Never before have I lived in one place long enough to wear things out. But after two decades in my Centennial home, several oak half barrels the previous owners left behind have fallen apart. The half barrels, the kind used for aging whiskey and wine, are ideal containers for growing flowers, roomy enough to accommodate a visually interesting blend of shapes, sizes and colors, and sturdy enough to reside outdoors all year ’round.
The first sign that something was amiss was when I saw a mouse run across the patio and disappear into a hole in the bottom of one of the barrels. Potting soil was seeping out onto the patio through ever-widening cracks and metal rings slipped down like sagging socks. Finally, a couple of staves collapsed.
My husband has never been a fan of my plebeian flowerpots. His tastes run more to Italian terra cotta. These decrepit whiskey barrels were becoming a bone of contention. Marriage is about compromise, so I agreed to replace the two worst barrels with pots he found acceptable. (Barrel replacements would have been a bargain at $16 retail, compared with what an equivalent-sized Italian terra-cotta pot costs.)
I couldn’t help but notice all of the claims lately for new, improved potting mediums, so I decided to change out the ancient potting soil that had been in the barrels all along. You’ve seen the ads. Flowers get “twice as big,” the new formula “protects against over- and under-watering” and “absorbs 33 percent more water and releases it to roots as needed.”
Normally unaffected by advertising hype, this time I was swayed, thinking that if the container fell apart after 20 years, how good could the potting soil be? I saved the old potting soil, mostly peat, perlite and vermiculite, to use as soil amendment and started all of my 40-odd containers fresh with one of the new miracle products.
Halfway through the project, and after purchasing trunk-loads of this pricey stuff, that it occurred to me that it might have been a lot less damaging to the bank account if I had experimented with a few containers rather than going whole hog over to this new technology.
As I emptied out the oak barrels, I was reminded of an earlier, as it turns out, not-so-well- thought-out plan of mine that I had completely forgotten about. The bottoms of the barrels were filled with Styrofoam bits and pieces. This must have been an attempt to save money on potting soil, a lame-brained idea that I lamented the whole time I excavated a mini-landfill of 1980s-vintage egg cartons, drinking cups and chunks of packing material.
I can only hope the new terra-
cotta pots are worthy of this potting soil version of black gold and that the new medium actually lives up to its hype.
Marcia Tatroe is a garden writer and lecturer. E-mail her at rltaurora@aol.com.
