Planting ideas

In the spring and summer, our greenhouses and garden benches are overflowing with gorgeous annuals and perennails. With a little creativity, you can create your own container gardens to fill any nook in your yard or on your deck or patio.

There’s nothing like stepping outside your door and snipping a few herbs for use in whatever meal you’re cooking. The secret to using fresh herbs is keeping them near the kitchen. Most people are much more likely to use their own grown herbs when they just have to step out the door rather than go out to the garden. A kitchen planter keeps your herbs nearby, ready for picking whenever you need them.

Most herbs prefer full sun, so be sure to locate your planter accordingly. Some herbs that perform well in containers are basil, dill, curly parsley, rosemary, golden sage, oregano and lemon thyme.

You might also want to have two kitchen planters—one for annual herbs like basil and another for perennial herbs like rosemary and oregano. If you love mint, a raised container like a whiskey barrel helps keep these rambunctious plants in check.

We have many plants that would grow beautifully in hanging baskets. Here’s one lovely combination that you might like to try. It features the yellow-orange blooms of bidens, the soft orange osteospermum, a blue trailing verbena and crisp, white, non-stop blooming

calibrachoa. Here’s the recipe:

1 Bidens ferulifolia

1 Osteospermum Orange Symphony

2 Tapien verbena Blue Violet

2 Calibrachoa Superbells White

16-inch planter

Container plantings are only limited by your imagination—and available sunlight. Here’s a combination for a 16-inch planter in full sun.

1 Angelonia angustifolia Lavender

1 Lamium maculatum

2 Nemesia x hybrida Vanilla Sachet (Sachet nemesia)

2 Cascadias Petunia hybrid Improved Charlie


	Penstemon Liliput Rose Ajuga Chocolate Chip Heuchera Amber Waves

Penstemon Liliput Rose

Yellow osteospermum

Blue scaevola


	Oenothera Lemon Drop Blue scaevola Variegated lantana

Oenothera Lemon Drop

Heuchera Purple Petticoats

Heuchera Dolce™ Crème Brûlée