It’s almost Christmas, and if you are like me, you are probably rushing around trying to think up original gift ideas for the last few people on your Christmas present list. One idea, which can be adapted to suit different people, is a planted container.

 

 

Planting containers is quite quick and easy to do. The finished result adds instant colour, lasts a long time and is easy to look after, stood outside in a corner of the patio.

You can choose any type of container to suit the lucky recipient. There is a wide choice of styles, colours and materials available at most garden centres. Select from brightly coloured, modern cubes to traditional terracotta pots. Or you can make your own, from an old basket, a leaky watering can, a holey pair of boots – there is no limit to what you can recycle! It just needs to have some drainage holes and be reasonably waterproof to cope with standing outside.

It’s best to fill the container with a potting compost mix, rather than garden soil. The potting compost will be free draining and contain nutrients, which will help plants to grow.

Even though it is the middle of winter, the garden centre will still have a good variety of plants from which to choose, if you can find them, under all the tinsel! Stick to a theme with the planting.

You can create instant colour with a selection of winter pansies, which always look more sophisticated, if you only use a few colours. Add in at least one evergreen foliage plant, to balance out all the colour and give a contrasting shape and texture.

You could pot up a selection of herbs for a cook, or a present to take to a dinner party. Many herbs like sage, thyme, rosemary are evergreen, so they would make a pretty display and be useful in the kitchen when they start putting on new growth next spring.

The easiest thing to do would be to pot up one choice plant in your container. Maybe something with a Christmas theme, like a slow growing conifer from a specialist nursery, hung with a few baubles.

A variegated holly bush or a standard lollipop bay will also grow well in a container for quite a few years. Plant them in a soil based compost like John Innes number 3, which has more nutrients to keep them going.

You can create a stunning display by using small shrubs and perennials with coloured leaves. There are many variegated evergreen Euonymous, available with green and yellow, or green and white leaves. These look good teamed with one of the many varieties of heucheras with purple leaves, an evergreen grass or a fern.

Some perennial plants flower at this time of the year. Last year I managed to find some white Christmas roses just coming in to flower in a local DIY store. I packed several into a large terracotta pot and created a wigwam of red dogwood stems around them, from cuttings from the garden. It looked good for months.

If you plant up a few containers now, you can leave them outside and enjoy them on your patio until they are needed for gifts. You never know, you just might end up keeping them for yourself as a treat from Santa! If my husband asks me where the new containers on our patio came from, well, I can always tell him they just fell off the back of a sleigh

– Merry Christmas!

The author Linda Regel runs a garden design and consultancy business, Green. Visit www.greengardendesign.co.uk or telephone 01344 844320.

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