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Container Planting

Tired of the same old hanging baskets and usual container plantings on your patio or porch? Host Paul James shows how to utilize the unconventional and downright unusual to make striking container plantings.

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Tired of the same old hanging baskets and usual container plantings on your patio or porch? Host Paul James shows how to utilize the unconventional and downright unusual to make striking container plantings.

Get creative and make use of your unused fire pit. It makes the perfect home for a combination of plants including tropical ferns. The lid keeps the planted area shady.

A wooden box, originally used to transport Howitzer shells during the Vietnam War, is now peacefully planted with parsley, tarragon, thyme, oregano, rosemary, and basil. And this herb garden is portable, too, thanks to the rope handles!

Why not make use of old watering cans, like this copper one? Just drill drainage holes in the bottom, fill it with soil and add plants!

This old tank sprayer from the Fifties or Sixties is planted with cute-as-a-button button fern.

Make a succulent-filled wreath using a wire wreath frame. Just line the frame with sphagnum peat moss, pack it with potting soil, and plant! Then hang it on a wall or place it over the rim of another planter for a really unusual combination.

Give your plantings personality! Paul topped off a fiberglass-resin planter with a succulent from the genus Crassula, which creates a Medusa-like look.

Tom-tom pots, planted with ferns and placed in iron stands, add height and interest.

More tips:


  • Place container plantings at various heights to make them even more striking.

  • Container plants don’t have to be confined to just the porch or patio. They add texture and visual interest almost anywhere in the landscape.

  • Glazed pots are ideal for container plantings because they don’t dry out nearly as quickly as unglazed ones; however, glazed pots won’t develop the cool and unusual patina that aged terra cotta pots can.

Give new terra cotta pots that old look by dipping them regularly in your water garden.

  • If you want to give new terra cotta pots that old look, dip them regularly in your water garden, set them in the shade, and in time you’ll begin to see algae form on the sides. Or try rubbing pots with a handful of weeds. This will also hasten the formation of a mossy or algae-covered patina.

  • Finally, don’t plant all your containers at once. Nursery stock changes regularly and it’s fun to see what’s new in the way of plants and containers.

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