Between all the icy roads, snow piles, and below-zero temperatures, it鈥檚 easy to think winter will never end. But, believe it or not, spring is right around the corner. When all the white powder melts into puddles and the thermometers inch to the positive double-digits, some Yorktonites will have one thing on their minds: Gardening.
Green-thumbs will soon buy new spades, fresh soil, and a bevy of seeds. Dinner tables and聽 farmer鈥檚 markets will (hopefully) be overflowing with fresh vegetables and flowers.
When people think about growing their own plants, they typically picture huge squares of fertile dirt. But it鈥檚 hard for some would-be gardeners to acquire that much space. Horticultre guru Frank Woloschuk says you don鈥檛 need a huge acreage to grow gorgeous flowers; you just need a container.
Woloschuk led an instructional seminar about container planting at the Gallagher Centre on Apr. 7. The class was part of the Spring Expo over the weekend. The Yorkton and District Horticultural Society hosted the event.
鈥淚鈥檓 a member of the Horticultural Society, so I鈥檝e given talks on numerous topics,鈥� Woloschuk said. 鈥淭his is one of my favourites.
鈥淚鈥檓 kind of a container addict.鈥�
Container planting is exactly what it sounds like. It鈥檚 the practice of using a container to hold and grow your plants. People use pots, tubs, barrels, baskets, or anything else they can get their hands on. It鈥檚 a trendy type of gardening for people without much physical garden space.
鈥淎 lot of people don鈥檛 have gardens anymore, so the only way they can grow plants is in containers,鈥� Woloschuk said. 鈥淎lso...if you have a lot of brickwork...[containers are] the only way you can grow plants and get some colour in those areas.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 why they鈥檙e popular.鈥�
Woloschuk told the gathered crowd to start container gardening early in the season. He said gardeners should keep a fertilizer journal and they should only use a soilless medium as opposed to actual soil.
鈥淚f you use just garden soil, it packs like cement, because you鈥檙e watering pretty well every day,鈥� he said. 鈥淚t compacts the soil.鈥�
Woloschuk encouraged the audience to tour greenhouses and research which plants work best in containers.
鈥淭here are special plants bred for this purpose,鈥� he said. 鈥淭oo many to list.鈥�
Woloschuk has very simple advice for anyone who wants to start gardening with containers.
鈥淕o visit somebody that has containers and talk to them for an hour,鈥� he said.
