Ways to enhance your home with container plants

Container plants are a convenient and attractive alternative to traditional gardens. Pair container-compatible plants with the right growing conditions to enrich almost any space with splashes of colour and texture.

The most alluring attribute of containers is their versatility. In addition to the obvious places you might station pots of flowering plants, such as on your deck or patio, or flanking an entryway or steps, special containers are available for:

• mounting on fences
• straddling porch rails
• attaching to windowsills

Many containers can be picked up and moved at a moment's notice, allowing for instant colour when and where you want it. By changing plants, you can change a colour scheme or create seasonal displays.

Two aspects of container gardening that take time and attention are watering and fertilizing. Plants in containers don't have the luxury of sending out roots to forage for moisture and nutrients, so strive to keep container-grown plants where they can be reached easily with a hose or watering can.

It's a happy coincidence, however, that potted plants used to decorate outdoor rooms are usually convenient to water and fertilize. Most flourish if fertilized at every other watering with a balanced, water-soluble fertilizer applied at half strength.

• Enhance a house entryway with an elegant hanging basket and enliven a barren terrace with pots of greenery
• Screen an unattractive view or highlight a special landscape feature
• Hide a homely house foundation with potted plants
• Soften the hard architecture of a balcony
• Transform a blank wall into a kaleidoscope of colour

• You can grow plants where the soil is poor, shallow or dominated by large rocks
• You can grow plants where there is no soil at all, such as on paved walkways, patios, porches and steps
• If you have a sun-baked yard, you can tuck a few of your favourite shade-loving plants into pots set under a tree
• If you have too much shade you can give sun-seeking plants the conditions they need by moving potted specimens as the light changes through the day
• If wildlife likes to nibble your garden, you can protect plants that need to be pampered by putting them into containers and siting them close to the house

Containers are ideal for impatient, restless and experimental gardeners:

• With a few flowers and a few minutes, you can turn a basket or urn into an instant garden
• Change the look of your landscape with the seasons. Containers make it easy to create different designs to suit your mood or the calendar
• Push the limits of your talents with new plant combinations or temperamental specimens. Container gardens are an inexpensive way to test your ideas on a small scale

Every home, regardless of its size, has special spots that can be brightened up with beautiful plants grown in containers. Many plants are not only willing, but eager, to grow in the confined spaces of pots, baskets, window boxes and planting boxes.