:) Thanks... I just bought a lime plant which will be an indoor outdoor container plant, now I know what not to read.

Hi, fellow Aussie! You know, here in Australia, rosemary can grow into quite a large shrub. I mean, almost as tall as you are and several times wider (unless you resemble the side of a barn!). And your rosemary has a LONG way to go to get to maturity. So I honestly can't think of any other plant that would suit in a pot, even a large pot. Even prostrate rosemary can get quite large. You need to think of what's under the ground, and usually it's about the same size as the above-ground bits, so that should give you some idea. Rosemary likes full sun, as much as it can get, and it can take the hottest of hottest heat, even our Aussie summer afternoon sun. The more the better! It absolutely will not tolerate constantly wet feet, but it can take quite a lot of water (like the torrential rain it should get here in Sunny Queensland) as long as the excess can drain away quickly. The older the plant gets, the more drought-tolerant it will be, however. A potted plant will always want more water than one planted in the garden - a pot provides only limited resources. You plant should tolerate a double-move - just make sure to take as much of the soil around the roots as you can when you move it - ie don't disturb the roots more than absolutely necessary. Rosemary is pretty tough. Especially now it's spring here, it's not a bad time to transplant. Don't put oregano and rosemary together in a pot. The oregano will just take over (it grows up as well as down!), and it likes a bit more water than rosemary. You could possibly try a native non-herb like one of the brachychitons, but I don't know much about those. One of the matting thymes just might be OK, but they also prefer more water than rosemary. The Orange Peel thyme would be a nice colour-contrast, and it's worth a try. You'll know soon enough if the combination works! OP thyme likes less water than some of the others. However, most thymes prefer to grow upwards and sideways instead of downwards. Don't worry about sand. Just use a good quality potting mix, and as the level of soil in the pot shrinks, top it up with more, perhaps with a handful or two of compost or you can use pellets called 5-in-1, which are a soil-conditioning mixture. Not too much - rosemary likes a poor soil best. If you're worried about drainage, put your pot up on feet, and before potting, make sure there are several drainage holes in the bottom - one in the centre is simply not enough. Rosemary is a wonderful plant for topiarising - just don't remove more than one-third of total growth at any one time.

Either annuals or perennials would be fine. Mainly I was just wondering if people had any good or bad experiences with anything they planted with their lilies in containers. I like the look of flax, haven't had any in a while. It is possible, though, that they might want to take over... I seem to remember that the little patch I planted did become a big patch of it in a few years. Still, the notion of white lilies surrounded by clouds of blue does capture my interest. Hmmm... I think whatever does go in there, I would like it to stick around for a good part of the growing season. I love pansies and violas, but very shortly, they'll be blasted by heat, I'm sure. I tried keeping some lovely pansies going through the summer one year, but they kept frying and getting aphids, so it wasn't successful. Going to go look up Euphorbia now...

It's true, planting a small plant in a big pot is often risking root rot. I didn't say anything because planting companion plants is one of the best ways around that problem. Master Gardeners have recently (on the "garden geezer" scale) found out that a layer of gravel actually slows drainage. Any sudden change in soil texture stops drainage until the layer of soil above is saturated, even a change from moderate to fast drainage: try it with an old ant farm, sometime! Instead, just put a piece of plastic window screen, or counted cross-stitch screen, over the drain hole, to keep the soil from running out. Kevin : )