Garden Designer Container for Office Table/Indoor Use

CHOOSING THE RIGHT CONTAINER

Use these tips to help you select the right container:

• It's possible to plant directly into any container so long as you create drainage holes. Drilling through wood, plastic or fiberglass is relatively easy. You can make a drain hole in a clay pot by using an electric drill with a masonry bit, but work carefully.
• If you are investing in large containers, buy the best you can afford as they will be around for some time. For the same reason, go for classic shapes and styles that will fit in with any garden. Brightly colored pots will restrict your planting choices, and you may soon tire of a one-off fashion statement.
• When choosing containers, use the materials and architectural details of your house as a starting point. Match warm brick walls with terra-cotta pots or a white colonial-style frontage with classic lead (or faux-lead finish) planters. For a rustic timber house, seek out beaten copper tubs or weathered wooden troughs.
• A tall, narrow pot is less stable than a squat, low one. Use tall pots for trailing plants, which are not usually top heavy, and let them cascade over. Shallow containers, such as alpine pans, work best at the front of a group to anchor it.
• Avoid planting into a narrow-necked pot (with a body larger than the neck), as it is difficult to get a plant out once its roots have spread. That's why flowerpots are always wider at the top than the bottom.
• Don't worry about having a decorative pot for every plant. Keep most of your container plants in regular black plastic pots. If you keep the decorative pots to the front of the display, black plastic ones just recede into the background.