delicate about freezing weather. As the years has passed the weight of pots are an issue to be considered very carefully.
The first year I moved to the west coast I found a woman in the warehouse district of Tacoma selling pots there made in Vietnam. It took be a few minutes of walking around to decide the color that I was going to live with for the future. Then there were the shapes and how I was going to use them in my yard.
I now have five yard pots of turquoise color with a wash of navy blue under it, all different shapes and mostly placed near my grape arbor sitting area.
After couple years I have used two of the pots for the same thing each years, mint and lemon.
Mint is a weed, a delightful weed but a weed and it must be contained. For a period of 15 years, I was digging it out of my perennial bed as it accidental come with a transplant from my mother's garden. On a couple of those occasions I actually totally removed very plant in the bed and when though it on my hands and knees pulling out roots of mint. Alas, to see it reappear, again. Mint belongs in a pot, probably on a strong metal stand at less 24 inches off the ground.
Mint can survive the winters anywhere, I believe. A couple years, I thought I lost it but wait long enough and with warmth of the sun it will not fail to reappear. Over the years, I have leaned to cook using mint and I value it more than just the green leave that goes into summer drinks.
As to the favor of lemon, oh, I love to use that in the summer. I create a herb pot with only lemon scented herbs. Lemon thyme, lemon balm, lemon basil and lemon grass. I walk out there in the afternoon and cut a few inches off a plant that is getting a little too wild and in the salad or on the vegetable it goes. Time to time, a pinch of it makes it into a glass of my ice water while I read on the lounge in arbor. Actually, I find it is very handy to have lemon herbs just feet from the back door.
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