NORTH BEND - Container gardening can provide an artistic experience. It's like using a blank canvas to create beautiful, colorful tapestries.

Small spaces, an eclectic assortment of receptacles ranging from plain clay and decorative pots to old coffee mugs, wine barrels and even an old kitchen sink help bring bold splashes of color and graceful greens to enhance a home inside and out.

Sharon Ramirez, a Bay Area resident for more than a decade, has been doing serious container gardening for years.

Prior to retirement, she was too busy working as an account executive and raising her children to garden. But memories of growing up on five acres near a southern Michigan lake, helping her family raise beef, horses, veggies and fruit trees stayed with her. She remembered her grandparents' World War II Victory Gardens, where she planted pansies and nasturtiums as a child, and brought back those skills.

These days, Ramirez tells novice gardeners new to the area, “Don't worry. Fall forward into this delightfully satisfying experience. Every failure - and there will be some - is a learning adventure. There's always another spring, a new start.”

Useful Tips

With an exploratory spirit and a little planning, container gardening can be easy and fun. Read gardening books, visit local nurseries and talk with others. Ramirez suggests keeping a garden journal or notebook to record successes, failures and other pertinent details as to when you plant particular herbs, flowers or vines. That way you'll have a running reminder of what worked and what didn't. She also recommends taking photos.

“Keep them in an album. Also, do careful labeling so you know what's in which pot,” she said.

Ramirez uses rocks for drainage in pot bottoms, and make sure there are drain holes. Potting soil can contain peat moss, perlite and vermiculite, and is available from local stores and nurseries. She uses a combination of potting soil and mushroom compost.

Ramirez concentrates on flowers that attract bees for pollination. She grows herbs, flowers, succulents and vegetables, sharing them with friends and neighbors. Her labors reward her with wonderful fragrances and the tastes of truly fresh herbs in cooking, and tomatoes right off the plant.

Half of her garage serves as a place to store pots, soils and other garden tools. She also has a small greenhouse where a variety of low-care succulents thrive. A work bench there serves as a potting area. Last week, when the outside temperature was 52 degrees, it was 80 degrees in the greenhouse.

Ramirez has about a dozen wine barrels she has stained to enhance and preserve their natural color. She recently planted sweet peas in many of them. She also regularly plants geraniums, roses and lots of lavender.

“It loves our coast,” she said.

She likes to interact with her plants, hand watering rather than using a drip system or sprinklers.

Generally, there are three basic kinds of plants for pots - vertical, fillers and trailers. Verticals, such as her sweet peas, may need support or little trellises. Trailing plants, such as vines, help soften a look but need to be watched so they don't take over a pot. These also can include ornamental grasses, sweet potato vines and petunias.

Avoid overcrowding in container gardening. It's not a perfect science, but you can trim back or add as appropriate.

Some great plants for beginners include moss roses and zinnias, as well as herbs such as oregano, parsley, chives, thyme, sage, tarragon, rosemary and marjoram. These spices are great in stews, soups and many other dishes.

When Ramirez is not gardening, you'll find her walking at least four days a week, collecting agates, petrified wood and jaspers at the beach or writing. Her publishing credits include gardening poems, some of which have been published in her poetry collection “Blue Moon Caf�.”