GARDEN ON THE MOVE CONTAINERS GIVE PORTABILITY TO FLOWERS AND FOLIAGE.

Byline: Alina Larson Correspondent

You're big on gardening but tight on yard space - what do you do? Contain yourself.

Container gardening allows you to grow just about anything - plants, flowers, vegetables or herbs - whether you have a patio, a porch, a balcony or just a room with a view.

With container gardening, you can think outside the box and get creative with plants and their containers. Wooden baskets or barrels, buckets, wire baskets or self-painted ceramic pots are just a few you can use. Just make sure that the container has a capacity of between 15 and 120 quarts to allow for root growth and retention of moisture. Plastic pots may weaken in the sun, and wooden containers can rot or damage plants if they're treated with toxic compounds, so consider those factors when you hit the nearest garden center.

Container preferences vary as widely as gardeners.

Thousand Oaks gardening enthusiast Dale Johnston discovered a ``flower tower'' at Home Depot. The contraption allowed him to combine seven different flowers in one huge column of color. He also has about 40 hanging plants and a dozen pots on the ground.

``I used to have a patio that was sterile-looking and boring,'' he says. ``Now I have color from one end to the other.''

He's currently tending fuchsias, geraniums, hydrangeas, double impatiens and lobelia. For his hanging plants, Johnston likes wire baskets that he lines with sphagnum moss. ``I don't do plastic,'' he insists.

Beverly Brune of Westlake Village is the opposite. She complains that birds come to pick at the moss, so for hanging plants she uses plastic pots, opting for plastic containers within ceramic pots on the ground.

``Then I can just take (the plastic container) out and soak it in a bucket of water,'' says Brune, a member of the Westlake Village Garden Club for the past 30 years. Brune's garden features a large variety of ivy, Boston ferns, epiphyllums - also called orchid cactus - and dwarf geraniums.

No matter what types of plants you decide to grow, they all need to be in an environment that allows water to drain out. Drainage holes in a pot's bottom should measure a half-inch in diameter. Rocks or packing peanuts in the bottom of the container will help water drain. For soil that allows drainage, try ``soilless'' potting mix, compost or a mixture of compost, sand, peat moss or coconut husk, vermiculite and perlite.

Remember that the more sand and compost you have in your mix, the heavier the pot will be, says Marlyn Lazo of Seeds of Change. Use a lighter mix for a rooftop garden - and make sure your containers are placed on stable areas. Double-check each plant's sunlight needs. Some plants love hours of direct sunlight, while others need filtered sunlight or more hours of shade.

It's easy to grow many herbs and vegetables in containers. Like flowers, vegetables should be kept moist but not oversaturated. Stick your finger into the soil and if it's dry down to the knuckle then break out the watering can.

Be it flower, fern or fruit - remember to fertilize. Container gardens often need fertilization due to the soil and size. Mix in time-release fertilizer pellets with the soil, adding monthly doses of liquid fertilizer during the growing season.

And finally: Have fun!

Use plants and flowers of different colors and heights in the container. Plant higher flowers in the center, for example, with cascading tendrils to spill down the sides. Or pack a visual punch with one vibrant color of flowers in the container. Charlie Nardozzi, the Hilton Garden Inn's chief gardening officer, suggests multicolored canna lilies surrounded by white bacopa and purple wave petunias; salmon geraniums with blue lobelia and white alyssum; or butterfly-attracting red nicotiana planted in a sea of blue scaevola.

Don't stop there. Once your container has passed the size and drainage test, you can add interest to its outside and inside. Lois Clark decorates her pots with acrylic paint, spraying them with Krylon afterward as a sealant. She's also a big fan of woodland fairies and small, realistic animal statues. She tucks them in among her tomatoes and bell peppers, fuchsia, ivy, geraniums, cymbidiums, hanging orchids, hydrangeas, gardenias, shamrocks and ginger. Clark has cultivated her backyard paradise over the 47 years she has lived in her Arleta home, with a Victorian garden surrounding a container-filled patio. She's already successfully grown dozens of different plants here over the years but is now reading up on growing herbal flowers for medical ailments. She's already found her cure in gardening itself.

``I experiment,'' she says. ``I love it. It's my therapy.''

GROWS WELL IN CONTAINER GARDENS

Fruits and vegetables:

Dry soup bush beans

Fresh soup bush beans

Beets

Chard

Lettuce

Spinach

Tomatoes

Peppers

Herbs:

Chives 

Basil

Thyme

Rosemary

Sage

- Courtesy of Seeds of Change

Annuals

Alyssum

Begonias

Browallia 

Coleus 

Cuphea

Geraniums

Impatiens

Lantana 

Lobelia

Marigolds

Periwinkle 

Nasturtiums

Pansies

Petunias

Salvia 

Sanvitalia

Snapdragons

Thunbergia

Verbena 

Zinnias

- Courtesy of www.gardenguides.com

Where to buy plants and pots

--Blumel's Sunset Nursery and Landscaping, 23256 Lyons Ave., Newhall [phone]

--California Do-It Center: 28750 Roadside Dr., Agoura [phone]; 3221 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank, [phone]; 2695 Cochran, Simi Valley, [phone]; 3775 Thousand Oaks Blvd., Thousand Oaks, [phone]; 6300 Foothill Blvd., Tujunga [phone]; 23314 W. Valencia Blvd., Valencia [phone]

--Green Arrow Nurseries, 8845 Sepulveda Blvd., North Hills, [phone]

--Green Thumb International, www.greenthumb.com, 23734 N. San Fernando Road, Newhall, [phone]

--The Home Depot. Check your local listings for one near you.

--Lowe's Home Improvement Stores. Check your local listings for one near you.

--Orchard Supply Warehouse: 641 N. Victory Blvd., Burbank, [phone]; 27741 Victory Blvd., Canoga Park, [phone]; 3100 Foothill Blvd., La Crescenta [phone]; 5960 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Van Nuys [phone]

--Sego Nursery, 12116-26 Burbank Blvd., North Hollywood, [phone]

--Sheridan Gardens Nursery, 817 N. Hollywood Way, Burbank, [phone]

--Sig's Pottery & Nursery, 17825 Devonshire St., Northridge; [phone]

--Sperling Nursery, 24460 Calabasas Road, Calabasas, [phone]

--Steven's Nurseries and Hardware, 12000 Riverside Dr., N. Hollywood [phone]

--Ultra Greens Garden Center, 13102 Maclay St., Sylmar; [phone]

--West Valley Nursery, 19035 Ventura Blvd., Tarzana, [phone]

- Compiled by A.L.

Get growing

So you've got the right mix of flowers and the perfect pot in which to start your container garden. But you're not sure how to begin. Try the following step-by-step directions from the Home Depot and get planting!

1 Fill container halfway with potting soil. For smaller plants, stop 2 inches below the rim.

2 Loosen the plant from its container by pressing firmly on all sides.

3 Encourage roots to explore by teasing them apart with your fingers.

4 Nestle the plant in its new pot and fill with potting soil, leaving the top of the root ball exposed.

5 Saturate the plant with water, and add more potting soil if needed.

CAPTION(S):

10 photos, 3 boxes

Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Down to Earth

Containers bring the green just about anywhere

Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center

(2 -- color) Potted plants add dimension to any outdoor space.

Endless Summer

(3 -- color) Container plants enhance the backyard ambience of Lois Clark's Arleta home, where she's been gardening for almost five decades.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer

(4 -- color) Dale and Ann Johnston's patio, left, offers greenery and color at all levels. Potted bulbs, above, are another way to go, as shown in this Netherlands Flower Bulb Information Center example.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer

(5 -- color) Lavender and herbs peek out from pocket pots.

Nancy Wegard/The New York Times

(6) 1 Fill container halfway with potting soil. For smaller plants, stop 2 inches below the rim.

(7) 2 Loosen the plant from its container by pressing firmly on all sides.

(8) 3 Encourage roots to explore by teasing them apart with your fingers.

(9) 4 Nestle the plant in its new pot and fill with potting soil, leaving the top of the root ball exposed.

(10) 5 Saturate the plant with water, and add more potting soil if needed.

Box:

(1) Grows well in container gardens (see text)

(2) Where to buy plants, pots (see text)

(3) Get growing (see text)