I was just given a large terra cotta strawberry jar for my garden. What can I grow in it (besides strawberries) that is visually interesting yet low maintenance?
Strawberry jars are excellent containers for showcasing just about any low growing plant.
Good foliage plants are mat forming sedums such as ‘Tricolor’, sempervivums (hens and chicks) and succulents or herbs such as creeping thyme and oregano. A nice silver gray plant that would suit a strawberry jar is helichrysum ‘Dwarf Silver’.
The winning characteristic about all these plants is that they are drought tolerant and low maintenance.
Whatever you choose for your strawberry jar, watering can be a bit tricky. All of the water seems to run out of the upper holes and it never reaches the plants at the bottom. But I’ve discovered a solution to this problem.
It starts with a piece of PVC pipe. Get one that is two inches in diameter and cut a few inches shorter than the interior height of the container. Next, just drill a series of holes along the side of the pipe using a 1/4 inch bit.
Place a few pieces of a broken terra cotta pot over the drainage hole and set the pipe on them. Add about 3 inches of gravel around the pipe and about 4 to 5 inches in the pipe itself. This will help stabilize it as you add the potting soil. Add soil until you have covered the bottom row of the pouches.
Now you are ready to begin adding your plants and the remainder of the soil.
When you are ready to water just pour the water into the pipe and it will distribute the water evenly through the soil.