Designing Home Container Gardens

If you’re looking for ideas for designing home container gardens, many sources exist for both inspiration and how-to advice. The basics of home container garden design are simple. Your home container garden can be as elaborate or as simple as you desire. The key is to relax and have fun.

See more ideas for home container gardens.

Considerations When Designing Home Container Gardens

There are several steps to designing beautiful home container gardens.

Choose a Theme

The first step is decide upon a design theme. Is your style more country or classic? Relaxed or formal? Many people choose container gardens to match their homes. If you plan to include container gardens in front of your home, be sure to choose a style the compliments rather than clashes with your home’s overall appearance.

Some ideas for themes when designing home container gardens include:

• Formal or Traditional: Characterized by classic, clean lines and symmetry, a formal or traditional container garden is elegant, simple, and tasteful. If you own a Colonial, Federal or Georgian style home, for example, a formal or traditional arrangement may be best suited for your container garden design. Stone urns or formal planters suit the traditional style.
• Informal: An informal container garden contains plants that are chosen for their beauty rather than along rigid design guidelines. Choose what you like, and follow some simple tips for a beautiful, relaxed style. Any type of container may be used, but terra cotta, plastic and similar styles are popular.
• Cottage: Cottage gardens mix annuals and perennials, and rely upon old-fashioned favorites. Container gardening along cottage garden themes may include old fashioned varieties and loose arrangements that compliment the overall home style and garden. Whimsical containers, such as old wheel barrows or watering cans, go well with a cottage garden style. Window boxes are great in a country cottage style container garden.

Select the Right Flowers

Selecting flowers for home container gardens is also part of the design process. Many people select flowers at the garden center based simply on their beauty or fragrance. It’s important to understand several factors to ensure appropriate selection:

• Light requirements: Some flowers thrive in bright, full sunlight. Others prefer a shady location or dappled light. It’s important to note how much sunlight the area for your container garden receives and to choose the appropriate plants. While you can adjust many factors such as soil and moisture, light is nearly impossible to adjust. Full sunlight is six hours or more of direct sunlight per day; partial shade or partial sun definitions vary, but usually mean morning or afternoon-only light.
• Growth habit: Note the height and space requirements for each flower you choose. Some will spill over the edges of the pot or window box, and do best when used near the edge of a container garden. Other plants such as dracaena are tall and spike, and look best placed near the back or center of a container garden.
• Annuals or Perennials: Most container gardens use annuals, although perennials and shrubs, such as boxwood, rose trees and hibiscus are also used. Annuals may be the easiest for a novice container gardener to try.

Design Tips and Inspiration

Now that you know the basics of selecting the appropriate style and plants for your container garden, have fun designing your own home container or pot.

Design Tips

When planting a container garden, here are a few simple tips for beautiful presentation:

• Place tall, spiky, or straight-growth plants in the center of a round pot or in the middle of a window box to add height and interest.
• Choose draping or trailing plants for the edges. Vinca vine and bacopa both drape well over the edges of pots and window boxes. Petunias and lantana also add beautiful flowers and some cascade over the edges of the pot.
• Don’t overcrowd the plants. Follow recommendations for spacing. Remember, as plants grow they will fill in the pot.
• Select annuals for both flower color and foliage color. Coleus, with its variegated bronze and green foliage, adds great color and interest. Begonias also have lovely bronze colored foliage or light green foliage and small but vibrant flowers. Adding these to other annuals creates vivid and colorful home container gardens.
• Play colors from opposite ends of the color spectrum off one another. Green is considered a neutral when designing gardens. Blue and pink flowers contrast nicely, as do vibrant yellow and dark blue or purple flowers. You can also design a container garden all around one color, selecting themes and variations on common flower colors such as red, pink, yellow or blue.
• Some flowers attract hummingbirds and butterflies, so if you enjoy nature watching, adding pots of geraniums or window boxes full of lantana, geraniums and zinnias near a window or outdoor seating area provides quite the show as birds and butterflies visit throughout the summer.

Inspiration

For more ideas, inspiration and plans, visit:

• The Artistic Garden provides how-to tips and ides for designing colorful home container gardens.
• Emmitsburg Master Gardener Lisa Utt offers advice in this article for gardeners on how to design beautiful container gardens.
• Container Garden Design offers a complete how-to guide for starting your own container garden project.

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