Garden pots what plants should i buy?

JMW77

I have several garden pots in my garden which have been there year after year as i have no idea about plants ,this year i would like to buy some plants to add some colour to the garden.

So i,m told a lot of plants need large pots to survive .

I know about pansies & primroses but thats it ,if you have any ideas please let me know along with the size pot i would need .i have many different sizes.

Also are there any plants that continue to grow all year round that live in Small pots?

Any advice would be great!

HariboJunkie

Not all plants need a large pot to survive. I keep a collection of primulas in small terracotta pots on my decking and they are thriving.

If you want to wait a couple of weeks you could pot up some petunias, pelagorium, trailing ivy, lobelia etc for good summer colour. You could also plant some summer flowering lily bulbs, agapanthus or aliums which will come back again next year. A good way to do a pot for all year round colour is how I do my window boxes... I have evergreen trailing ivy and hardy fuschias in each one with crocus bulbs planted for spring colour, then I plant up with summer bedding like petunia and lobelia and when these come out I put in some winter pansies which usually last until the crocus bulbs make an appearance.

When you ask for plants that survive all year do you mean hardy plants or are you looking for evergreens?

hethmar

I love my patio plants. There arent many which can survive all year, unless you have a conservatory or greenhouse?

In mine I have geraniums, trailing lobelia, stargazer lillies (which smell heavenly - or will when they grow ), in the small pots you can put things like chives which are handy for the kitchen and have pretty flowers. Ive also today bought two big Margeritas which are bushy and very pretty white daisies. Ive also planted out some sweet peas - you need a little wigwam of canes for them to grow up) Ive got some clematis and honeysuckles (climbers)in the same pot so that the one takes over after the other has flowered and died off.

For early spring, get some gorgeous little tete-a-tete, miniature daffodils, irises, narcissi, crocus, snowdrops - they look so pretty (ive just taken out the bulbs as they have finished for the year - Ill replant them in Autumn, meanwhile the pots are given over to summer flowering plants). Oh, Ive also got some pots of forget me nots out at the moment which are heavenly pretty blue flowers and will soon die off now but give a lovely spring colour and some trailing phlox and cosmos in the tubs outside the front door.

ixwood

Bedding plants are annuals that usually need replacing every year. That's why garden centres and DIY places love them. You have to buy them every year.

I'd go for perennials. You can build a much nicer long term garden that you don't need to keep redoing. J Parkers have some good offers on at the minute. i.e. Collection of purple and whote perennials for under £2 and 6 verbanna bonnosis plugs for 3 quidish:-

http://www.jparkers.co.uk/Index.cfm?fuseaction=category.specialoffers

Or buy seeds instead. Ebay's good for collections of smaller amounts of seeds.

Quite a lot of herbs are hardy perenials and pretty much all of them have pretty flowers, smell nice, are good for wildlife and have other uses.

Jake'sGran

Lots of things can be grown in pots including apple trees but they need to have been grafted onto a special stock so that they remain small. At the moment I have primulas in pots and also in hanging baskets. These were grown from seed in the potting shed and were easy. There is a seed seller on line who sells various plants for 50p a packet. You would find him if you Google "50p seeds".

Plants that have survived all year in pots in my garden include
Canterbury Bells (easy from seed)
Veronica
Penstemon
Small shrub - that can be kept small like spotted laurel and choisya
Daffodils and other bulbs - plant at the end of the year
Lilies
etc etc

Happy growing

Di

hethmar

Im growing freesias for the first time this year as I love them - Ive always been told they are very difficult to grow? Plenty of leaf at the moment though - any tips on them please?

hethmar

Ixwood, just looked at that site, its brilliant. Has all the type of "country cottage" plants you need and good prices. Do the plants come fairly good planting out sizes?

ixwood

They come as small plugs in those green plastic things. I put mine in small pots outside 1st to get a bit bigger. Most of them are doing quite well. They supposed to have a full guarantee, but never tried it.

JMW77

Thanks to everyone so far for advice, i shall write the names down before i go to the garden centre and i will also look at the suggested online stores.

If anyone else has any suggestions let me knw .
Thanks

Austin_Allegro

I think annuals are a bit of a waste of money, so I'd go for hardy perennials. I like geraniums, they are cheap, hardy, don't need much watering and flower quite a lot well into the autumn. You might need to bring them in during Dec/Jan though as mine got killed off in the London snows this year.

hethmar

Annuals tend to be a bit gawdy and artificial looking anyway dont they - I do get lobelia for the hanging baskets but apart from them - everything else is perennial.

Some of our geraniums flower virtually all year round if they are in the porchway or on a kitchen window.