A sink garden planted in a real trough or sink is a mighty heavy thing, once it’s filled with soil and planted; and so may be many others. If you can place the empty container in its permanent spot and plant it there, you may save someone an aching back.
These gardens are meant to grow out in the open air, but not where searing sun and hot dry winds can dry the soil too fast and burn the plants. If the plants are all of the type that need sunlight, give them only the dappled shade of a high-branched tree or the windbreak and slight noonday shade of a low wall. Woodland plants and others that like shade can be grown in more protected spots. Naturally, the two types are not combined successfully in the same garden.
Don’t place sink gardens where they will receive the drip from eaves or an overhanging tree. Don’t set them tight up against a wall. Newly planted gardens need some special protection—a cheesecloth tent or newspaper on a temporary frame overhead—until plants are well settled in their new home.
Watering
A safe general rule is never to let the soil dry out all the way through, never to water so much that it is soggy and sour. For most plants, you can scratch into the soil surface with your fingers. If it feels moist, don’t water; if it feels dry, do. However, succulent plants should be grown drier, boggy plants more constantly moist. Frequency of watering depends upon type of plant, size and type of container, the soil, the weather—depends, in fact, upon how often each individual sink garden needs water.
Fertilizing
If a fertile soil mixture is used in the first place, and particularly if it is enriched with a slow-acting fertilizer such as bone meal, most gardens will not need extra feeding for many months after planting, often not for the first year. The point is to give the plants just enough food to keep them healthy, not enough to make them grow out of proportion to the garden.
If you see signs of malnutrition—few, small leaves with poor color; failure to bud and flower; sickly, stunted growth—feed quickly but lightly. A weak solution of organic food such as fish emulsion or liquid manure is usually recommended. Established gardens can take this light feeding once in spring when active growth begins, and once or twice during the early summer, without outgrowing their bounds.
Rock garden set in an old wash-boiler lid