Perennial Plants for Pots – 5 To Try

If you have read this blog for any length of time you will know I love containers. So much so I must have over 80 of them! You’ll also know I love perennial plants. I definitely have more than 80 of them! So I felt it was high time I combined my twin passions and shared what I think are the best perennial plants for pots.

There are so many I could choose. Indeed there are so many that I need to devote two blogs to this. So, in no particular order, because I think they’re all fab, over the next two weeks I’m going to recommend ten for you try. Here are my first five…

1.Echinacea

At this time of year, my echinacea are one of the few plants injecting some serious sunshine into my garden. So I’d definitely have them on my list of perennial plants for pots.

You can get them in oodles of colours – hot pinks, peaches, whites, yellows, corals. There really will be one to suit any garden colour scheme.

Furthermore, it’s not just me, the bees love them too. More particularly, they love crawling across the large nectar and pollen rich flowers.

One look at the way the echinacea flowers are structured makes it easy to understand why. The gorgeous daisy-like flowers have a large dark cone in the centre – which is why they’re also called cone flowers. The centre is framed by strikingly coloured petals. These often hang down slightly backwards. This gives the impression that the plant is tilting its head up. This not only makes the plant look attractive but it also makes the flower’s centre so easy for bees to access.

Now I should add here that they bloom from June to September. So if you have loads of different pots you can of course have a sole echinacea in a pot (like above) and hide it in amongst other containers when the plant is dormant.

However, if you only have a few containers, I’d combine your echinaceas with some other plants. That way you can have a pot with more all year-round interest.

Salivas, grasses, achilleas, agastache are all brilliant to combine with echinaceas.

2. Heuchera

Heuchera are evergreen foliage plants and come in a range of vibrant colours – plums, almost black, limes, through to orangey and pale yellow colours. They’re in my list of top perennial plants for pots because not only are they fantastic partners for other plants, but, if you choose the right heuchera they look brilliant on their own too.

In terms of partnering with other plants, in my garden the Heuchera Ginger Ale works beautifully with the shrub  Physocarpus Lady in Red, the Geum Nonna and Erysimum Golden Jubilee.  The heuchera’s gorgeous leaves are the perfect foil for the other plants.

But in the right situation a single heuchera such as Silver Scrolls, or a collection of Heuchera Fire Chiefs can look absolutely stunning too.

Another reason why I think heuchera are brilliant perennial plants for pots is that you can easily divide them up. So you can increase your collection of the plant without spending more of your hard earned cash. Indeed, I’ve just bought a gorgeous heuchera in a sale called Indian Summer Cranberry (below). I’m going to divide it up before I put it in a container. That way I can put it in not just one but three other pots.

3. Rudbeckia

Another plant which is delivering lots of colour in my garden at the moment is rudbeckia. And that looks set to continue as they’ll bloom from July right through to October.

The perennial rudbeckias (you can get annual and biennial varieties) are often yellow or orange but you can get some other colours. For instance I’ve just spotted this lovely variety, a delicious rudbeckia called SummerDaisy’s Double Red. I think it combined with the heuchera Indian Summer Cranberry just mentioned above would look superb.

While rudbeckias look good in borders, I think they’re great in pots too not least because the plants are compact and bushy, so they rarely need staking. And in terms of flowering they will keep on giving throughout the season. If you deadhead the plants by cutting back faded flowers, you will encourage further flushes of flowers.

Often if you are combining pots in a grouping to simulate a border, you might want something tall. Again this is why I think rudbeckias are good perennial plants for pots. As while they are often compact and shortish, there is a wonderful tall variety which I also have in a container. It’s called Rudbeckia Herbstonne and it’s huge 1.5 – 2.5 metres tall!

I wonder if my lovely neighbours, Desi and Tim, can see its flowers from their garden?

The yellow daisy-like flowers are like yellow rays of sunshine – and the plants are trouble free. No wonder this particular variety has been awarded the Royal Horticultural Society’s prestigious Award of Garden Merit.

As with heucheras, you can divide rudbeckias to increase your stock of the plants. I’d do this only when they’re overcrowded in their pots – perhaps every 3 to 4 years. I’ll typcailly do this in the spring, when the new growth is starting to come through.

Perennial Plants for Pots – My Top Grass

Lots of people are a bit indifferent about grasses. But I think they’re fantastic in containers. The provide movement, grace and interest.

4. Pennisetum – Fountain Grass

Fountain Grass has real star quality. It’s tall, graceful, arching and eye-catching. Unlike other grasses, it has fabulous bristly bottlebrush spikes. When I see them I can’t help but touch them – they’re irresistable!

And again, like all of my suggestions so far, Pennisetum looks lovely on its own or combined with something else.

For instance, as already mentioned, I have Pennisetum Shogun combined in a pot with and echinacea and salvia (above). But I also have a lovely pot of it all on its own – and it looks glorious, wafting alongside my ferns and heucheras.

Obviously there are varieties other than Shogun for you to try. Indeed, that’s the beauty of this grass, you can get a real mix of shades. I rather like Cherry Sparkler below.

Or if you want a whiter variety, Pennisetum villosum produces an absolute bevvy of soft, feathery white, rabbit-tail flower spikes.

As if all this loveliness wasn’t enough, Pennisetum is also one of the easiest grasses to grow, and quickly develops large clumps. So after a year or two of this grass in a pot you could divide your clump up, increasing your stock without spending any money.  

5. Gaura

If you want perennial plants for your pots with the movement of a grass but with lovely flowers then look no further than Gaura. I’ve had  Gaura Lindheimeri in pots for many years. It grows about 75cm -1metre tall, so needs a big container. But it’s worth finding a home for. Its spires of swirling butterfly-type flowers from July – October add such grace to a garden.

Gaura can be planted on its own. But I’ve combined gaura with echinaceas, salvias and even foxgloves. And you don’t have to go for a white variety. If pink is your thing, Gaura ‘Rosy Shimmers’ below takes some beating. I think this in a pot with a hot pink echinacea and perhaps a lovely wafty pennisetum could be staggeringly lovely.

So that’s my initial selection of five fantastic perennial plants for pots…five more to follow next week.

In the meantime, happy gardening – x