Update: Container Grown Potatoes Planted in Perennial Borders

In early June, I blogged about how to plant container grown potatoes in a perennial garden bed. Here’s some updated photos taken last weekend. As you can see here in the above photos, I have staked up the two potato plants with small tomato cages and mulched with grass clippings [also known as grasscycling] to keep the roots cool during the growing period. You don’t have to stake the plants but I prefer to keep a tidier garden when veggies are planted among my perennials.

Here’s there rest of the border. Planted from left: one zucchini plant and out-of-control sweet peas in the galvanized container, irises, Vine Maple with the potatoes in front, Heavenly Bamboo, two Black-eyed Susans, Salvia ‘black and blue’, three different varieties of blueberry plants, two Berberis ‘pow wow’, three Echinacea ‘white swan’, handful of self-seeded Mexican Feather Grass and some other type of purple salvia.

One of my worst habits is to move plants around all year long, but I’ve curbed the habit over the last couple of years because it requires too much water during the hot summer months. I transplanted 2 lime green Berberis ‘pow wow’ plants last season that were struggling in another part of my garden but they haven’t adapted to their columnar growth habit quite yet. This bed obviously won’t look its best until later in the summer but you can see the Echinacea ‘white swans’ starting to bloom.

The above photo is a close up of one of three blueberry bushes, almost ready to pick, planted among other drought tolerant plants in my sunny perennial border [dog run in the background]. Planted from left: Berberis ‘pow wow’, Mexican Feather Grass, some variety of blueberry and Echinacea ‘white swan’.

Quick Facts about Blueberries

• Woody perennial that requires sun to part shade, acidic, moist but well-drained soil
• Water enough to keep the soil moist around the roots
• Fresh blueberries are high in vitamin C and A
• Pick when berries are uniform in color and easily come loose from the plant
• Tasty addition to al natural, bland-as-heck cereals (just a little buyer’s remorse sarcasm)
• More on blueberry care from the Royal Horticulture Society

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