Potted Plant Arrangement Ideas for a Gorgeous Patio Garden

Creating and designing a container garden is an opportunity to experience an outstanding range of colors and textures. Movable festivals and container gardens offer a lush start to the growing season and the potential for eye-catching displays to enjoy through the hottest summer months and into the cooler temperatures of fall.

Once our chilly spring begins to warm up, many of us will feel like children in the plant-filled candy stores we call garden centers.

In Winnipeg, Manitoba, Karen Chopp’s company, The Barefoot Gardener, provides container design services to corporate and residential clients. Her seasonal container designs decorate many outdoor dining areas in Winnipeg each year.

Like many gardeners, Chopp sometimes feels the temptation to spontaneously purchase a single plant, but her plant selection is guided primarily by an innate sense of design and her desire for perfect plant combinations. Chopp says she thinks it’s important to resist the urge to rush into spring planting, which can result in the need to protect delicate plants from the threat of frost.

Chopp uses the Thriller, Filler, Spiller concept to create fascinating, unique container gardens and plant densely to create a lush appearance.

Chopp is largely self-taught and draws on her previous experiences in flower arranging to inspire her design. She worked for a local wholesaler, arranging cut flower bouquets for grocery stores. Soon she was designing floral arrangements for restaurants and special events and designing container gardens. In 2019, Chopp purchased a Hijet mini truck and converted it into a mobile flower shop. But then the pandemic came.

“With more people staying at home, my container garden business has just taken off, and my main focus now is designing outdoor containers and their care and maintenance throughout the season,” she says.

Look for healthy plants
What plant combinations, tips and techniques does Chopp use to create successful container gardens with maximum impact?

“I look for the healthiest, fullest plants I can find. I’d like to see what the blooms look like, but I’m looking for healthy buds rather than a bloom explosion.” By pinching or trimming the flowers of annual plants when you first bring them home, you encourage more side shoots for a bushier one Plant. “Don’t be afraid to prune your plants so they continue to do what you want them to do.”

Chopp says she can’t emphasize enough the importance of reading the guidelines on plant labels to determine a plant’s moisture and light needs, as well as the maximum height and width a plant is expected to grow. It’s a shame to invest in a little gem of a plant, only to have it completely hidden from view by a nearby plant with aggressive growth.

Chopp believes in designing container gardens to be appealing from all angles. The fact is that sometimes, despite proper care, a particular plant may not do well or meet expectations, she says. The ability to turn a container over can give a plant time to improve or recover, or give you time to nurture a replacement plant.

When planning the design of your containers, consider surrounding elements such as the style of your home or the colors and textures of your flower beds or the size and shape of your patio where your container groupings will be placed. Assess the amount and intensity of light an area receives, as well as wind exposure.

Chopp often works with very large planters. If the planters are round, she usually chooses three of a kind for each plant she designs with. For a large square planter, she uses combinations of two of a kind. Chopp selects a centerpiece or thriller that works well with the size of a planter. Tropical plants with a strong shape are ideal. Favorites include elephant ears (Colocasia), canna lilies, palms and papyrus. Bushy plants such as coleus are used to form the collar around the thriller component. A popular coleus variety that Chopp likes to incorporate into her designs is Gays Delight. Suitable for sunny or shady locations, Gays Delight has lime green foliage with distinctive black veining.

Hanging plants increase the fullness of container gardens. One of Chopp’s favorite spillers is the Lamiostrum “Silver Nettle,” a vine with silver-green foliage. She also selects trailing plectranthus varieties that grow vigorously and do well in both sun and shade.