Creative container planting suggestions for your garden this summer
Summer Container Gardening Ideas: Striking Combinations and Plant Picks
Summer is the perfect time to bring vibrant life to your outdoor spaces with beautifully crafted container gardens. Here are some key ideas and plant recommendations to help you create stunning, balanced, and sun-friendly containers.
Architectural Plants and Trailing Counterparts
Combining striking architectural plants with trailing or softer-textured plants is a great way to add interest and depth to your containers. For example, a tall, upright euphorbia could be paired with cascading dichondra or delicate daisies, creating a harmonious balance without overcrowding.
Golden Creeping Jenny (Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’)
This low-growing, cascading plant with golden leaves is ideal for the edge of pots. Thriving in partial shade but able to take full sun if kept moist, it adds a touch of sunshine to your container garden.
Japanese Pieris (Pieris japonica)
An evergreen shrub with colorful spring growth and winter flower buds, Japanese pieris grows well in full sun to full shade. Its natural ability to drape over pot edges adds year-round interest.
Colorful Foliage
Plants like coleus and sweet potato vine provide vivid warm tones and interesting leaf patterns. For instance, the "sidekick heart bronze sweet potato vine" offers attractive veining and works well as a draping plant in containers.
Succulents and Easy-Care Plants
Purple heart, lemon coral sedum, and asparagus fern add texture, color, and are easy to maintain in summer containers.
Mixing Types of Plants
Using a single architectural focal point plant combined with trailing plants like Dichondra ‘Silver Falls’ or daisies for texture without overcrowding is a great approach.
Edible Plants
Summer container gardens can include vegetables and herbs like spinach, lettuce, bush beans, or parsley, which do well in pots and provide fresh produce.
Container Choice
Choosing unique, thoughtfully chosen pots made of materials such as terracotta, patinated stone, or corten steel adds presence and rhythm to container gardens, making the vessels as important as the plants for visual appeal.
Light and Dark Contrast
Planting a combination of light and dark plants, such as Bidens ferulifolia, Solenostemon 'Lime Wizard', Tulbaghia violacea 'Silver Lace', and Euphorbia 'Diamond Frost', can create a striking visual impact.
Attracting Pollinators
A pot filled with Achillea millefolium 'Red Velvet', Malva sylvestris 'Brave Heart', Penstemon 'Pershore Pink Necklace', Salvia nemorosa 'Caradonna', and Scabiosa atropurpurea 'Black Cat' will attract bees and other pollinators.
A Fiery Pot
Crocosmia x crocosmiiflora 'Emily McKenzie', Penstemon 'Red Riding Hood', Rudbeckia fulgida 'City Garden', Anemanthele lessoniana, and Libertia ixioides 'Goldfinger' create a fiery pot that will captivate your senses.
Relaxed Cottage Garden Feel
Geranium 'Wargrave Pink', Argyranthemum frutescens, and Salvia nemerosa 'Ostfriesland' come together to create a relaxed, cottage garden feel.
The Importance of Maintenance
Remember to keep soil moist for sun-loving trailing plants and protect shrubs from harsh conditions to ensure your container garden thrives all summer long.
[1]: Container Planting Ideas for Summer Gardens: A Guide to Balanced, Stunning Displays. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/garden-how-to/containers/container-planting-ideas-for-summer-gardens.htm [2]: 10 Best Plants for Summer Containers: Top Picks for Vibrant, Low-Maintenance Gardens. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.bhg.com/gardening/outdoor/container-gardening/best-plants-for-summer-containers/ [5]: 11 Ideas for Stunning Summer Container Gardens. (2021). Retrieved from https://www.thespruce.com/summer-container-gardens-1422323
- A really eye-catching container garden design could incorporate plants from both 'fashion-and-beauty' and 'home-and-garden' categories, such as using architectural plants with trailing counterparts, like placing a tall, upright euphorbia with cascading dichondra or delicate daisies, and adding colorful foliage plants like coleus and sweet potato vine for vibrant warm tones.
- For those who love 'food-and-drink', edible plants can be integrated into container gardens during summer, including spinach, lettuce, bush beans, or parsley, making the garden functional as well as visually appealing.
- Travellers might appreciate container plant ideas that inspire a 'travel' vibe, like creating a 'relaxed cottage garden feel' with plants such as Geranium 'Wargrave Pink', Argyranthemum frutescens, and Salvia nemerosa 'Ostfriesland', reminiscent of quaint English country cottages.
