Container Garden Creative Tips

Use these container gardening tips to create a natural sanctuary in a busy city street, along rooftops or on balconies.

You can easily accentuate the welcoming look of a deck or patio with colorful pots of annuals, or fill your window boxes with beautiful shrub roses or any number of small perennials. Whether you arrange your plants in a group for a massed effect or highlight a smaller space with a single specimen, you'll be delighted with this simple way to create a garden.

Container gardening enables you to easily vary your color scheme, as each plant finishes flowering, it can be replaced with another. Whether you choose to harmonize or contrast your colors, make sure there is variety in the height of each plant. Think also of the shape and texture of the leaves: tall strap-like leaves will give a good vertical background to low-growing, wide-leaved plants. Choose plants with a long flowering season, and have others of a different type ready to replace them as they finish blooming.

Experiment, be creative. You might have an old porcelain bowl or copper urn you can use, or perhaps you'd rather make something really modern with timber or tiles.

If you decide to buy your containers ready-made, terracotta pots look wonderful, but tend to absorb water. You don't want your plants to dry out, so paint the interior of these pots with a special sealer available from hardware stores. Cheaper plastic pots can also be painted on the outside with water-based paints for good effect. When you purchase pots, don't forget to buy matching saucers to catch the drips. This will save cement floors from getting stained, or wood floors from rotting. Always use a good quality potting mix to ensure the best performance possible from your plants. Attractive flowerpots on each step leading up to your front door will provide a delightful welcome for visitors. Indoors, pots of plants or flowers help to create a cozy atmosphere.

Decide ahead of time where you want they will be positioned, and then buy plants that suit the situation. There is no point buying sun lover plants for a shady position, for they will not do well. Some plants also have really large roots, so they are best kept for the open garden.

With a creative mind and some determination, you will soon have a container garden that will be the envy of friends and strangers alike.