Think Outside the Box

Think Outside the Box

When you make up as many planters and containers as I do, you learn to ‘think outside of the box’.
Summer combination planters for decks and patios obviously will have the necessary wow of blooming plants but need green fillers to provide contrast. Bored with always using the same old fillers, I’ve begun substituting tropical houseplants instead of the usual bedding plants. Often priced the same as bedding plants, or sometimes lower, I find that houseplants such as table ferns, spider plants, and arrowhead plants do the job quite nicely. Try tucking a few into your pots between the flowering annuals and enjoy the lovely contrast they provide. At the end of the season you can compost them or dig them up and bring them indoors to enjoy as houseplants. If you want colorful pots in quite shady areas, then the use of houseplants can be even more to your advantage as many will tolerate more shade than traditional bedding plants.

True Story – Last summer whilst in London, I walked past Buckingham Palace. Paying keen attention to the Brits gardens, I was surprised and delighted to see 3 large oval flower beds in front of the Palace.  Each huge bed was planted exactly the same: red zonal geraniums in the center, then a circle of blue salvia, then a border of spider plants! Even the Queens gardeners are going for the untraditional and are ‘thinking outside of the box’!