Planting ideas for outdoor tubs and pots
Planting ideas for outdoor tubs and pots to create colour and interested in different seasons through the year.
Ideally you need to focus your main plants in a tube or pot on a certain time of year to gain maximum effect. However to add interest through the year you can use secondary planting with small plants such as Iris reticulata to extend the seasonal interest. The following combination of plants combined can create colour and interest in your pots and tubs through the year.
Winter Scent – daphne auto marginata and Sarcococca hookeriana ‘Purple Stem’ both these plants provide fantastic scent in winter which is great to come home to on a damp wet day.
Summer Scent – with tubs etc summer scent is often best achieved with wall shrubs trained on trellis or directly on the wall. Examples include trachelospermum jasminoides, cytisus battandieri, and clematis armandii.
Winter colour – One of the best plants for winter colour is Skimmia rubella with its colourful flowers and berries.
Summer colour – too many plants to choose from but have a look at ceanothus, Spiraea japonica Goldflame and cistus silver pink.
Plants to use with the above to add more Seasonal colour – all the above plants will be the feature plants but you can add additional plants to extend the colour and interest in the tubs or pots. Examples are
Iris reticulata – early season colour
dicentra spectabilis – early season colour
cyclamen hederifolium – low late season colour
Colchicum autumnale – surprise autumn colour
Tulips and crocus – great for spring colour
Clematis jackmanii – growing through the existing plants
