Garden design, garden planning, garden layout, planting plants and planting schemes

Gardening with planters

Posted on March 12th, 2010

Gardening with planters is a very enjoyable, easy and rewarding way to achieve great results and real impact in the garden. How to get the best results? Some simple rules apply and a little planning is all that is required to achieve stunning results.Gardening with planters and containers is very popular and a particularly favourite way to grow seasonal bedding plants, but containers are also a very useful and practical means for growing shrubs, trees, fruit, herbs and even vegetables.

Frequently container gardening is all about adding a splash of colour to give an extra wow affect, other times containers can be used very effectively to brighten a dull corner, obscure an unwanted view, frame an entrance and in the case of small areas to provide planting opportunities where traditional methods of planting in prepared ground is not possible (hard surface areas).

Whether we wish to decorate indoors or outdoors, at home or at the office, at the entrance or on the patio, on the rooftop or on the balcony and even tricky areas like steps, the scope for gardening with containers is practically endless. Choose planters wisely, probably most will be used in outdoor situations, we must remember to choose containers that are frost proof, which allows surplus water and rain to drain away and not drown plants. Some planters have an inbuilt irrigation means of providing water to the plants when needed, this labour and time saving feature is increasingly becoming very popular. For larger planters, it might be worth considering mobile stands or other means of easily moving the planter around the patio area?

When it comes to size, size matters, so better to think BIG. Larger planters are more flexible because they allow the plants to develop better, look better and ultimately achieve a more balanced and appealing mature appearance. They are also usually require (because of greater capacity and less likely to ‘dry out‘) less watering than smaller pots and how often do we see stressed plants ’potbound’ because they have simply become too big and outgrown the container? Larger planters widen the choice of plants from which to choose, allow us to plant up more plants and achieve more impressive results with interesting combinations.

There is a wide selection of planters now available in a range of sizes, shapes, finishes, colours and materials. So whether the preferred style is cottage gardening or post-modern, planters can bring interest and have real impact in our efforts to enhance the indoor/outdoor areas of our living/working garden environments.