Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Container Gardening Tips for Senior Citizens

Container Gardening Tips for Senior Citizens

Container gardens can create a natural sanctuary in a busy city street, along rooftops or on balconies. Senior Citizens can easily accentuate the welcoming look of a deck or patio with colourful pots of annuals, or fill window boxes with shrub roses or any number of small perennials. Whether Senior Citizens arrange pots in a group for a massed effect or highlight a smaller space with a single specimen, you'll be delighted with this simple way to create a garden.

Container gardening enables Senior Citizens to easily vary a color scheme, and as each plant finishes flowering, it can be replaced with another. Whether Senior Citizens choose to harmonize or contrast colors, make sure there is variety in the height of each plant. Think also of the shape and texture of the leaves. Tall strap-like leaves will give a good vertical background to low-growing, wide-leaved plants. Choose plants with a long flowering season, or have others of a different type ready to replace them as they finish blooming.

Experiment with creative containers. Senior Citizens might have an old porcelain bowl or copper urn to use, or perhaps you'd rather make something really modern with timber or tiles. If Senior Citizens decide to buy containers ready-made, terracotta pots look wonderful, but tend to absorb water. You don't want plants to dry out, so paint the interior of these pots with a special sealer available from hardware stores.

Cheaper plastic pots can also be painted on the outside with water-based paints for good effect. When purchasing pots, don't forget to buy matching saucers to catch the drips. This will save cement floors getting stained, or timber floors rotting.
Always use a good quality potting mix in your containers. This will ensure the best performance possible from plants.

If Senior Citizens have steps leading up to the front door, an attractive pot plant on each one will delight your visitors. Indoors, pots of plants or flowers help to create a cosy and welcoming atmosphere.

Decide ahead of time where pots are to be positioned, then buy plants that suit the situation. There is no point buying sun lovers for a shady position, they will not do well. Some plants also have really large roots, so they are best kept for the open garden.

If there is plenty of space at the front door, a group of potted plants off to one side will be more visually appealing than two similar plants placed each side. Unless they are spectacular, they will look rather boring.

Group the pots in odd numbers rather than even, and vary the height and type. To tie the group together, add large rocks that are similar in appearance and just slightly different in size. Three or five pots of the same type and color, but in different sizes also looks affective.

With a creative mind and some determination, Senior Citizens will soon have a container garden that will be the envy of friends and strangers alike.

Philip Jubb
Overweight Grand Kids
Senior Citizens Information Services
http://www.109b.com

No comments: