Containers Outdoors
Outdoor Pots, Planters, and Containers
Gain inspiration from these container flower gardens and use them as a springboard to plan your outdoor container plantings.
Too many think of container gardening as a pansy or daisy in a pot. Expand your vision and the beauty of your garden by being creative.
A single large urn may be appropriate for a focal point, but a variety of plants in a group of identical containers of different sizes also may do the job with more grace—and be more economical.
You’ve already learned to look up for places to hang planters, attach them to fences and walls, or grow climbing vines or trailing vines with their roots firmly in containers.
Next, considering updating an old idea—window boxes and fence boxes—with striking colors, exciting materials, or unusual designs. The goal is to showcase the flowers, not the box, so match window boxes carefully to your home’s architectural style and the flowers they contain.
Use cable looped through recycled garden hose to support containers of flowering plants hung from the branches of your yard’s trees. (Always keep safety in mind, however, and place hanging containers outside of foot traffic areas.)
Line the turns and corners of your walks and garden paths or the edges of a patio or deck with planters of flowers. Many gardeners intentionally create niches or ledges in walls and setbacks in paths for container flowers.
You’ll quickly get the idea. You’ll look differently at your landscape when you consider adding containers of flowers to its beauty.
Matching Containers and Flowering Plants
Today’s number of available choices for planting containers are nearly limitless. How do seasoned gardeners and landscape designers sort through the dozens of container materials, hundreds of designs, and scores of colors?
It’s easy. They focus on matching containers to their plants rather than try to fit plants into a specific container.
First, they look at function. Every container needs to be made of lightweight materials. You’ll be picking them up and moving them around, after all.
Second, they consider the materials from which they are made. It’s ideal if garden containers are either waterproof or sealed to prevent leaching.
Third, they weigh how much insulation they will give the plants’ roots. Containers are above ground, frequently in the direct sun, and they quickly overheat if they are too thin or made of metal. They often choose clay, cast ceramic, terra cotta, or concrete. Many also use durable foam containers, both light and waterproof.
Fourth, they give a nod to durability. Many decorative containers are costly, so it’s good to choose those that will give good service.
Fifth, and perhaps most important of all, they look for good drainage holes. Plants quickly die if they are left in standing water. The healthiest flower planted in the best potting soil will die unless water quickly drains from the pot. Some gardeners drill their own drainage holes, because those in pots are often too small and easily clog.
Last, they match their containers with waterproof drip basins to catch water and prevent staining, and they find matching pot feet to raise the container off the ground.
Once they’ve narrowed those many choices down to the best of the lot, they’ll have a few candidates left: the best of the best.
These they’ll match to the specific needs of flowers they plan to plant in the containers. That means finding containers of the right diameter or size, the right depth, and the right volume for the plants they will hold.
As you can see, this is a process, not a choice. It allows you to quickly sort through pots and planters that have one or more shortcomings, and it makes it possible to quickly find what you want in a crowded garden center’s display.
It’s also easy, and you’ll quickly master matching containers to your own plants.