From Container to Landscape
January 30 2023
Plant and enjoy the beauty of container gardens now. Then refresh! After a season, remove the plants from the containers and plant the tree, shrubs and perennials in the landscape and fill the container gardens with summer color!
A) Small Tree
(Choose one variety, 2-gallon size or smaller- to easily fit root ball in pot) Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum)
‘Shaina’ or ‘Twombly’s Red Sentinel’
Baby Grand® Magnolia (Magnolia grandiflora)
B) Perennials with attractive evergreen foliage (choose 2 of the same variety)
Ferns- Dryopteris ‘Jurassic Gold’ or Rochford Fern (
or similar evergreen fern
Euphorbia- ‘Miner’s Merlot’ or similar
C) Hellebore (Helleborus) (Choose 2 of the same variety)
‘Merlin’ or ‘Snow Fever’ or similar
D) Coral Bells (Heuchera) (Choose 2 of the same variety)
‘Forever Purple’, ‘Spellbound’ or similar
E) Dwarf Shrub
(Choose 1 variety, for container plant a 4-inch pot or 1-gallon-sized plant)
Heather (Erica or Calluna)
Dwarf Pieris (Pieris japonica) ‘Little Heath' or ‘Cavatine’ dwarf conifer: Mr. Bowling Ball® Arborvitae
Abies koreana 'Kohout's Ice Breaker'
Kinpo White Pine (Pinus parviflora' Kinpo')
F) Ornamental Grass
(Choose 3 of the same variety)
Carex ‘Feather Falls' or other similar varieties
Acorus ‘Ogon’
Mondo Grass (Ophiopogon)
Lily Turf (Liriope)
G) Color
(Choose any combination of annual color or bulbs to pop into the container)
Primroses- Bellarina series or similar
Pansies
Hardy Cyclamen
2 comments
Hi Sandy! Pot size is depending on how long you keep the plants in the container. If you are planning on making a seasonal container for winter/early spring that includes the plants from the blog, you can use a pot size that fits all the plants snuggly, and then come spring/summer you can plant those plants in the ground and refresh the container with fresh summer annuals. If you plan on keeping the plants in the container for multiple seasons/years, then you would want a pot size that is twice the size as the plants being planted. As far as depth, you would want at least 2’.
I like the container ideas, that’s lots of plants for one pot..how big a pot should I start with?