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Designing and Planting Container Gardens for Sun and Shade

© Michael Vyskocil

With container plantings, you don't have to let the weather, occasion, or space requirements restrict your garden.

Container Garden Design

Putting together a container garden is like assembling a flower arrangement. The plants you select should provide height, foliage color, a cascading effect, and plenty of blooms.

A variety of plants at your local nursery or garden center fall naturally into these categories. A leafy plant, such as a spiky dracena or a tropical-looking canna, can add height, dimension and foliage color. Place a tall, vertical plant in the center or slightly off-center. A small rosemary plant trained into topiary form can lend an element of height, as well.

Cascading plants like English ivy or creeping zinnia soften the edges of an arrangement. Choose bushy, fine-textured plants as filler for the middle. Create a simple color scheme - two or three colors works best. Combine silver or bronze-colored plants with green-leaf plants for color throughout the growing season, and contrast fine-leaf foliage with bolder plants.

How to Select and Set Up the Container

• Be sure the container is sturdy enough to support the soil, water, and plants throughout the growing season.
• The container should be clean and free of any traces of leftover soil from last year to prevent the spread of plant diseases.
• The container should always have a drainage hole in the bottom.
• A large container filled with soil can be almost difficult to move. Keep a large container lighter by filling the bottom 1/4 with Styrofoam packing peanuts, then adding the soil on top.
• Alternatively, set a large container on a frame with movable casters.
• A layer of pebbles on top of the soil in a container looks nice, prevents soil from spilling, and retains moisture.
• A variety of container shapes and sizes contributes to an eye-catching design.
• Bright white containers lead the eye up to view the flowers and foliage. Neutral-colored containers blend in to your surroundings.

Sun-Loving Container Gardens

Plants such as the lantana, verbena, dianthus, helichrysum, portulaca, bachelor's buttons, and geraniums thrive in spaces that receive sun for six or more hours a day. Light-colored containers, such as white clay planters, absorb less heat than dark-colored containers, keeping the roots of your plants cooler and moister.

Wooden containers will stay cooler than terra-cotta. Soil will dry out quicker in clay or terra-cotta containers than in plastic. Be sure to use a potting mixture that will retain moisture for the roots but allow excess water to drain. Peat-based soil mixes are especially good, as is a mulch layering to the top of the container.

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