Container gardens are another way to add outdoor interest to landscapes, and their popularity is growing. Busy gardeners find attractive containers an easy and minimal-maintenance way of creating displays of color for decks and patios.

Rules for creating container gardens are liberal. Home owners can use familiar bedding plants as well as more tropical foliage. Mixing plants often gives interesting combination’s of colorful flowers and unusual leaf textures.

A container garden with dwarf schefflera, red hot salvias and a colorful croton might be the ideal accent for your landscape. Or, how about a container of ready-to-harvest herbs near the kitchen or some decorative and upright papyrus or eugenia topiaries as accent features on the patio?

One way to reduce the frequency of garden chores is to pick plants adapted to the location. Our landscapes are nothing like the original habitats where the plants once grew. The soils have been disturbed, overhead cover removed and drainage patterns changed during construction. Gardeners have to select the best of the native and introduced species to survive in their home sites.

Gardeners also can reduce maintenance, yet keep an attractive landscape for the entire year by using more perennials and foliage plants. Some to consider are African iris, bush daisies, crotons, gingers, Joseph’s coat, milkweed, Mexican heather and spathiphyllum. They give an extended period of use without the seasonal change. Scheiber says the plantings can be more expensive initially, but gardeners should notice a reduced cost over time.