4/9/2007 Patio Containers-Trailers

When talking about growth habit, after height, selecting plants that trail over the side is usually the second concern when assembling a patio container. Vinca vine has long been a favorite but gets the rap of being over used, so I asked my wife for a list of plants that could be substituted.

Her expertise greatly exceeds mine when it comes to talking about annuals. Her list included over 20 different plants and I heard her tell my daughter that dad will just pick his favorites and write about them.

Several years ago, ornamental sweet potato vines hit the scene. They have so many good qualities that they may soon join vinca vine on some people's 'too common to use' list. There is at least three color opportunities with sweet potato vine: chartreuse, purple-black and one variegated pink, white and purple. The initial chartreuse variety, which is still widely available, was very vigorous but more recent introductions offer tamer versions.

A new one in the last several years is lophospermum. Several nights ago I spoke to a garden club and was able to keep the pronunciation of that one in my head until I was done with the presentation. It has an unusual pale green leaf and a huge burgundy trumpet shaped flower. It went over the side as well as weaving through the other plants in the container for me last year.

Of course there is a long list of trailing petunias and the miniature petunia look alike, calibrachoa (million bells). If I have a rap on them it is that they are quite heavy feeders and have a few other nutritional quirks that sometimes give them the worn out appearance late in the season.

For gray leaves you can use lotus vine or helicrysum. The lotus offers very fine cut leaves. The helicrysum is a much larger and bolder plant.

A new one from a couple of years ago is dichondra. It is strictly for foliage and can offer silver or green color. Leaves are very dainty but both will trail several feet.

Bacopa is a great trailer. White is a favorite but a pink and pale purple blue is also available. There was a time when this one was light of flower during the hottest times of summer but the breeders have largely solved this problem with new introductions.

For the shade there are trailing begonias, lysimachia, and torenia. Lysimachia offers a yellow flower and either green or foliage variegated with gold. Torenia has a pea like flower in the blue purple range.

That's certainly not 20 but is a good sample to consider. We'll talk a bit about maintaining the patio container next week but will close today by coming back to the often-maligned vinca vine.

Recent introductions of vinca vine may fool a lot of people into asking what is that new plant?

*Images courtesy of Proven Winners. and D.S. Cole


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