Pollinator-safe container plantings--do they work?

This spring I refrained from filling my shopping cart with brightly-flowering annuals at my favorite garden center. It felt like a deprivation, but I was trying to avoid bringing home plants treated with pollinator-killing neonicotinoid insecticides. 

What I aspire to--the pollinator garden at Locust Grove in Poughkeepsie

This meant changing my approach to container plantings. Now in August the garden is quiet, but the containers are coming into full bloom. It’s a good time to assess how the new approach worked out.

    I’d fallen into a routine of filling large containers with a combination of tender perennials and annuals from the garden center. 
 

     I carry warm-climate perennials, cannas, elephant ears, dahlias, and a favorite salvia, through the winter by storing them in the basement. Since most of my containers stand in full or part shade, I’d been adding shade-tolerant long-blooming annuals such as impatiens, browallia, torenia and coleus. 

Browallia blooms in shade

I liked the results, but truth to tell, the combinations hadn’t varied much in years. It was high time for a change.

    This year I followed Patricia McGinnis’ suggestion to “shop” in my own garden for perennials to use in the pots. I also found three places in Massachusetts to buy plants that haven’t been sprayed with pesticides: Thomson’s Garden Center in Salem, Allandale Farm in Chestnut Hill, and the horticulture program at a local school, Learning Prep School in Newton. 

Here’s how my containers turned out:

I surrounded Canna ‘Bengal Tiger’ with anise-scented sage (Salvia guaranitica), which just recently opened its deep blue flowers. 

There aren't many flowers as blue as this salvia's

A few marigolds added as fillers have bloomed continuously, adding a bright touch.

Neonic-free marigolds add a pop of color

    My favorite this year is a combination of another canna with an ornamental grass, name unknown, that I bought at Learning Prep. From the flowers (those wispy stalks at the top), I suspect it may be a reed grass (Calamagrostis).

A mystery grass turned out to be a good collaborator

Golden creeping jenny (Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’) is adding a je ne sais quoi as a “spiller” falling over the edge of the pot. Heaven knows there’s plenty of this groundcover in the garden; it’s famous for its imperialistic tendencies.

    In shade, the giant leaves of elephant ears provide bulky focal points. To their pots I’ve added a purple-leaved heuchera for some contrast and offspring from an angel-wing begonia I bought last year that will offer pale pink flowers as the weather cools. 

Contrasting leaf colors and forms complement elephant ears

I doubt the begonia is neonic-free, but I couldn’t bear to throw it away. Japanese painted fern (Athyrium niponicum var. pictum) pops up anywhere shady in the garden. Not surprisingly, it’s willing to collaborate with elephant ears.

Japanese painted fern is an adaptable shade-lover

    Apple-blossom-pink geraniums are doing OK in part shade in the front yard, helping to cover up a not very decorative drain cover that we have to keep accessible. In Salem I found red coleus that’s growing well in a north-facing spot along the driveway.

Coleus without the pesticide spray

    The more I scrutinize the combinations in the pots, the more I can see ways I’d like them to be different. But overall, I’d say that for container plantings, there’s life without neonics.