Gardening questions

March 23, 2023 9:13 AM

I am planning plantings for my patio. I live in Sweden. Based on the USDA Hardiness Zone Map, my area is in Zone 6b. Honestly, I have no idea what that means. Just throwing it out there in case that is useful. I want advice on how to have flowers blooming for as long as possible during our shortish growing season. Details below.

I have a north-facing patio with a section in front that gets morning sun for a few hours and then afternoon sun for a few hours. All my patio plants are in containers. Last year I mixed lobelia and alpine strawberries and they outlasted the season. My poppies and nasturtiums were disappointing, however. The poppies were gorgeous while they lasted but they did not last long.

If I need to sow plants in staggered periods to make it work, that is fine by me. I like flowers like Cosmos and plan to try out sweet peas this year as well. I plant in individual pots that I put into boxes side by side. A trellis (one or more) is available. It is fairly windy during the summer. Finally, this patio is off the entry to my apartment, so it is visible to the public. I want something that will be pretty for the neighborhood as well as for me. Easy-care, ideally because I have killed plenty of plants in my time. Am I being too ambitious?

posted by Bella Donna to Home & Garden (8 answers total)

Ornamental, flowering cabbages are extraordinary looking and keep colour well into November! My mom used to plant one head of Color Ups per pot and stack the pots up the porch steps in alternating colours.
posted by DarlingBri at 9:30 AM on March 23, 2023

6b means plants die at 0 to -10F, or -17C to -23C. The hardiness factors are more for low temperatures than high ones. Also means your frost-free growing season is May to September. As long as you avoid plants will long germination cycles (over 100 days apparently) or don't really care if they die in winter you should be fine.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:30 AM on March 23, 2023

If you have a short growing season starting your plants inside well before your last frost date is your best bet. If you can’t do that, buying plants as soon as you can put them outside would work too! Some, like sweet peas, can be direct sowed but other (like, say, snapdragons which flowers happily all summer and into frost) would benefit from an early start so they are ready to go once the danger of freezing is past.

You can also find perennials that are hardy to your area (if you grow in pots select plants that are hardy two zones colder than yours, to be sure) and add a few of those. They’ll give you a longer season than just summer annuals.
posted by lydhre at 9:31 AM on March 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

6b means plants die at 0 to -10F, or -17C to -23C.
Sorry that wasn't clear. It means that if you want plants to last more than one season, they have to be able to survive those average winter temperatures. Also those are average ranges - winter lows can be even lower on occasion.
posted by The_Vegetables at 9:34 AM on March 23, 2023

General info first: The USDA Hardiness Zones refers to the overall temperature and climate for the area you're in, and which plants would do best in that area and when to plant them. The fact that you've got a north-facing patio is probably going to be the bigger obstacle, though; even though it gets light a few hours, that's still considered "partial shade" when you're looking at plants. And that can make a big difference - my old apartment had big western-facing windows, so that's where I kept my herb plants, but herbs like full sun, and even the half a days' sun wasn't quite enough for them (they didn't die, they just got really spindly because they were spending a good deal of energy stretching towards the sun).

But all is not lost! There's a ton of flowers you can still have growing; here's a list of flowers that grow well in partial shade in zone 6; some are annual, and some perennial. A lot of those are mentioned on these two planting schedules; those may give an idea for how people deal with the changing season and replacing each flower as it fades.

Since you want to focus on containers, I'd add in some annuals, actually; they give a good deal of bang for your buck, and it's easy to know what to do when they die back and when to replace it with something else. (That's my problem - knowing when to let go of something that "maybe it has a little life in it").
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:43 AM on March 23, 2023 [2 favorites]

For maximum blooming time, you'll want annuals, which are plants that die completely each year. Perennials are lovely and do return each year, but they tend to have a shorter blooming time than annuals, which are often bred to be ever-blooming. As EmpressCallipygos says, you'll want ones that will grow in partial shade, since you don't have day-long sunshine.

Starting plants from seed, while do-able has its own learning curve. If you are a newbie gardener, buy annual plants from a garden center. The staff there can help you select annuals appropriate for your climate, sunlight/wind conditions and will likely have good candidates for pots. They can also recommend a good fertilizer for your pots.
posted by sarajane at 11:09 AM on March 23, 2023

Geraniums are great for continuous blooms from late spring till you get a hard freeze. Not only that, but you can pull them out in the fall just before the freeze, store them in paper bags in the dark all winter as bare root plants, and put them back in soil in the spring and they will resurrect.
posted by xo at 2:59 PM on March 23, 2023 [1 favorite]

One thought: if you deal with native plants, you don't have to worry about hardiness zones at all! I am not very familiar with the native plants there, but you probably have some local groups of enthusiasts, and checking in with them may be a good way to catch the early, mid, and late-blooming species. Also native species will be a more meaningful benefit for your local birds and bees etc.
posted by SaltySalticid at 6:25 AM on March 24, 2023 [1 favorite]