Adventures In Living and Gardening

Familiar to visitors to picturesque Rockport, Massachusetts, in the summer are the trailing purple lantanas along the front of Ketchopulos Market. Thirty-three years ago, Mrs. Mary Ketchopulos hung a single specimen in one of the arches of the facade which faces northwest. She received so many compliments that the next summer, she added nine more with blue tubs of blue hydrangeas at the base of each post. Here, everything is regularly watered twice a day and three times in very hot weather. Once a week, plants are fed a liquid fertilizer. Over the years, visitors from many states have stopped to admire these container plants

You can find pot plants adorning the most unexpected places, like lobster shacks and railroad crossings. When I stepped inside the tall fence of the Salem Lumber Company in Salem, Massachusetts, to buy some flag stones, I was delighted to see two long window boxes of geraniums, petunias, ageratum, and vinca in front of the office. The boxes were built and planted by Roy Chase, an employee who wanted “to dress up the office and make it stand out.” Every year Mr. Chase, whose hobby is gardening, starts with fresh soil, containing some dry cow manure. He waters the plants every day and feeds them once a month.

At Filling Stations
At a Boston filling station, there is a large planter of cut-leaved philodendrons, geraniums, rubber plants, begonias, and English ivy. The gardener is the manager, Alfred Balboni, who began with two small cut-leaved philodendrons given him by his wife, when he started business in 1954. As the plants outgrew their quarters, he had a galvanized metal planter built for them. Wheels were added, so it could be taken to the wash basin for sprinkling, and wheeled outdoors in summer. There are also several luxuriant window boxes along the office window, with coleus, salvias, zinnias, phlox, rex begonias, vincas, petunias, dwarf marigolds, and ageratum. Mr. Balboni says, “The boys like the flowers, too. They don’t mind wheeling the planter in and out in spring till the plants get adjusted, or to shade in summer when the sun is hot, or sprinkling the foliage when I don’t have time.”

Another filling station in Seabrook, New Hampshire, operated by Mr. Clayton H. Kennedy, has petunias at the front and along the borders of the drive-in area in five boxes eight feet long, eight inches high, and ten inches wide. In the bottom of each is a six-inch layer of well-rotted manure and on top of that two inches of soil. Each box gets a pail of water a day, and no additional feeding.
Cutting off faded blossoms is a regular chore worked on in intervals of business.

For Shopping Centers
The Northshore Shopping Center in Peabody, Massachusetts, is an outstanding example of well-stocked plant ers and raised beds, with permanent trees and shrubs and flowering plants inserted for seasonal color. Twenty-five planters are made of brick and open to the ground. They vary from five-foot circular units, each with one flowering tree, to oblongs eighty feet long filled with a great variety of hardy, durable plants evergreens, shrubs and small flowering trees all cared for by Mr. John Watkevitch, the gardener. One long planter at the bus stop features columnar maples, junipers, cotoneasters, and colorful annuals. Everywhere there are benches for shoppers to sit and rest.

The Lloyd Shopping Center at Portland, Oregon, comprises seventy blocks of stores with broad malls landscaped with trees, shrubs, annuals, and bulbs. There are pools, pieces of sculpture, benches and hundreds of planters, free standing and built-in, some disguising the lighting and ventilating facilities of the underground parking area. One long row of planters with Pfitzer junipers is suspended over openings that give light to the area below.

Another planter is actually an air vent highlighted by a large shore pine, a vine maple, and several floribunda roses.

To make its mall more attractive, the Eastland Shopping Center in Detroit, Michigan, also constructed raised beds and planters. Honey-locusts, hybrid rhododendrons, mollis azalea hybrids, Japanese holly, and pachysandra comprise the plant material with gray leaved santolina and Achyranthes brilliantissima for decorative patterns. Shoppers at the Center linger to enjoy the flowers and rest on the benches.

Care and Security
Container plants at business places require the same care as those in gardens and parks. Personal interest is essential. Too often owners become neglectful once nurserymen or florists have finished their work. Plants must be watered regularly, especially over week-ends, and foliage must be sprayed with the hose to remove dust and soot. Faded flowers should be removed to prolong blooming.

Where containers can be easily shifted, it may be necessary to secure them to their positions. Window boxes, above the heads of passers-by, are not so threatened by vandals as tubs or other small containers at doorways or on sidewalks, where they can be stolen or smashed. To guard against this, fasten them firmly with a strong chain or with hooks and heavy wire. Private houses and apart ments in some sections may also need to do this.

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