No, I'm not writing a mystery novel, but I thought that the article on Container Garden I recently received from Lowe's was a fabulous way to remember how to make a beautiful container garden........If you don't regularly receive Lowe's Creative Ideas for Home and Garden publication, you might want to go to their website and sign up for it. It's free and it's chockful of inspirational projects and ideas for your space!!
Go HERE and you can actually read it online or subscribe.
This month's edition has an article on container gardening. It suggests that a good way to make a great looking container garden is to have a formula of three types of plants for your container....a thriller, a filler and a spiller. Quite clever, I must say. So what does that mean??
They say fill an 18.5 inch pot with a container potting mix. (A tip I've used before so that the pot is not so heavy is to fill the bottom third of a large pot like that full of styrofoam peanuts, or some other filler that will allow drainage but take up some of the room so that you don't need that much dirt. It must be able to drain, however) . Then they suggest choosing a tall, dramatic thriller plant, a hardworking filler and a trailing spiller for a stunning display in your pot. You'll find their combos in the Creative Ideas publication. They suggest for an all-white container, the thriller being One white pampas grass (tall), the Filler being three white petunia plants (will grow full and eye catching!) and the spiller being four white bacopas, that will spill over the side and are covered with tiny white flowers. This combination also gives you varied textures, which is pleasing to the eye.
Another example they show is the Shade Lovers Container, which includes Two large leaved Coleus Plants, four begonias in assorted colors, and five licorce plants that will spill over the sides.....beautiful.
The third selection they show is a not so mellow Yellow filled pot. The thriller is Foxglove, which grows pretty tall, the filler would be marguerite daisies and the spiller is a plant called Calibrachoa, superbells, similar to million bells. They all look so pretty and allow you to use various kinds of plants to enjoy and play together sweetly!! You'll want to check out the Creative Ideas publication.
I've made a few container pots for my porch and they contain impatiens, and a trailing ivy...the guara I tried to transplant for height died, so I need to go get something for my thriller behind those impatiens.....caladiums might be a good solution!
10 comments:
I love trying to find new combos to put in my containers. Thanks for the inspiration.
Oh, wow...I love those, Suzanne! I'm going to subscribe to that magazine now...thanks a bunch!
I'm hideous at doing container gardens. I've even tried the thriller/filler/spiller.
My just looks like the squisher/squasher/masher rule instead.
Omigosh! SOOOO glad I read this post. I'm buying my flowers tomorrow and I want to do something different this year. I'm tired of doing the same thing in my pots every year. I've been looking around for inspiration and voila! Your blog gave it to me. No wonder you're called Southern Inspiration!
xoxo,
Kim
I've read that description before and forgot it. I always try to have various heights and textures in the pots and in the beds. Makes it much prettier.
Love yours!!!!
I wonder if that's what came in the mail from Lowe's the other day. I need to dig it out of the magazine rack and take a peek. The flowers are gorgeous. I'm not allowed to play with flowers because I kill them. Sad, but true. One touch from me and they drop dead.
What a great rule of thumb! I can remember rhymes so much better than anything else--thriller, filler, spiller it is! Thanks for sharing that tip. I subscribe to Lowe's Creative Ideas, but I haven't had a chance to read this spring's edition. So thanks for sharing!
Ok Suzanne, your thread title just cracked me up. Thanks for sharing.
I'm so ashamed to admit that my two large planter urns sitting beside my front entry door are ....empty. Yuck...not very welcoming and my husband actually asked me the other day if I was ever going to put something in them. My entry would not welcome anyone at this point and I really need to take care of that. Thanks for printing this info...maybe I can use some of the inspiration to take care of my little embarrassment before someone actually does drop by. I love the look of various plants in a container garden and you have some beauties here.
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