hi, congratulations! watering is the number one, most important gardening practice ( ok, along with giving enough sunlight and good drainage) when a plant goes wrong it's mostly one of these reason before any pest and disease. most people tend to water too much. and getting into a good habit of it either a container or the ground will save you alot of trouble. ( plant dying and all that stuff) my general rule of thumb is not to water until the first about two inch of the soil feels pretty dry, when you stick your finger in it. it could be a little damp but more on the dry side. that's when i water. so there's no way telling how often because it'll depends on how big the size of containter is or what it's made out of. bigger would be the less often , plastic less often , terra cotta more often ( porous) whiski barrel somewhat similar but probably not that often since it's big, glazed pot somewhere between the plastic and terracotta..... so on. there's an exception to this. right after you plant, if it's newly potted and you broke the rootball. i'll keep them pretty well watered for oh, i don't know for a couple of days. depending on how hot it is out , hotter , sunnier the longer. up till about a week or week and a half, maybe( in the middle of summer) so they can have time to grow new roots and get over the shock. that's just because the roots are broken so you'll see the plants wilt faster in that period. but be careful, this is a fine line probably only comes with more experience to have a feel for it. but plants wilt from too much water, too. so somewhere along the line you'll go through trial and error to tell how much is too much. you are absolutly right it'll also depends on what kind of plants you grow. some plants likes to be on the dry side some on the more wetter. but exception of a few, most plants basically hates wet feet. most likes them evenly moist. which means you don't want to water often but when you do water deep. meaning you want the water to come out of the hole at the bottom . this applies to both container and ground by the way. one thing you should keep in mind in container is that the potting mix is completly different from regular garden soil, it's mainly made with peat and barks and they are very difficult to rewet if the soil dries out too much. so sometimes you'll see if you water a dried pot, the water come out at the bottom too fast. this is no good, the water is just falling and the pot is still very light. if you stick a finger in it it's wet at the surface but bone dry in side. it's somewhat a pain you have to go through to rewet the soil. if it's small you can take it to the sink or soak it in a big bucket for a while until it reabsorb. if it's too big you might just have to keep water next two three days. in the ground, you don't have to worry about this. mulching the ground or container can help, more so on the ground. so if you mulch it'll really help to conserve water. alot of times you only have to water during the very dry spell. it's will be pretty hard keep away yourself from watering. sometimes i even have to fight it off. but always remember, it's always better to be on the dry side than wet. this might help you restrain when you just wanna water for really no reason. this happens to everyone since everyone overwaters. i hope this helped. good luck.

I have a whiskey barrel with a really big Rodgersia in it. It's gorgeous! Has been in that big 'ol pot, for oh maybe 6-7 years now. I leave it on the patio all winter. It's on my lower patio, so I cannot drag it up the stairs, obviously. I push it against the wall of the house and barricade it with bags of leaves or straw bales (which I subsequently use in the spring as mulch). I've grown so many things in pots over the years - tree peony, roses, etc. - and have overwintered nursery pots of unplanted stuff I didn't get planted. when I moved years ago, you should have seen the amount of stuff I potted up in the fall, kept in the garage over winter, and then dragged to my new house in the very early spring - perennials, roses, even a couple Japanese maples. If I need to overwinter something in a pot, I drag what potted plants I can into the unheated garage to overwinter (this year, just a tree form hydrangrea, I think that's all). I have never lost any potted plants over the winter in the unheated garage, and they freeze solid in there. I just make sure they're well watered before dragging in there, and come about end of January of February I pack a couple inches of snow on each pot so when the spring thaw comes, the melting snow slowly and gently waters the pots. The barricading method works well, too, if you don't have garage or shed space for storage. The point is: Go for it! :0)

Wow those Aladin are really small, if I didn't see the playing card in the picture I would have thought those were full size turks turbans. The Aladin gourds should be fine in your half barrels. The All Size Mix should be okay if it is actually the gourds pictured. The description worries me though since it says, "Amazing range of shapes and colors, both large and small." The gourds they have pictured are all small in my opinion and large gourds to me are the hard-shelled gourds. Although if you are growing them along the ground size shouldn't be too much of an issue. One thing to watch out for is that if you let a vine just grow over the side of the barrel that is 12"-18" off the ground the vine may break before it touches the ground. You might want to think of a way to support the vine before it touches the ground. It wouldn't need to be fancy it could be something simple like four sticks in the ground about a foot apart and just tie the vine to the stick at closer and closer points to the ground as the vine grows.

Oh well, I forgot to answer the question posed when you gave us that sweet list. Clear Fork River Valley....this is gorgeous and tough and stays bluegreen and even immature it is totally crinkled up. Lift it up to show it off. It will grow anywhere I believe. So Sweet....not just because BKay adores it, but because it is a feminine lovely hosta which also needs to be featured. You look at it and it appears delicate of form, which belies the fact she is like a STEEL MAGNOLIA....and I bet that is one of the reasons BK loves it so. That and she is a fragrant beauty. Lederhosen....don't think it will please you up high, since it is such a "green patent leather" and MELTED DOWN sort of hosta, even though it is a fragrant hosta with a blue matte leaf in early spring. Oh it does fine in a container, but there are better ones to FEATURE. Like maybe King Tut, a great gold. You need to feature at least ONE gold, right? :) Also, I do not think you should confine Winter Snow to a container, even one so big as a whiskey barrel. Put her somewhere she can dominate the area, and shine like a beacon when a stray sunbeam pierces the shade. I love this plant. S&S family, but a much lighter cooler yellow green with a creamy white margin, like a lime dream-sickle.