Container Gardening With Favorite Annuals

Ilona Erwin

Using My Favorite Flowers For Container Gardening

[Part One]
[Part Two]

Continuing to feature some of the beautiful ways that annuals can brighten up a garden. By joining the container recipes and annual plant highlights in the post, this gives ideas you can use in your garden beds, too. Simply increase the numbers of the same plants combined in the containers to give visual impact in flower beds!

See More…
5 Container Tips
Plant Great Containers


Beautiful Container Recipes

Shady Porch Peach

shady container

another warm palette for shade

New Guinea impatiens (Impatiens x hawkeri)
Orange Bicolor Applause
– fertile soil, moist, but well-drained, afternoon shade. Vegetatively propagated by cuttings. Info PDF

Variegated Ivy and Strawberry begonia (Saxifraga sarmentosa -S. stolonifera)

Caladium ‘Rosebud’ – part shade, moist, but well-drained soil. More info. Caladiums are summer bulbs grown as annuals, you can lift the bulbs before frost and save them over winter, much like dahlias or gladiolas. They have many foliage variations and named varieties.

This was one of my all time best containers for shade- it was beautiful all season and had just the right amount of color to shine out in a shady area

Purple Sun- Strong Contrasts

Sunny container

Sunny container contrasts

Diamond Frost Euphoria,
Plant Needs
Duration: Annual
Bloom Time: Planting to Frost
Zones: Annual except in zones 10 – 11, hardy to 40°F (4°C)
Exposure: Plant in sun or partial shade
Water Needs: Dry to Normal
Maintenance: Easy

Purple leafed Oxalis, Oxalis vulcanicola ‘Zinfandel’
Plant Needs
Duration: Annual
Bloom Time: Spring through Summer
Hardy Temp: 28°F (-2°C) -tender in the North
Exposure: Plant in sun or partial shade
Water Needs: Normal
Maintenance: Easy
Uses: Landscapes and containers

Lantana ‘Citrus’
Plant Needs
Hardiness Degree : 32°F (0.0°C)
Blooming Season : Summer
Plant Habit : Mounded
Spacing : 15 – 20″
Height : 15 – 20″
Width : 18 – 24″
Exposure : Sun

Moisture levels normal to somewhat dry.

Dark Purple and Veined Light Purple Petunias
Hardy Temp: 32°F (0.0°C) -tender in the North
Exposure: Plant in sun
Water Needs: Normal
Maintenance: Easy
Uses: Landscapes and containers

Osteospermum ‘Lemon Symphony’
Growing tips listed in Part One
Ipomea batatas, ‘Blackie’
Cultivation facts listed in Part One
Mexican Feather Grass, Nassella tenuissima
Mexican Feather Grass Plant Needs

For a large container, all these plants are strong growers. I love the strong contrasts of gold and purple in this one, it is surprisingly subtle given the colors chosen

More Ideas For Your Flowering Pots

pretty combinations

pretty combinations

First picture: container for cool, partly sunny conditions.
Calla Lily ‘Chianti’
Likes cooler temperature and bright light. Grows from tender bulb.

Lobelia erinus, ‘Regatta Sky Blue’
Plant Needs:
Exposure: full sun to partial sun
Water: prefers a moist, well-drained, cool, rich soil in partial sun.
propagated by seeds

Mid-Summer cut back and new growth will rejuvenate flowering in your gardening contianers.

Dahlia
Use a light to medium yellow from ‘Figaro Mix’. Dahlias come in all sizes, this is a dwarf landscape type. The tender tuber can be lifted before frost to save for following season

Helichrysum petiolare
Grows best in full sun with well-drained soil; part sun and normal moisture is fine for it. The root ball will get pretty large, so make sure the container has room. Zone 9 to 10 – tender in the North.

White Variegated Ivy

The top picture is a container combination of tender tints with strong forms. The plant choices are unusual and give common colors a memorable arrangement. The bottom photo combines several colors of the same plant, Calibrachoa hybrids. This is effective in your garden containers when there are strong colors available. Petunias will always be the prime example of this type of recipe. Pick your favorite varieties to spill out of hanging baskets; there are some really gorgeous new ones for 2013.

donationDonate the cost of a coffee through Paypal for the work of publishing these pages. Please support my writing and webmaster efforts.
Disclosure: We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Please consider supporting this site.

Shop shrubs at Nature Hills

Related Posts

Using Autumn Flowers in Containers

Using Autumn Flowers in Containers

Fall for Creative Containers Bring beautiful container creations to the end of the season, don't give up after summer! Autumn blooming flowers are...

Attract The Good Bugs To Your Garden

Attract The Good Bugs To Your Garden

Bringing beneficial insects into the garden is only part of the story. Attracting good bugs and keeping them there to control pests or pollinate...

Daisy Favorites of Summer

Daisy Favorites of Summer

Summer is the heyday of daisy flowers. There is such a wide array that not all the possibilities can be covered in a simple post. Favorites must be...

Ilona Erwin, author

Meet the Author

Ilona Erwin

I started working on this website beginning in 1998, when it was part of Ilona's Reflecting Pool. Since then I've branched out into a number of online endeavors and work at writing lots of content for my sites. "Ilona's Garden" remains my primary site and is dedicated to home gardener's success.