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When the temperature begins to rise, you can walk into nearly any garden center and find impressive floral containers ready to dress up Milwaukee’s decks, porches and balconies. From containers bursting with sunny blooms to those of lush greens for shady spots, these eye-catching planters are the stuff home gardeners dream of.
While it’s tempting to purchase gorgeous, fully-grown planters, that convenience comes at a cost. Depending on the size of the arrangement, some planters cost as much $200. The price obviously includes the pot, but it’s usually a thin, plastic planter you’ll discard once summer ends. Save money instead when you create your own masterpiece that’s customized to your space, style and sensibilities.
Container Craze
Start by selecting a pot or planter. There’s something exciting about finding the perfect container. Maybe it’s the variety to colors, shapes and sizes to choose from; perhaps it’s the idea of adding another fixture to your backyard décor. Regardless, choose a container that fits your space as well as the aesthetic you’re trying to achieve. If purchasing a plastic or resin pot, be sure you have a spot to store it come winter. Plastic and resin planters can crack if left out in severe cold. If you’re converting something such as a tub or galvanized bucket into a container, you’ll need to drill a hole in the bottom for drainage.
Some believe that setting stones at the bottom of the container helps with drainage. This is a bit of a gardener’s tale, but adding such a layer does help reduce the amount of potting soil you’ll need. Fill the container with soil and get ready for the fun to begin.
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Perfect Plants
Picking flowers and plants for your container is easy when you divide the plants into three types: thriller, filler and spiller. Start with a single thriller. Make it big, bold and beautiful because this is the focal point of the arrangement. It should have a decent height, as you’ll need room for plants to grow under and around it. Consider ornamental grasses, Henna coleus or caladium.
Now, it’s time to add a few fillers. Planted around the thriller, these plants fill out the pot with foliage. You can stick with one type of plant for a streamlined look or alternate different fillers to add texture and interest. Begonias, pansies, coleus, dusty miller and impatiens make great fillers.
Finally, plant spillers toward the edge of the container as these will dangle or “spill” over the container as they grow. Potato vines, glacier ivy and wave petunias are popular choices.
When shopping for your thrillers, fillers and spillers, be sure to combine plants with the same sun and water requirements. This can be the most trying part of creating a container garden, but a little determination (and some help from a garden-center employee) pays off in the long run.
Group the plants together in your cart while shopping to see how the combination looks. And if shopping for more than one container, choose your plants one container at a time. While this might cause some backtracking, shopping this way keeps you focused on each container and can help prevent you from feeling overwhelmed.
Your planter might look sparse at first, but once the thriller grows and the fillers take off, you’ll have a container garden on par with the most expensive planters on the market. Simply sit back, relax and enjoy the beauty of your custom-made container garden.
