CMK- Congrats on finding the new pot, I like the swag on the other one. Nice basil and tomato plants. I love your arbor and picket fence...very pretty :)

Last year I put star jasmine and white petunias together in pots on each side of the porch. They looked beautiful together and had a wonderful fragrance. I'm going to do that again this year and may buy a few more pots to put that combination in the back, too.

I'd like to try some annual herbs in pots, since I don't have to worry about wintering them over. Maybe rosemary or french lavender. I also would like to try lemon verbena. Now, I'm going to have to buy more pots, so I guess it's time for a trip to Lowe's (LOL)

Goodness your pelegorum is incredible in that pot! WOW!
My favorite thing is probably ornamental sweet potato vines in containers. That said, they can get HUGE potatoes on them here and that precludes from stuffing pots full and having them look decent in such a long growing season.
Last year I had lime green sweet potato vine with lemongrass in a tall blue pot which I liked.
For awhile I had a beautiful small japanese maple in a pot with wooly time at it's feet. The maple died though, last year. I don't know what to put in there now.
Last year I purchased a beautiful green pot on sale, and I planted a fatsia in it, put it in a shady spot. I really like that one.

I plant lots of stuff in pots. I have several blue hydrangeas, blue cape plumbagos, and several brugmansias in big terra cotta pots. And in smaller pots I have hot pink geraniums, chives, peppermint and rosemary. And I even put irises in pots until I can figure out where their permanent home will be...and they bloom.

I have a dish garden clay pot that I painted flat black and put it on top of an old gazing ball stand that I also painted flat black. I planted it last year with canna for height, money plant (I think that was the name of it. A trailing lime-green plant, without flowers). Verbena with hot pink flowers and fox-tail fern were tucked in also. And a couple of glass globes. One was one of those self-watering globes.

I like to train a rosemary around a wire hoop to make a topiary in a clay pot. This is really fun! I even made heart-shaped ones before.

And I have a big terra cotta wall-pocket pot shaped like a woman's head hanging on a tree. I put aspargus fern in it. I tried to resize some of my pictures so they wouldn't be so big, but photobucket is giving me a hard time the last couple of days.

Susie

-LL, thanks ;-) Love the sound of your pot. I bet it showed up beautifully in the evening- like a moon garden. This year I am trying a Flowering Tobacco (Nicotiana) which, like petunias, also has a nice scent at night.

-GGG, I was surprised at how big it got too! It grew several more inches later in the year, before it got blown over on a gusty day. That is interesting. I knew ornamental potato plants grew from tubers, but didn't know they got THAT big. Can you save them, like dahlias and cannas?

-Susie, your pots sound lovely! Are you able to keep the potted perennials and shrubs out year round in your zone? Hope you are able to post pics sometime ;-)
Love the sound of your woman's head planter. I have been wanting to find a terra cotta lion's head to ornament the house by the arbor.
CMK

CMK, loved your pictures. The hydrangeas do great. Lots of the other stuff will come back from the roots. Looks really dead right now, but I have hope. I have sweet autumn sedum in a pot that has new little rosettes. And we had weather in the teens this winter.

Susie

Every year I must have various plants in pots. Last year I lived in a house that needed some color on the porch, but it had mostly shade. So I planted some tiny torenias in azalea pots propped up on orhid pots to allow them to cascade in the summer. I also planted a terra cotta bowl full of impatiens. Then a stardard terra cotta filled with Mona Lavender Plectanthus for some height.

I'm very particular about planting only one type of plant in each pot and start them small. I know mixed containers and instant gratification are popular, but I care more about practicality. Using the small plant I don't have to repot all summer; using the one type of plant gives a major impact and doesn't need different watering needs.

This year in my new house my husband will be building me some window boxes that I will fill with torenia again. My front porch will also be filled with many different annuals. I don't particularly like putting perennials in pots because I will have to pot them up later when I can just toss the annuals. I can't wait for spring!

I use annuals, but I've never been too happy with my pots. Part of that may be that the cats love to curl up in them and the flowers don't stand a chance! lol

That is too funny holley! Lol. Could you maybe deter your cats from nesting in your pots by making a little fence of sorts around the inside? Like put some sticks around the inside rim of the pot and weave others inbetween?
CMK

That's quite the Pelargonium there! What color does it bloom?

Our favorite plant in pots are garden peas! We don't have a proper vegetable garden because the entire backyard is shady. The only place in the sunny front garden that I can spare for veggies is the driveway. So all the edible plants are grown in pots. We love peas fresh from the pods and have discovered they grow incredibly well in pots. We usually grow at least five different varieties, to extend the seasonn - varieties are selected based on days-to-maturirty. The pots we use are the big gray storage containers with the rope handles. We drill drainage holes in the bottom. They're much bigger - and cheaper - that any garden pot you could easily find! We use them also for growing pole beans, strawberries and blueberries. We uses deep windowbox contaniners for growing things like leeks, spring onions, carrots and lettuce. I intend - someday! - to make ornamental 'slip covers' for the pots but have not got around to it.

Some pictures:

Peas in early May:
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End of March - Strawberris coming out of winter storage in the garage:
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Early May - strawberries in front row; blueberries in back row:
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Mid- June strawerries - and garlic an ather thins:
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July bean tower:
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Those beans are truly astounding woodyoak! That is a good idea about the peas. What are some of your favorite types?

The Pelargonium has pale/medium pink flowers. Not sure what the scent is- Citronella perhaps. Smells more like tartar sauce with lots of dill to me :-D

I did most of my tomatoes in black plastic pots this year (you can see another one in my second pic). They did fairly well, but were such a lot of work. During the heat of summer I had to water them twice a day. My Eggplants on the other hand adored the potted life and heat. Guess I am going to be doing a lot of eggplant this year. Lol.
CMK

when it comes to containers, I just go with whatever I feel like or whatever i see that is available in the garden centres.
For annuals, my favorites for a hanging baskets are: coleus, geraniums, begonias, something to drape over like lobelias, licorice, and so much more. For huge patio containers I also like to create a tropical look using cannas, sweet potato vines.

Last year, my daughter and I planted corn. I also grew tomatoes, eggplants and peppers.

For my perennials: I have lily of the valley in one container. In another strawberries.

I have a potted bay tree. I also have a pot filled with succulents which I take outside every summer. It may look ugly during winter but it will start looking pretty in summer. It's filled with echeverias of different kinds.

I do have a curly willow which I started off as a twig stuck in a pot over 7 years ago. (I wouldn't recommend it as it doesn't look like a tree).

CMK - pale pink pelargonium sounds attactive. The pea crop here this year will be Spring, Legacy, Encore, Bolero, Sundance and Mr. Big. I order my seeds from Stokes. One of the advantages of the big gray pots is they hold a lot of soil so don't dry out as quickly. Also, because they are lght in color, they don't heat up as fast as a back pot would.

I've never been very successful at getting tomatoes to grow in pots so we usually tuck those into the herb bed somewhere.

The main non-veggie thing I grow in pots is elephant ears - I love things with big leaves so I always have two big pots of EE - one for the front and one for the patio at the back.

Lots of great ideas!

I usually start with a color scheme in mind and either sun or shade. I go to the nursery and find my focal point plant, then carry it around to find companions with same growing conditions.

My favorite full sun plant last year was purple fountain grass with purple and silver companions. For shade, a tri-color dracaena with peach impatiens and merlot coleus.

I recently wrote about what I'd created and posted photos on my blog. To avoid those in-line ads, I'll just link to it rather than go to into details here!

Cameron

Here is a link that might be useful: container garden recipes.

I do a few veggies in pots. Also, some window boxes. But, lately I've been using bigger containers that seem to be less fussy about how hot it is.

Inevitably, I buy tons of pretty blue lobelia in the spring and the second the temperature hits 80 it's done.

Last year I started using hibiscus, which is overwintering pretty well in my house and this croaton (?) which er... never made it out of the sunroom where it froze. The container was too heavy. Will put a yellow hibiscus in it this year, I think. :-)

If the snow ever melts.

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Hi CMK,

I wanted to ask you about your lovely rocks you are using as a border in the picture. I see that you are from Washington, so I'm guessing you acquired those rocks from nature. However, if you didn't where did you get them and how do you like having them as your flower bed border? I live in Florida and only in my back yard I thinking about using the same style of rocks as my border, but they are so expensive! Anyone else have any ideas or a good resource or reasons why they would or wouldn't use rocks?

thanks,
darstar

-Cameron, what great combos! What is your trick for keeping them from drying out? Not sure if you are interested, but you can go to this site Vibrant Opt Out, to disable those nasty in-text ads!

-Woodyoak, I might have to try doing that with my snow peas. I love my 'Oregon Sugar Pod II', but it would be great to extend the pea-picking ;-)

-Darstar, not positive, but I think the rocks were from a local river. I have also found a few in alleys to use. They are great for a more naturalistic/informal look. They don't work that well against grass though, since it always wants to sneak in-between them. I also have some lining the garden path. Here is a pic:
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I know it doesn't provide quite the same look as real river rock, but maybe you could make your own out of concrete for less? Lots of tints out and molds out there (or you could free form them).
CMK

Christin - I water the pots when the plants start frowning! I have handled the in-text ads, but didn't know if others had done so.

That's a lovely garden!

CMK, that is interesting about eggplant liking pots. I started planting a salad garden in pots and window boxes on my back deck a few years ago. I didn't really think about eggplant though. I'll have to try it this year. I find that leaf lettuce does very well in window boxes. I also grow baby cukes in pots and let them trail down the deck railings. I've also done peppers and tomatoes in pots. I mix in a few small pots of nicotiana (not near the tomatoes...does that really cause problems?? i've heard they should not be combined) so the hummingbirds come to feed.

Woodyoak, how deep are the windowboxes you use to grow carrots? And which carrots do you choose to grow in them?

I've been seeing more pictures of large pots in amongst plants in the garden and I think I may try to experiment more with that. Does anyone have pictures of pots fully incorporated into their perennial/shrub borders as a focal point?

Also, does everyone in wintry climates bring their pots inside in the winter? Has anyone found a type of pot that does not crack with the freeze/thaw cycles of winter?

I do a lot of container gardening and just about anything or any combo may show up - just depends on what I have on hand. I do an awful lot of WSing and always have plants left over. I will buy Diamond dust euphorbia as early as I can in the spring and immediately take cuttings to start more plants to tuck in here and there. Creeping jenny, ivy or vinca always manage to find their way into containers because I love the trailing look. Nastursium seeds get tucked into the edges. I am constantly changing my pots out and moving them around to suit the season. Right now I have pots with parsley, ivy, and violas and then pots with spring bulbs which are poking their way up. Caladiums I could never be without - those containers will tuck into any spot and add much need color as well as coleus. I can't garden without my containers ......

Lynne

Thanks Cameron ;-)

-Susan, Eggplants are native to Africa, India, and other hot areas of Asia, so they love the heat! I grew them many years ago in the ground and didn't get much out of them. Took awhile to get my potted ones going last year since we had a cool spring, but there was a bumper crop come summer. Yum. This year I plan to do Heirloom instead of F1's so I can save seed.

Here is a pic of Iciban and Hansel (on right) growing in pots last year.
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I also did lettuce in long plastic pots this year. Did very well (and no slug damage!). I put hot peppers in the half wine barrel planter, but the seedling petunias shaded them quite a bit, lol.
CMK

thyme2dig - the windowboxes are about 6-7" deep, so I only grow baby carrots in them, but that's what we prefer to eat anyway.