A container garden is a straightforward way to bring a fresh look to your backyard, patio, or front porch, adding greenery and color to liven up drab spaces. Container gardening also helps mitigate issues such as insufficient sunlight and poor drainage, reducing some of the scares that come with gardening.
Ensure your pots are always watered, especially during the summer season, to prevent them from drying. Pots made from porous materials such as terracotta also need to be watered more since water evaporates from them more quickly.
Ready to start your container gardening journey? Here are some ideas to inspire you.
Take a look!
1. Place It Near Steps
This colorful entrance planter has been placed at the front of an apartment, making it always on view for tenants and passers-by.
Different shades of greenery, along with the white, purple, and pink flowers of beardtongue, ageratum, Sutera, and black-eyed Susan, give the container garden a lot of interest. Mixing tall and petite plants gives the planter plenty of dimension that will last all season long.
2. Uplift Weathered Elements
Showcase your container garden in style by using an aged stone flower pot. Fill your container with vibrant flowers to create a dynamic contrast that will pass the test of time.
Here, low trailers like lobelia, verbena, alyssum, geraniums, and petunias offer a unique texture, color, and composition approach, creating visual variety. The flower bowl feels incredibly expansive without taking up too much space.
3. Keep it Compact
Ferns make great additions to container garden ideas. Here, ferns find their way among a mix of lush plants, including begonias, Chlorophytum comosum (spider plant), and Hypoestes phyllostachya (polka dot plant).
The showy collection adds height, bold color, and rich texture to the container planter. Place your container anywhere on the porch for a lush touch.
4. Use Minimal Effort
Your container garden doesn’t have to be filled with different types of plants and flowers for it to be stunning. Even planting one or two plants can give you a display worthy of all high praises.
Here, dahlias add a fun color to the garden, with the black container helping accentuate the vibrant hue. Dry ornamental grass adds a textural feel to the container garden.
5. Liven Up a Corner
This container garden is bound to fill your space with color and texture. Sweet potato vines and lush green foliage make the trio of colorful flowers pop. Petunias, impatiens, and lantanas bring an array of colors that combine for a chic, monochromatic scheme.
Cordyline Australis’ Red Star’ in the middle adds height and makes the display visually enticing. As in the above example, ensure you balance color, texture, and height with your arrangement, and then place your planter in a corner for a striking display.
6. Ring the Bell
Make a statement with your container gardening idea using whimsical garden ornaments. A small bell and water can ornament piece add an artistic allure to this pot planter. Here, Salvia farinacea ‘Victoria Blue’ offers height and a striking focal point, while geraniums add vivid color to the mix.
Lobelias at the bottom complement the whole arrangement for an established arrangement that can change from season to season. Place your planter on wheels to move it to a new place whenever you feel like it!
7. Utilize a Tall Planter
Consider tall planters to display your plants and flowers, and then place them strategically for even more of an eye-catching statement.
Here, straight lines and recessed panels give this planter a modern look, while red chrysanthemums on top beckon interest.
8. Take a Bold Route
Impress your neighbors and visitors with a collection of container planters in your front yard. Here, the container garden combines a burst of perennials with bold hues and lush tropical plants for elegant containers that keep on giving. Petunias, coleus, impatiens, and lantanas add deep purple, orange, pink, and yellow hues.
Taller plants such as Ensete ventricosum ‘Maurelii’ (red banana tree) and cordyline draw the eye and command attention from afar. The arrangement has been placed next to an outdoor fireplace, creating a unique space to spend time in as you enjoy your cookouts.
9. Go for a Dynamic Duo
This summer arrangement of greenery and flowers proves that container garden ideas can create beautiful centerpieces, no matter the season.
Pink impatiens immediately inject a vibrant color, while the trailing Lysimachia nummularia ‘Aurea’ (Golden Creeping Jenny) provides a cheerful touch. Together, the combination creates an exhilarating interplay, but even separately, each of these plants would be a visual delight!
10. Charm with a Window Box
Window boxes make excellent DIY container garden ideas, incorporating lots of texture and color into your home’s facade. They can quickly spruce up your home, such as how the above black window box matches the window shutters for a coordinated look.
The window box shows off white, purple, and red hues from dipladenia, Angelonia angustifolia, and Cordyline australis’ Red Star’ for a flowing composition that adds color to the façade. Some trailing calibrachoa add a green backdrop and are punctuated by the vivid bursts of colors from the flowers.
11. Unify the Display
This container garden is a delightful choice for late-season container garden ideas, filling your space with a dreamy monochromatic palette and bright beauty. Petunias lead the eye with their understated beauty, while plenty of calibrachoa tie the grouping together.
The spiky Dracaena indivisa adds texture and movement above, while the trailing string of hearts adds interest below. The simple black urn contrasts nicely with the boldness of the plants.
12. Start Small
Depending on the plant and flower types you choose, a container garden can serve you most of the year.
These draping calibrachoa and clovers, alongside prominent pale pink ceria, fill the pot beautifully and naturally, keeping the container garden vibrant throughout the year. Even though the arrangement is compact, each plant is able to reflect its unique leaf shape, form, and color.
13. Go for a Monochrome Palette
Another easy container garden idea is to plant one species of a plant, starting with a small cluster as you wait for them to form a large colony through self-seeding.
The process itself is easy, and with a bit of patience, you’ll have a beautiful container garden full of pretty plants. Here, hellebores inspire a minimal aesthetic with bright white flowers and evergreen foliage.
14. Create a Balanced Look
A clever hack for container garden ideas is to pick a color combination whereby the colors can play off each other. Here, a gorgeous black planter features beautiful colors from geraniums, petunias, and calibrachoa.
The silvery-gray leaves of Dichondra’ Silver Falls’ create a beautiful contrast with the colorful flowers. At the same time, Spike Dracaena in the center adds texture and height.
15. Consider an Upcycled Planter
There are various large vessels that you can upcycle and transform into container gardens, forming an almost DIY raised bed.
Here, a rustic, red barrel planter is used to grow herbs, with pansies and zinnias adding subtle pops of color. The grouping makes a conventional centerpiece, creating a slight mixture of textures, shapes, and tones.
16. Go for a Rustic Planter
A galvanized bucket greets guests with romantic pink hues from tulips. The tulips have been grown in such a way that they can thrive closely together while still leaving room for some foxgloves, making a lush garden.
Once the weather gets cold, just take the planter inside and let the tulips work their magic!
17. Let them Spill
A practical and affordable way to grow a container garden is starting by seed. It gives you the opportunity to witness your garden growing from almost nothing into something magical, which can be highly satisfying.
Here, mandevilla, alyssum, and verbena create amazing sights and add a sense of character to the outdoor space. When curating such a display, pay close attention to how the distinctive visual features work together.
18. Use a Colorful Planter
Sometimes, a container garden layout is all about form rather than function. Here, various red and pink tones pull everything together in this container garden.
The container garden features snapdragons that create visual interest all around. The fern at the center constructs a beautiful sense of high drama, while the container complements the flowers with its gleaming red sheen for an unexpected pop of color.
19. Make it Petite
Bigger doesn’t always translate to better; this small container garden idea is a case in point. Rather than stressing yourself with extensive plantings, here is an ideal option for container planters that significantly reduces the hassle of gardening.
This container garden embraces warm and bright colors like orange, yellow, purple, pink, and red from celosia, zinnia, lobelia, caladium and ageratum flowers. The showy flowers come together to create a striking combination that plays off slight color differences. Place this planter at the front door so every person who visits has the joy of seeing it!
20. Create a Cute Display
This cute ceramic planter contains different plants, such as gerbera daisies, petunias, and calibrachoa, with their colorful pink, purple, and yellow flowers playing off each other while also contrasting and complementing each other in different ways.
Some ornamental grass has also been placed at the center to provide height and more visual interest.
21. Use a Floral-Themed Container
If you’re looking to create a rustic yet elegant look with your container garden, consider painting an old, aged stone planter a coat of white paint.
Here, Marguerite Daisy contrasts with the white planter for a cute, romantic feel, making this container garden a lovely addition to the yard. The floral motifs carved onto the container jazz up the potted plantings and add a personal touch.
22. Utilize a Box Planter
A raised garden bed is a popular type of container garden. They are usually elevated off the ground, and you can surround them with an enclosure made of plastic, rocks, wood, or any other suitable material.
Here, the raised garden bed holds a wide variety of flowers and foliage, including sweet alyssum and salvia, keeping taller plants in one corner for a vibrant backdrop. Ensure the structure you choose has proper drainage and is of appropriate size.
23. Personalize Your Planter
Enliven your vegetable garden with a standalone container garden idea. This gorgeous container planter starts off the floral theme with cute flowery art.
Plenty of greenery takes center stage and spreads out in all directions while a few purple petunias and white snapdragons peek out from the green to add a bit of color.
24. Evoke a Romantic Feel
One look at this window box, and summer vibes begin to hit! This beautiful window box celebrates summer with pretty purple and cream petunias.
One thing about container gardens is that they can be grown year-round, depending on what you plant. For example, swap out the summer florals during fall to give way to the warm fall hues.
25. Bring Timeless Elegance
There are numerous ways to display container gardens, whether big or small. Using unique, vintage containers like a classic, freestanding bathtub is an excellent way to bring symmetry and harmony to any container garden.
Here, an old bathtub is filled with white, purple, and pink petunias, creating a collection of small flowers that’s not only stunning but practical.
26. Enjoy the View
The dramatic foliage of cordylines is becoming a common sight in container gardens of most homes. These reddish-purple leaves can add height to low-growing flowers, making a statement with their beautiful earthy color.
Here, calibrachoa, marigolds, and petunias surround the cordyline plant in the middle, bringing a lovely flair to the whole design.
27. Play with Symmetry
Use vintage urns or galvanized planters to give your container garden an interesting twist.
Here, the rustic planter is filled with impatiens, marigolds, begonias, and petunias for a cheery statement. Some boxwood shrubs have been placed at the center for an added personal touch.
28. Make a Statement
This tiny planter is embedded with colorful shells for an elegant and whimsical touch. Purple, red, and green hues from the plants add charm to this already quintessential container garden.
Consider making a DIY seashell planter yourself for a personalized touch.
