We tend to think of containers as part of the summer garden, pots overflowing with flowers and glorious colour. But containers have role to play throughout the year. In fact, they have even more impact in the months when the garden is less colourful, when structure, form and foliage are more telling and play a larger part in the garden.
Designing with containers
Think of containers as added emphasis in your garden scheme and not as something incidental to it. An urn or a pot can be a sculptural piece in the garden design; modern containers can be very dramatic and make a bold statement. More traditional pots can add drama or blend into, complementing a design scheme.
Containers are easy, instant eye-catchers at the end of a vista or on a terrace; a wonderful way of adding impact to a garden scheme. A pair of pots adds importance to a flight of steps, an arch, a gate or doorway, and brings a more formal note to an entrance.
The Italians placed beautiful pots on each step on a flight of stairs to wonderful effect in renaissance gardens, making the progression of the steps into a major statement. Groupings of geometrically designed, contemporary containers achieve the same result; the serried ranks of pots make a design statement all on their own. The look varies dramatically if you use formal pots and clipped box, lush plantings or simple pots filled with pansies
Containers can be the centrepiece in a garden, becoming more of an ornament, a permanent fixture in the garden. It is still possible to use these to ring the changes of the season- the famous copper in the Cottage garden at Sissinghurst is planted with tulips for spring, wallflowers for winter and many variations in between and from year to year.
If you have a tiny courtyard containers are an even more valuable tool in your design armoury. In Greece brightly coloured pots stand out against stark, whitewashed walls, often there is no other garden. Pots can sit on paved surfaces, breaking up a monotonous space and bringing much-needed colour and life into a courtyard
Container Style
The choice of pots is so wide that you can bring an individual note, a touch of personality to your garden in the way you mix containers and plants, and how you position them.
Try to match container to the style and ambience of the garden. A contemporary garden and a sleek, spare modern container make a great pairing. A more elaborate pot is superb in a formal, traditional garden. Rustic, weathered pots and found items, such as an old copper or chimney pot, offer opportunities to introduce a quirky, personal note.
Scale
Whether you choose a tall, geometric container or more traditional terracotta, scale is very important. If your pot is too small for the setting it will not deliver the look you want. Containers need to be the right size for the setting and the context.
Take a long look at the size of the space that the container will sit in from a number of positions. If you are using it as an eye catcher then it needs to be large enough to be seen from the chosen vantage point. Look at the neighbouring architecture and plants. The relative size of these should work with the container, you will not see a small pot next to a substantial plant and your eye will pass over a small pot in a huge expanse of wall - it will look merely silly, rather than making a statement.
Lifting a container up on a column or a pedestal can increase visibility and importance, but make sure that they both work together and complement each other in terms of material and size. A large pot on a skinny column will look flimsy and absurd.
It is usually better to go for one large pot than a cluster of smaller containers, except where you are making a contemporary pattern with similar and appropriately scaled containers. A grouping of too-small pots risks looking itty-bitty and, sometimes, messy. The eye will not be drawn to it as there is no one point to rest, no point of focus. A simple look is far more telling than fussy detail.
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Containers - added emphasis in your garden
Modern containers can be dramatic and bold
Stunning pots can be the main design feature
Sissinghurst Castle- the copper in the Cottage Garden
Geometric arrangements of modern containers
Clipped, box and classical terracotta for structure
Containers make striking focal points | |
