No Yard Space to Plant? Try Container Planting!

If you don’t have a large yard in which to plant, it shouldn’t stop you from gardening. Container planting is the way to go.

You can grow anything in pots. Annuals, tropicals, grasses, shrubs, perennials, cactus, herbs and vegetables grow well in pots if they have the proper amount of water and light requirements. This is the time of year when pots that were planted in very late spring are starting to fill in and put on a show. They can decorate a balcony, small patio, front porch, screened in porch, walkway, steps, any place you desire.

Thriller, filler and spiller—is this a comedy team? If you have ever heard June Hutson, director of Kemper Center at the Missouri Botanical Garden, speak about container plantings, you’ve heard her refer to these words.

Thriller refers to a tall plant usually centered in the pot and gives the viewer that “wow look at that plant” feeling and are quite often tropicals or grasses. Filler are the plants that fill in around the base of the tall plant and spiller refers to the plants that hang over the edge of the container.

All three of these elements give a container planting a complete look. A short container may need something tall to make it appear taller than it really is. A tall container may look too tall if a very tall plant was added, unless the filler and spillers are also added to give adequate width to the overall look. The word “balance” comes into play here. If the planting looks top heavy, either replace the tall plant with a shorter one or add filler plants to add width. A large wide pot with no thriller plant may look bottom heavy and unbalanced.

Container plants can dry out very quickly in the heat of summer so they need to be watered daily. Hanging baskets may need to be watered twice a day. Filling a watering can multiple times can be tedious and dragging tangled up hoses around can get frustrating.

I highly recommend setting up an irrigation system for your container plants. It’s really simple and easy to set up and attach to your water spigot. Having a timer is essential to the irrigation system so you don’t have to worry whether you turned it on or off or how long it watered. The timer does all the work for you. Just sit back and enjoy.

If you have a beautifully landscaped yard or have unique garden ornaments that you are proud of and would like to see featured on Patch.com, contact me at Bahrmasel@msn.com.