Last week I covered off some of my favourite perennials for containers. But with so many wonderful options open to gardeners, I’m devoting a second blog to this topic. After all, you can’t have too many pots can you?
So without further ado, here is my second batch of five fabulous plants which come back year after year and which I think are perfect in pots.
Perennials for Containers – the list so far
Let me refresh our memories. On the list last week I had:
- Rudbeckia
- Echinacea
- Pennisetum
- Heuchera
- Gaura
This week I’m going to add to the mix:
- Salvia
- Clematis
- Hosta
- Penstemon
- Geranium
Salvia
I’m a huge salvia fan. You can get them in so many wonderful colours including baby blues, the hottest of reds, gorgeous purples and even creams. They provide end of season colour. Something my garden is absolutely crying out for at the moment. And if they’re in a pot, you can strategically move that injection of late colour to the exact spot where it will add most impact.
Added to all this, salvias are very easy to take cuttings from. This is particularly useful as salvias can sometimes unexpectedly die on you – especially if we have late frosts or other unpredictable weather. So taking a few cuttings of your favourites is a great insurance policy.
In the right sunny conditions I’d try any salvia in a container. I’ve red hot Salvia Royal Bumble in an old basket. It’s starting now to look rather leggy, and the basket is heading for the skip too – it’s falling to bits. But for a good few years the basket and saliva have looked lovely. And I’ve a healthy cutting of the salvia taken from the mother plant, romping away in another pot. So my stock of this beauty will carry on, long after the basket has been binned.
If you want a purple rather than a red, a rather lovely new addition to my garden is the purple Salvia Animo (above and below).
I’ve combined it with one of my 5 perennials for pots suggestions from last week – a rudbeckia. In this instance Rudbeckia Viettes Little Suzy. I think yellow and purple is a brilliant colour combination.
Clematis
If you are looking for some height on your patio then I’d heartily recommend clematis in a pot scrambling up an obelisk.
Not only do clematis come in an absolute array of colours and forms, but there’s a variety of clematis to offer interest in spring, summer or autumn. That’s why I have them in this list of top perennials for containers.
You can of course have a clematis all on its own, but I quite like combining them with other perennial plants.
For instance, I have the pale mauve Clematis Bernadine planted with the spreading rock rose Helianthemum Lawrenson’s Pink. It’s a bit of a full on colour combination but I rather like it. And I’ve taken clumps of the rock rose and put them in my sunny border too. Who doesn’t like free plants like that!
A softer colour combination is Clematis Angelique with White Sage. I think that’s a very romantic look.
Or if you fancy a darker purple, I also have the Clematis Duchess of Cornwall combined with the lovely daisy like flowers or Erigeron.
There are obviously lots of other colours you can go for. The luscious red of Clematis Rebecca is hot hot hot! Or if you want a white variety I think Clematis Kitty (below) takes some beating. I’ve combined it with Nemesia Wisley Vanilla.
Hosta
Hostas are fantastic perennials for containers. However, if you are after flowers I’d choose another plant from my list, as hostas are all about the leaves. Their flowers are often a bit inconsequential.
Hostas’ leaves come in the most amazing variety of greens – acid limes, glaucous blues, lush deep forest green and everything in between. And the leaves come in so many shapes too – thin and whippy, twisting, variegated, large as dustbin lids. There are literally hundreds of hostas, and size-wise all of them will cope with being in a container. So if you’re new to them, and don’t yet have a favourite, I’d sit down with a glass of something you love, and treat yourself to a long look at the options via the specialist hosta supplier – Mickfield Hostas. Such a treat!
But to give you a head start, here’s a list of my top ten hostas.
I have Hosta Guacamole in a blue pot in the area which leads up to our back door. It’s a pretty shaded spot and that’s where hostas really come into their own. So many are shade loving and will shine in a spot where nothing else seems to work.
For size and impact, Hosta Sum and Substance takes some beating – he’s one of my all-time favourites.
For a glaucous greenish blue colour, Deane’s Dream is fabulous. As you can see in the picture below, I have mine in a border but he’d look tip-top in a pot too. I could go on, but you get the gist…hostas are brilliant perennials for containers.
There are only two caveats I should mention. Firstly, hostas lose their leaves over winter. So if all you have is hostas in pots, your display of containers will look a bit lack-lustre for a large part of the year.
To combat this, when my potted hostas are looking rather sad, I push them slightly out of sight and let my evergreen ferns take more of the limelight.
The second thing to bear in mind is slugs. The thinner leaved hostas in particular are vulnerable to them. So be prepared to be vigilant. That said, if you work hard to attract birds into your garden, they will often keep slugs and snails at bay.
Penstemon
Penstemon are brilliant plants for borders but I think they also perform well as perennials for containers. I like them because they tick all of the boxes in terms of my criteria. Insects love them. If they outgrow a container or I want to change my pots I can always put the penstemon into my flower beds. And they are oh so simple to take cuttingsffrom. So once you’ve a penstemon in your life, you can – thanks to cuttings – never have to buy one again!
I had a massive container of Penstemon Garnet which was an absolute show stopper on my patio – year in year out. But sadly the late frost killed it. Luckily for me, I had a successful cutting waiting in the wings. So was able to once again have a container of the beauty on my patio. As it’s a small specimen at the moment, I have mine planted with Knautia Melton Pastel. I like this combination as they are a similarly colour but have different flower forms. However once the penstemon is big enough I’ll give the plants pots on their own.
Geranium
Lots of people will put hardy geraniums in their flower beds, and why not? They’re a lovely plant, with saucer-shaped flowers producing pollen and nectar which bees in particular love. Hardy geraniums come in white as well as many different shades of pink, purple and blue. They look particularly good in cottage garden style schemes. They are super easy to grow – always a positive plant point as far as I’m concerened. And for many of us who have quite a lot of shade in our gardens, they will thrive there, flowering happily for months. What’s not to like about all of that!
But, I’ve always felt that too few people take advantage of all of these benefits, when it comes to pots. Hardy geraniums can be such useful perennias for containers.
I combined Heuchera Silver Scrolls with Geranium macrorrhizum White-Ness in a trough (above). It looked lovely. Though the geranium did eventually take over.
I have an old chimney pot packed with a glorious Ingwersen’s Variety geranium in it. This was on my Mum and Dad’s patio, so it always reminds me of them. It has huge sentimental value to me, which means I love it. But it’s so pretty and low maintenance too. I’ve had it for over 10 years and literally do nothing to it, except give it a bit of water and perhaps the odd feed. Even when not in flower it looks lovely, with its soft bed of shapely leaves. And when it’s in bloom, (early Summer) its pale pink flowers are so aromatic.
My only word of advice with geraniums in containers is – as you can see from the chimney pot they tend to take over. So I’d probably have this perennial on its own in a pot. But other than that, they’re trouble free. Just give them a large pot to spread in and boss!
Perennials for Containers
So that’s it – five more wonderful perennials for containers. To be honest I could have given you another five. After all, ferns, astrantias, dahlias, geums and achilleas all look superb in pots – either on their own or with other things. And dear little erigeron, which I frequently combine with other things in pots surely needs a mention as does ivy.
So next time you have a pot, basket, old bucket, disused wheelbarrow, trough or anything else to fill in your garden, think perennials. They won’t disappoint you and through division or cuttings you will be able to increase your stock of them and keep them going in your garden for years.
Happy gardening x