Whenever I lecture on either house plants or on container garden design, on of my mainstays is to talk about using house plants in outdoor containers. I think this is a very under-done practice, and when gardeners do do it, they often discard ( or compost) the house plants at the end of the season with the annuals. Not only is that unnecessary, but it deprives the gardener of something that can be reused for many seasons and often in different designs each season.
Last weekend, I took a stroll around a nearby town and photographed some of the containers to show house plants creatively used. These are all on borrowed time–we are already 2 weeks past our first frost date. But most of them look great!
This is a diffenbachia together with some fuchsia and purple leafed sweet potato vine. Very pretty.
A simple arrangement of aralia, scaveola, and impatiens.
Tricolor dracena, more impatiens and begonias.
More sweet potato vine–chartreuse this time– more impatiens and another diffenbachia.
Some variegated tradescantia, yet more impatiens and a ti plant. There were many of these ti plants all over town but these were the best looking. Some were completely overwhelmed by the other flowers and foliage.
And now for something completely different, just a peace lily in a basketimely. This can easily be whisked inside for cooler weather.
Finally this is not the best looking planter, but I love the use of thyme as a ” spiller.”
Gardendaze 