The Three Plants for Container Gardens

Since many of us are busily planning what we’ll be putting into our pots and planters, we thought it would be the perfect time to revisit this post about the rules for planting a container garden.  We learned these great tips during a session with a gardening expert while attending a blog conference last summer.   It’s important to keep what you have at your front entry looking fresh and healthy because it’s your chance to make a first impression with your visitors.  I first wrote this post when I realized our front needed to be freshened up before a big arts fair took place across from us.  Please enjoy the revisit.

 

Since the arts fair was about to take place in the park across the street, I decided it was time to spiff up the front of our place.  So, I put the three rules to work.

 

 

I headed out to a garden center and bought a tall, a trailing, and a thick.  I made sure they had different textures because that seems to add a lot of personality to the arrangement.  The tall is an arborvitae, the thick is a mum, and I forgot to check the name of the trailing.  I made sure that the shrubs don’t lose their leaves in the winter.  The planters wouldn’t look so great with bare shrubs in them.

 

 

I’m not one to rush the seasons at all, but I went for  fall mums for the thick plants because the store’s summer annuals were just not looking so great.  I realized after they were planted that I should have bought bigger ones to fill the pots more.  I plan to just keep replacing the mums with new/fresher ones until they die off in a frost.

 

I put some pillows on the front bench that have some of the same colors as the plants.

 

The last shrubs lived in these planters for three years.  I bought these plants small enough that they have some room to grow.  I will just switch out the flowers for a small lantern in the winter, pansies in the spring, and probably some petunias or begonias for next summer.  All the while, I’ll be following the rules of tall, thick, and trailing.

 

 

Now everything looks healthy and fresh.

 

I think it’s about time to invite the neighbors over for a round of “drinks on the stoop.”

 

Take care.