Deercreek Guard House Urn – Lorraine Clancy
One of our members literally puts the ‘garden’ in the Deercreek Home and Garden Club. Lorraine Clancy, a member of the Garden Club Board, is our resident gardener and she tends the tall urn in front of the guard house, changing the plants about 5 times yearly.
Lorraine uses seasonal plants in the urn, following the thriller-filler-spiller method. This means putting a taller, more permanent plant (thriller) in the center, surrounding it with smaller, blooming plants (filler) and adding cascading plants (spiller) around the rim.
The urn currently has a Cordyline australis Red Star (a tall slow grower) in the center as the thriller. She suggests that you could also use a Dracaena, dusty miller or gerbera daisies. As a caution, she said she used Boston fern one year which was beautiful but eventually took over the entire pot.
Red petunias were used as the filler, however when the petunias went dormant at Christmas, red poinsettias were added for color. Variegated ivy is the current spiller, though sweet potato vine is also a favorite. Plus, smaller white petunias cascade over the rim to provide contrast.
Lorraine likes to use MiracleGro moisture control soil and Osmocote for blooms. She always tells friends to plant what you like to see growing, keeping in mind the recommendations for light and shade, water, temperature and of course the deer who seem to be eating more varieties this year. Visit more than one nursery to see what the choices are. Stick to small or medium-sized flowering plants that don’t put down deep roots.
Thanks, Lorraine, for giving Deercreek a changing bouquet of plants to admire when we pull in to the Deercreek guard house gate.