Continuous

ContaineR
Gardens
Swap In the Plants of the Season to
Create Fresh Designs Year-Round

spring summer fall winter

Sara Begg Townsend & Roanne Robbins

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 COnTeNtS
Preface ........................................................ iii
Introduction ................................................ vi
PART 1 A New Expand Your Plant World........................... 10
Perspective The Four-Act Container Garden .............. 20
on Container Picking Plants ............................................. 26
Gardening Get Thee to a Nursery ............................... 34
A Village of Underplantings ..................... 42
Containers Are Your Cardigans ................ 49
Practical Matters ........................................ 57
Planting Up and Swapping Out ................ 64
Planting Up Your Container ..................... 73
Initial Underplanting ................................. 80
Swapping the Underplanting ................... 88
Planting Out in the Garden ...................... 98
Caring for Your Contained Garden .......... 106

PART 2 TWELVE Colorful Sticks ............................................ 112

CONTAINERS Cool Bark ..................................................... 119
Summer Flowers ......................................... 127
THROUGH THE Topiary Goodness ...................................... 135
YEAR Flowers for Spring ...................................... 144
Deluxe Purple Foliage ................................ 152
Woodland Shrubbery ................................. 159
Flowering Tree ............................................ 169
Berry Delights ............................................. 178
Sun-Loving Perennials .............................. 185
Ornamental Grass ...................................... 198
Structure & Vines ....................................... 208
Resources .................................................... 210
Index ............................................................ 212

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 Containers that Change with the Seasons

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 Part 2 Twelve Containers through the Year

COLORFUL STICKS

SpRInG
To us, a New England spring
is pillowy patches of moss
growing along icy woodland
streams, clusters of flowering
bulbs in front of stone walls, and
swaths of branch tips turning
a mahogany tone and swelling
up in preparation for bloom.
We tried to capture that feel-
ing here—to bring a little piece
of spring to the setting. We
emphasized the yellowness of
the sticks by massing daffodils
around the base and gave the
planting a more ornamental
feel by adding the pansies and a
medley of herbs.
For plant information turn to
page 24.

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 ‘JETFIRE’ DAFFODIL

YELLOWTWIG
DOGWOOD
SAGE, PARSLEY,
AND THYME

‘SORBET
BABYFACE’ PANSY

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 COLORFUL STICKS
6
SUmMeR
In summer, the yellowtwig
dogwood is fully leafed out.
Its beautiful yellow sticks
are somewhat concealed at
this point, and without an
underplanting, the com-
position would feel visually
top-heavy. To offset this, we
planted a vibrant underplant-
ing, full of color, motion, and
gusto, starring the diva Abelia
‘Kaleidoscope’. This shrub
packs a punch, offering not
only intense color but wonder-
ful movement and weight.
We find that it’s sometimes
best to let one plant dictate
the seasonal color story — in
this case, we found our palette
by extracting tones from the
foliage of ‘Kaleidoscope’. Plum-
purple, yellow, chartreuse,
orange . . . they’re all here, and
when artfully arranged, they
keep your eyes moving around
the composition.

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 PALACE PURPLE ‘SUNRISE’
HEUCHERA COREOPSIS

‘GOLD HAZE’
HEATHER

‘KALEIDOSCOPE’
ABELIA

Orange lights up the vibrant color palette of summer 7

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 Continuous
Stay in Step with
the Seasons

ContaineR
The Authors
Roanne Robbins is
a garden and floral
designer and the owner
of Nature Contained, a
company that offers cre-
ative container plantings,
small-space gardens, and
floral designs for events,
holidays, and home
Avail
ab décor. She also works as a design consultant at
Febru le

Gardens
ary Weston Nurseries in Hopkinton, Massachusetts,
2011
! creating small-space and container-garden
designs. She lives in Rhode Island.
Sara Begg Townsend is a freelance writer and
the former executive editor of Horticulture maga-
Continuous Container zine. She’s also worked for Country Journal, and
Gardens The Gardener magazine, and Winston Flower &

Full-color; photographs throughout Garden. Originally from Toronto, Ontario, she now

224 pages; 9 x 8‹/¢ gardens in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Townsend & Robbins

Paper: Publicity Contact:
$19.95 US / $24.95 CAN
Amy Greeman (413) 346-2113 or
ISBN: 978-1-60342-702-9
No. 62702
amy.greeman@storey.com
• Advance blurb mailing
• Long-lead mailing to gardening magazines
• Gardening shows
• Online gardening sites
• Blogs
• Radio

Photos © John Gruen

Storey books are distributed in the gift and book trade by Workman Publishing. To order, please see your sales representative
or call (800) 722-7202. Storey books are distributed in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son, LTD, (800) 387-4333.
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