I planted this succulent strawberry pot on a chilly day in April and here’s what it looks like today. I’m delighted at the results, especially the little tendrils growing down the sides of the pot.

If you’d like to plant one for your patio, here’s a link to a video how-to posted on my Lowe’s Garden Grow Along blog.

Do you have a floriferous container you’re especially proud of this year? If so, you may want to enter the Zone 4 Magazine container contest. But hurry…the deadline for entries is September 1.

In June I posted a blog called Plant a Hypertufa for Small-Scale Gardening and I showed how to create a container rock garden. In just a few short months, the ice plant and mock strawberry in my hypertufa have filled in and spilled over the edge, just like I hoped they would.

I’m thinking of entering a picture of it in the Zone 4 Magazine container contest.

To enter just send a digital photo, with a description of the container and its contents, to the nice folks at Zone 4 Magazine.  Be sure to include your name, mailing address, email address and telephone number.

Zone 4 is a quarterly magazine based in Bozeman, Montana, and it’s one of my favorites. Every issue is filled with helpful information for gardeners trying to grow in difficult climates–like ours–and Idaho, Utah and Wyoming.

Today’s edition of Workshop Wednesday will appeal to those who like small-scale gardening.  Alpine plants, succulents and other low-growing plants grow well in trough planters. Here’s how to plant a hypertufa container garden.

I’ve always enjoyed planting container rock gardens, so I was delighted to find a table of hypertufa trough planters at the recent Denver master gardeners’ plant sale.

I’ve loved the look of hypertufa planters ever since my in-laws made a batch years ago, but I haven’t worked up the gumption to tackle the process to make my own.

Hypertufa planters look like they’re made of stone or rock, but they’re a light-weight container made from cement mixed with other materials like vermiculite, perlite, peat moss and sand.

If you’d like to make your own hypertufa trough planter, there are good tips included in a recent Denver Post article on using alpine plants to create container rock gardens or miniature xeriscapes.

This edition of Workshop Wednesday is How to Plant a Strawberry Pot in 3 easy steps.

Harvesting fruit from trees along the Front Range is hit or miss. We’re often hit with a late spring freeze that guarantees we’ll miss our fresh peaches, apricots and other stone fruits.

But life isn’t just a bowl of cherries, it’s also filled with ripe red strawberries.

I think being able to go berry picking in your own backyard is one of life’s simple pleasures.

I’ve had a large container of strawberries in a corner of my patio for several years that have yielded several nice strawberry crops. Even though the strawberries were doing just fine, I wanted the container for another kind of planting.

I decided to experiment with transplanting the strawberries into a strawberry pot and thought I’d get it done before the plants grew too tall. But an exceptionally cool and wet spring prevented me from getting the transplanting done until some of the plants had already started to flower.

If you like container gardening, you’ll appreciate Better Than Rocks.

If you’re still using rocks in the bottom of your containers to aid drainage, there’s a new product that can make your gardening life a bit easier. Better Than Rocks is…well, you know.

This product is made of 100% recycled plastic and comes in squares that can be cut to any size for use in planters of every shape and size, including window boxes.

It was easy for me to layer the mesh-like product in the bottom of the planter and then fill the container with potting soil before planting.

The pots were so much lighter to move around the patio and I used less potting soil.

So far, I’ve found the product does help prevent soil from draining away during watering. I also like the idea the plastic can be reused for several seasons.

Better Than Rocks is located in Hudson, Wisconsin. You can read more at www.betterthanrocks.com.

Container gardens are a super-simple way to cut your grocery bills. This garden features cherry tomatoes, chives, strawberries and jalapeño peppers.

If you have three empty gardening containers you can start a vegetable garden on your back patio, balcony or deck. Not only will you save money at the grocery store, you’ll be having fun while growing your own nutritious and delicious produce.

Even if you’ve never planted anything before or if you’ve tried in the past without success, you can plant and grow a three-container garden with greens, tomatoes and peppers.

For your patio garden you’ll need the following materials:

3 containers for planting with holes in the bottom for drainage. Use plastic or ceramic flower pots, wooden barrels, or food-grade plastic buckets. For best results, use 2-5 gallon containers that have an opening about 12” wide.
3 drainage saucers for the containers to sit on.
Potting mix to fill the containers.
Fertilizer, either dry or liquid.
1 packet of baby greens seeds, like mesclun (a blend of lettuces, radicchio, endive and mustards).
1 pepper plant, such as Anaheim or jalapeño.
1 or 2 cherry tomato plants (depending on the size of the container.)
1 tomato cage or other support to keep the tomato vines off the ground.