Container Garden Ideas to Solve Landscape Problems

One of the best reasons to use containers in your garden is to have plants in places where you wouldn’t otherwise be able to grow them. Commonly this means on a deck, patio or porch. Containers also work wonderfully in areas of your garden or yard where you can’t plant in the ground for one reason or another.

There are many situations where part of a garden may be unsuitable for planting. Perhaps there are buried lines or pipes that make it dangerous to dig and unwise to plant perennials. There may be areas of your yard where you’ve had difficulty getting things to grow because it’s too wet, too dry or too shady. Using containers can help solve all of these problems.

For example in the back of my house, not far from my deck is a cluster of boxes, meters and pipes for various essential services into my home. While it’s nice these are all clustered into one area, it’s not aesthetically pleasing. Planting something in front of this was a definite must. However, at the base of this cluster is a tangle of buried lines. When Gopher One came out to mark the ground for planting the first year I had a beautiful rainbow of flags and spray paint indicating that everything meets right here. Right where I would like to plant something to hide the unattractive stuff up there.

Ideally a shrub of some sort would have been wide enough and tall enough to cover the area. However, aside from the wires in the ground I wasn’t digging around, I didn’t think having a shrub in that area was a good idea as it would make access difficult in case something needed to be repaired. Instead I used a grouping of 3 large containers and 4 medium sized ones. In the 3 larger containers I use tall fast growing annual ornamental grasses. In the 4 smaller ones, I use flowering annuals for color. Not only does the grouping camouflage this otherwise unsightly area but it also adds a colorful, multilevel arrangement that is far more interesting than a single shrub.

Other areas where containers are useful are in excessively dry or wet areas where you have trouble getting things to grow. Yes, choosing appropriate plants is the best option but sometimes, even those don’t grow in some areas. An easy and inexpensive solution is to plant in containers where you can more easily regulate moisture and get the full colorful plants you were hoping for when you planted them in the ground. An added bonus is that containers give height and interest where they are used. A feat that is difficult to achieve with strictly perennials.

Shady areas can benefit from containers as well. In those areas too shady for successful growing use pots of colorful shade loving annuals and trade them out every few days. They’ll do fine and brighten up an otherwise dark area.

Think outside the patio when it comes to containers. You will pleased at how containers in groupings or placed strategically through your garden can change the whole landscape.