Landscape Beds Need:

1. Good top soil
2. Good drainage. This is achieved by well-drained top soil and/or mounding your garden beds.
3. Choose the right plants for the exposure of the landscape bed. For example, you should not plant a shade-loving plant in a full sun location.
4. We highly recommend using a geotextile fabric to control weeds. This is layed on top of the soil. Then you cut holes slightly larger than the container size you are planting. If using a bark mulch as your cover for the fabric, raise your root ball three inches above the level of the cloth, then spread three inches of bark mulch around the root ball and cover the fabric. We have been using this technique since 1985, and have had great success. The geotextile fabric is the only fabric we've found to work for both weed control and erosion control. To see this method, stop by our nursery or visit Glacier Gardens Rainforest Adventure for a tour.

Container Gardens:

For potting soil, we like the Sunshine #1 Potting Soil. It contains peat moss, perlite and vermiculite. Containers need to have drain holes in our wet climate.

Select the plants suitable for the exposure. Some plants are more tolerant of rain than others. Here are some examples:

Rain Tolerant

1. Dianthus
2. Dusty Miller
3. Bacopa
4. Spikes
5. Lamium
6. Margarite Daisies
7. African Daisy
8. Violas
9. Some Pansies
10. Palidosum Daisy
11. Verbena
12. Fibrous Begonia

Protected (need cover)

1. Geraniums
2. Petunias
3. Schizanthus

All annual flowers will perform their best if protected from Juneau's heavy rain. Try to use perennials and flowering shrubs in your landscape and save the annuals for containers. Also, a container garden can be moved around as the weather changes.

Check out these designs and the way we place them in the hanging baskets.

12" Hanging Basket
Exposure - Full Sun

G=Geranium
D=Dianthus
DM=Dusty Miller
B=Bacopa
V=Verbena
CC=Creeping Charlie
L=Lobelia

Notice how we plant in triangles.A common mistake is to put one plant in the center and trailing plants around it. The design above will give you a beautiful, full, billowing look.

12" Hanging Basket
Exposure: Shade

B=Begonia
M=Martha Washington Geranium
F=Fuschia
La=Lamium
CJ=Creeping Jenny
CC=Creeping Charlie
L=Lobelia

Throughout the season, you will need to fertilize and pick off the old, spent blossoms (dead heading), and keep your plants watered.

Our Nursery carries all the plants you need for container gardens or landscape beds.

We are happy to help you with basket and garden designs.