A traditional container garden is typically created from classic terra-cotta pots. But if you're seeking a different approach to container gardening here are some common options to consider:
outdoor plastic planters
colored concrete planters
glazed ceramic planters
natural wood planters (teak planters, cedar planters)
aluminum, cor-ten steel or other metal planters
Anything that can hold soil?
However, anything that can hold soil can be considered a potential planter, and with a bit of creativity, unique container gardens can be shaped from these old receptacles and salvaged for a new use. Look anew at antique urns, discarded tubs, and galvanized animal feeders.
Sometimes the "flourish" can be found in the planter design rather than the planting design!
Wellies are a fun planter once they've past their functionality as a rain boot.
Beautiful display of wellies as flower pots outside of Sloane Square tube station in London, during the Chelsea Flower Show of 2016
Be inventive! Planters can have unusual shapes and even different uses. They can be placed indoor or outdoor, hung, put on a surface or made of various materials. Regardless of the container you use, there are certain basics to follow to maintain your container garden.
A very fashionable container garden design!
CREATIVE GARDEN CONTAINERS – UNIQUE PLANTER IDEAS
Recycle older materials that have exceeded their common everyday usage by finding a new use or “upcycling” them. Here are some wonderfully witty and creative ideas for planters for your container garden. Look around the house or scour thrift stores and flea markets for unique vessels to hold plants.
Consider a recycled bathtub as an excellent container garden. Grow herbs, vegetables and other edibles within. No worry about toxicity in your soil. Great drainage too!
BASICS OF CONTAINER GARDENING
For plants to flourish they need a growing medium, water, light and nutrients. Even without a residential garden design, a terrace garden or even an urban apartment with a fire escape can be a container garden design.
PLANTS FOR YEAR ROUND CONTAINER GARDENING
Container gardening can be four seasonal! For outdoor plants in pots ideas, consider borrowing an idea from antiquity - There are annuals that can last all year round if they are kept in the right conditions. Louis XIV had an orangerie built to bring his orange and lemon trees in for the colder months. (An orangerie was a room or a dedicated building on the grounds of fashionable residences from the 17th to the 19th centuries where orange and other fruit trees were protected during the winter, similar to a greenhouse or conservatory.)
We can apply this concept for those of with less financial resources -- put casters under the planters and wheel them inside a room with southern exposure for the wintertime.
