For many senior gardeners, planting annuals has been a rite of spring for many decades. As the years pass, I’m sure this task has grown more difficult. You don’t have to abandon your tradition; just adapt to the new reality. Plant your annuals in containers and convert your annual beds to shrubs and/or dwarf conifers.
Replace a painful experience with a creative experience. Intersperse dwarf conifers of various sizes, shapes and colors with containers of colorful annuals. Or plant a flowering shrub in the middle of a bed and them place containers of annuals around the perimeter. An interesting variation would be an oval-shaped planting bed with a foliage shrub in the center and clusters of attractive, decorative containers of colorful annuals on either end.
Garden centers have many decorative containers to choose from. They’re in all shapes, sizes and materials. Some are heavy concrete, ceramic, wood or terra cotta while others are plastic, often designed to look like one of the heavier materials. For the senior gardener, I recommend the lighter weight look alikes. In the photograph above, I challenge you to say for certain whether that container’s terra cotta or plastic. One of your objectives is to work smarter, not harder.
Plants planted directly in the containers make the containers heavy and difficult to move around and maneuver into place without a plant caddy or dolly. I buy my plants in nursery pots that will slip right into the decorative container, as in the picture. If I have to buy the plants in six packs, I transplant them into nursery pots. If you don’t have the right size nursery pots, check with a landscape contractor or you garden center. You may be able to get them at little or no cost. Then begin building an inventory for the future.
Using the slip-in method, you can carry your lightweight decorative containers to the planting bed and position them. Then carry the plants in lightweight, easy-to-handle nursery pots and just slip them into their decorative containers and voila…instant annual garden.
During the growing season, you may want to change up your annual garden. Just slip the nursery pots out of the decorative containers and move them around anyway you want. If some annuals stop blooming before the others, you can easily swap them out for fresh ones. With all the changes that you’ll be making during the season, your neighbors will think you’re really working hard. Whether you tell them you’re just working smart is up to you.
Working smarter includes being able to sit down on the job to do the potting. This is an important consideration if you use a mobility aid, such as a cane or walker. And, at season’s end cleaning up is a cinch Remove the nursery pots and empty them into the compost pile. Wash the pot and disinfect it if necessary. Carry the lightweight decorative pots to their winter home and you’re done. Don’t be shy about asking for help carrying plants and pots.
Another benefit: during the season: you’ll even have time to sit and enjoy your containerized annual garden. And that’s what adaptive gardening’s all about.
Read more about containerizing your annuals in my critically acclaimed book, The Geriatric Gardener: Adaptive Gardening Advice For Seniors. You can order a copy at https://thepancoastconcern.com/the_geriatric_gardener
The Geriatric Gardener 