When you learn how to make cool weather container gardens, you can mix and match plants from fall to spring and, with any luck, back again. This combination featuring snapdragons and pansies served me well from fall through winter and spring:
In both of these, the “Bright Lights” Swiss chard acts as the thriller, the tallest element. The planter at the top includes late-season parsley that’s bolted (yes, use nature for your garden purposes, yessss). Pansies, snapdragons and flowering kale are fillers, and carex spills over the edge.
The display lasted until temperatures were well over 70 degrees and the arrangement went, as they say, to seed. I used many of these plants in my landscape once the containers played out. The snapdragons are surprisingly durable in heat and tend to re-seed, especially in gravelly areas. They’re popping up in the cracks between pavement and garden bed. The carex is now a border on my perennial bed.
Pansies are my cool weather gardening love language. These tough little mothers handle temps as low as 28 degrees Fahrenheit and still bounce back. I’ve had pansies survive snow storms and 12 degree temperatures and still perform in the garden. I think they’re a smart addition and investment to a container garden strategy.
What about you? What do you plant in for cool season containers? Let me know in the comments.
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