When I plan my summer flower containers, I have a few goals. In addition to steady good looks from summer to fall, I want the plants to be low-maintenance and budget-friendly. I plant them out in spring, baby them through long hot summer days, then enjoy them again in the cool autumn months.
Over the years, I’ve found a few plants that meet these requirements, and combining these plants lets me keep my containers looking consistently good through the growing season.
Take a look at my planting choices for this summer:
My Summer Container Plant Choices
Cast Iron Plant
Cast iron plant is also called barroom plant because it such a tough, shade tolerant plant. It spreads by rhizomes and grows into clumps up to 2 feet tall. In my garden, it’s not as vigorous a grower as hosta, but it’s also not as enticing to deer. In my landscape, cast iron plant returns each year.
Coleus
Coleus is my favorite annual. With bold colored foliage in shades of chartreuse, burgundy, pink and peach, you’ll find countless types that will flourish in your garden. Coleus sends up a flower stalk in later summer, and I leave them for the hummingbirds and bees that appreciate the nectar.
Coleus is part-shade plant, but I’ve found that cultivars with thicker leaves like ‘Electric Lime’ can handle more sun that the types with large, floppy foliage. Read more about coleus.
Sedum
Sedums and stonecrops are my go-to spillers and fillers for my containers. I bought a quart-size container of fish scale sedum about five years ago and I now have this prolific spreader throughout my landscape. It keeps down weeds as a groundcover in my full sun perennial bed. It’s a sturdy border barrier between the boiling hot street and the mailbox garden. I also tuck it into terra cotta pots each spring and place them throughout the garden. In other words, it’s a stalwart and a keeper.
There are many of these tough little plants out there. Many are simply called “stonecrop.” Find what works for your garden and divide and share them each year.
The Container Reveal
This combination is a winner partly because it’s placed in part shade. It’s on the western side of the house and enjoys the cool shade of the trees in the afternoon. Both cast iron plant and sedum are drought tolerant, and I think this coleus variety is pretty tough, too.
As for budget, you may pay a bit more initially for cast iron plant, but because it’s perennial, you’ll find that it will last year after year in your containers. The sedum, too. Of course, the cheapest plants are passalong plants, so if you have friends that will share a stem of coleus, a clump of cast iron and a chunk of sedum, you’re well on your way to your own low-maintenance, budget-friendly containers.
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