I live in a townhouse condominium complex. My “property” includes a back deck which I had newly renovated two summers ago. Because I love to garden, when I moved in 18 years ago, I extended a small garden bed at the front of my unit which had a couple of shrubs, I appropriated the garden bed beside my end unit, and because my neighbour Donna isn’t much of a gardener, another neighbour, Estella, and I garden along the side of Donna’s unit. But that back deck – it needed some garden as well. So I bought some largish Rubbermaid storage tubs, drilled holes in the bottom, poured in a layer of styrofoam peanuts, added bags of black earth and outdoor potting soil and put in some annuals.

It wasn’t long before two things happened: I started experimenting with perennials like hosta, tried some shrubs (spirea – a couple of varieties, sumac, rhododendron) and some seeds from nearby plants started showing up in the tubs – I let some of them grow and they survived.

Over the years the number of tubs has grown – at one point I had more than 50 containers of various sizes and shapes. With the deck rebuild I cut back to around 20 containers which last summer grew to 25. This container gardening can quickly get out of hand!

Late Fall