Container Gardening Tips
Forget crawling on your hands and knees to weed around flowers and shrubs. With a little planning and imagination, you can easily create a splendid garden whose luxuriant inhabitants sink their roots into attractive containers from terra cotta urns to plastic pots.
Container gardens should reflect the personality of the gardener or the style of the garden itself. Styles can range from the elegantly formal to the wildly exotic "jungle" look with bananas and tropical vines. Your first consideration in planning a container garden should be the light and water needs of the plantings. Obviously, if you plant shade-loving impatiens next to sun-worshiping cacti, things could get a little prickly.
Choosing the containers is another primary concern. Keep in mind the scale of your container and plant. How tall is the pot in relation to the tallest plant? Pots should never overpower the plants themselves—rarely should the pot account for than 1/3 of the overall appearance. Another rule to keep in mind is "Tall, small, fall". The tall base gives the focal point and the small underplantings that fall over the sides lend scale and “dress” the container itself.
Color combinations can consist of a single plant or a monochromatic theme of dark foliage. Others can be as bright as the gardener's imagination. Use an artist's color wheel or just stroll through the garden supply and toss plants in your basket on a whim. In choosing containers, remember that various styles are designed for shade, sun, or even a cactus garden.
Again, the container should reflect the style of the surroundings. Ornate terra cotta urns such as those in front of Biltmore House are obviously on the upper end of the scale, but anything that will hold soil is a container: simple plastic or clay, plain or decorative, tall or short—the combinations are endless. Even old boots or watering cans can work. Container gardening is limited only by the imagination.