Review: Pots by Harriet Rycroft

By most people’s standards I have a lot of pots in my garden – acid-lovers or drought-haters that don’t like my sandy soil, summer things to soften paving, or pots filled with spring bulbs that can be admired more closely. Reading Harriet Rycroft’s book on her container planting habit, it seems I’ve barely started.

The book opens with a warning: “Beware! This is a highly addictive form of gardening.” and it seems Harriet is a lost cause with the concrete yard at her Cotswold home covered in a display that’s limited only by the need to allow parking.

(I was given a copy in return for a fair review.)

She started her gardening career with two plastic tubs to brighten her first home, a ground floor flat in London, and over the years, has honed her knowledge not only in her own garden but in clients’ plots and by spending many years as the person in charge of the display at Whichford Pottery.

Reading Pots is a short cut to the things she has learned “through trial and error” from which pots to use to what to grow, all explained in clear but not didactic language – ” . . . questions rarely have a single correct answer and gardeners often stifle their own creativity by worrying about ‘doing it wrong’,” she tells us.

The book, beautifully illustrated with photos by Andrew Maybury, covers everything you need to know to start creating a container garden. Plant choice isn’t limited by what will grow in a pot – it seems everything is possible, even trees – but more by whether the plant will earn its keep.

Harriet favours foliage over the often fleeting beauty of flowers and puts together her displays by pairing contrasting foliage or by picking out a tone or colour in one thing and repeating it in another.

Height and interest can be achieved by raising pots on bricks or pallets, using climbers and sitting smaller pots on the top of larger containers. Varying pot shape and material adds another layer of interest.

There’s advice on watering – well rather than daily – step-by-step guidance on repotting and dividing plants that have outgrown their space, and tips on storage.

I was heartened to read that I’m not alone in rarely washing pots. As Harriet points out “nobody attempts to sterilise a garden”. I also agreed that you can’t have too many tulips, as my autumn bulb order illustrates.

Best of all, she gives examples of planting combinations that work well for the different seasons and outlines some of her favourite plants to use in a section that would be the perfect starting point for a container garden.

Gardening in pots makes us focus in on individual plants, we’re told, “allowing us to notice details that would be lost in the hurly burly of large flowerbeds.” It’s also a great way of extending your garden onto areas without soil.

Pots by Harriety Rycroft, photographs by Andrew Maybury is published by Frances Lincoln with an RRP of £12.99. You can buy it here for £8.93. (If you buy via this link, I receive a small commission. The price you pay is not affected.) Alternatively, you may wish to buy from an independent bookseller here. All prices correct at time of publication of this post.

Enjoyed this? You can read more of my gardening and garden-related book reviews here.

Sign up for an email alert for future posts.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2023 Mandy Bradshaw