1. You won't want the sand, dirt or clay in the container. You don't say what kind of sand, but if is the small particle stuff like play sand, don't use it please. What you want are larger particles to promote good drainage. This thread explains in detail. Given what you have on hand I would say the peat moss and perlite would be your best bets and then go with an 8" deep container as it will support a low oxygen, water saturated layer at the bottom(you will understand this better after reading the thread linked to above). This mix will also be fairly light compared to say, clay and gravel. I would have said to just use the potting soil mix you have, but the term is vague and I don't know what ingredients are in it. If it looks like a really nice, loamy dirt, don't use it. If it is mainly peat then go with that. If you got really lucky and it is mainly small bark pieces, definitely use that. 2. The herbs don't need any more protection than anything else does from the wind, but dill can get fairly tall (2-5' depending on the variety). It is a fairly 'airy' plant so doesn't catch the wind all that well, but I generally try to have other plants propping it up or something the prevailing winds can blow it into and stop further movement. Again, the dill will likely survive the winds, but it can be blown such that it is now hanging well over the container instead of remaining upright. In terms of it being edible, this won't matter, but if you want a 'neater' appearance you might care. I am really not sure how to support it all that well in a deck railing scenario. 3. The dill and other herbs won't be stunted in the container at all assuming you use a sharp draining potting mix and fertilize a bit. In fact I think you may find the opposite to be true. Many herbs seem custom made for container growing as many ground soils are too wet and in zone 4 too cold for them to do optimally. In a container neither needs to be a problem. Some of the herbs you can manage their size by pruning (using) them, but I wouldn't do that with dill. I don't know if you just want a little dill every now and then or if you want a lot, but if you prune the dill to limit it's height you are going to reduce the amount the plant produces and they don't really produce a lot per plant.

Mine are almost the same size. I grow peppers and tomatoes in them.

I have a 10 x 20 x8 greenhouse that is a plastic vinyl cover style similar to a portable garage. We're zone 8a, in the mountains of central California and saw temps down to 22 degrees in December. We set it up as a greenhouse inside of a greenhouse. We have a 5x10 raised bed that we cover at night with survival blankets (high quality reusable, 5x7ft size $18 each, sewn together to make a larger cover) and heat with old fashioned Christmas lights and when cold, a small heater that has a very low thermostat shut off temp. We also have a 4x4ft table top that has a mini greenhouse over the top that we also cover with a survival blanket to reflect the Christmas tree lights back inside. I have 3 large tomato plants and 3 cherry tomatoes in there. I have toms every day. We also have a Japanese eggplant that is producing fruit we should be able to harvest in about a month, a regular eggplant also with baby eggplants on it. We have hot chili peppers I'm harvesting right now. We also have bush beans, but they're at the end of their life cycle - still alive but pretty tired. We have 3 mini bell peppers, two were hit pretty hard by a mildewy substance and aphids, the other is still doing well (2 different beds) but the bad ones produced up until about the end of December. We also have the typical cold weather kale, swiss chard, cabbage, and the like as well as plenty of lettuce, onion and cilantro (LOVE salsa and we're still making it fresh). It only takes me 7 minutes to close up the greenhouse at night and 5 minutes to open things up in the morning and we're not seeing a huge jump in the electric bill. It seems like the heater comes on no more than for a couple minutes and the survival blankets trap that heat for a long time. The heater is on a stepping stone at soil level so the roots are keeping warm as well. Hope this helps :-) I'm not sure if these links will post pictures but I'm giving it a try [URL=http://s147.photobucket.com/user/Audreyjeanne/media/12-5-13E_zps51a89ed3.jpg.html][IMG]http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r300/Audreyjeanne/12-5-13E_zps51a89ed3.jpg[/IMG][/URL] [URL=http://s147.photobucket.com/user/Audreyjeanne/media/12-5-13C_zpse12655d4.jpg.html][IMG]http://i147.photobucket.com/albums/r300/Audreyjeanne/12-5-13C_zpse12655d4.jpg[/IMG][/URL]

See this is why I need you guys....I have no idea what I'm doing with sago palms. This is my first year even owning a sago palm and now I have right at 100 pups that are putting out fronds. My plan was to keep them in my garage greenhouse with temps around 70-85 degrees with lights. I have a really huge garage built on to my house that we don't even use so I turned half of it into a greenhouse and grow my plumeria's in it over the winter. I have a heater that keeps the temp exactly where I want it. I have lights (white lights during the day and blue/red LED lights at night). I'm having a big plant sale next year so I thought if I could keep the sago palms growing all winter they would be bigger for the plant sale. I have no problem putting the sago palms in the garage and letting them go dormate if thats what I need to do (it would actually be less maintenance that way). I really don't want to take them out of the soil though. So what do you guys recommend? Should I even try the greenhouse or let them go dormate over the winter? I use Bayer spray for bugs and that normally does a really good job on my plumeria's but I've never tried it on sago palms before.