Potted Plants for Decks and Patios

Adding container plants softens decks' and patios' hard architectural lines and surfaces, and the plants provide color and texture. Choose plants that fit the effect you want them to achieve, such as tropical lushness, cheerful informal arrangements, classical simplicity or long periods of blooms. Container plants can provide enjoyment for you and your family as you relax, dine and entertain on the decks and patios. Look for plants that are ornamental, low-maintenance and suited to the conditions in which they will live. The plants' containers need to have bottom drainage holes.

You can have colorful flowers in your outdoor living spaces either by using container plants with a long blooming season or by continually rotating annuals or perennials that bloom for only a short time. One option that produces abundant blooms all summer and through fall is the million bells cultivar "Superbells Tequila Sunrise" (Calibrachoa "Superbells Tequila Sunrise"), which cascades over container edges and has showy, orange, red and yellow bell-shaped flowers that are self-cleaning. Consider growing the plant in hanging baskets for vertical interest. It is hardy in U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness zones 9 through 11 and needs full sun. Colorful potted annuals that can be added seasonally when they flower include the spring-blooming heartsease (Viola tricolor) and sweet alyssum (Lobularia maritima). The annuals French marigold (Tagetes patula) and zinnias (Zinnia elegans) bloom until frost, and Chinese asters (Callistephus chinensis) have their major blooming period in fall.

Valuable for leading the eye upward and for vertical elements in containers that hold several plants, upright plants can become focal specimens. Consider using a dwarf, slow-growing, columnar evergreen such as "Ellwood's Pillar" Lawson cypress (Chamaecyparis lawsoniana "Ellwood's Pillar"), which grows 2 to 4 inches per year to a mature height of about 6 feet where it is hardy, USDA zones 6 through 9. Its bluish-gray foliage is tight and thick. For a more fine-textured effect, try an upright ornamental grass such as "Karl Foerster" feather reed grass (Calamagrostis x acutiflora "Karl Foerster"). Its slender leaves form foliage clumps 18 to 24 inches high, and it is topped by yellow-plumed flower stalks that rise 4 to 5 feet tall in summer and last into fall. This grass is hardy in USDA zones 4 through 9.

A container plant doesn't have to bloom to produce an impact; its foliage can make a statement. For example, the bird of paradise plant (Strelitzia reginae) features clumps of gray-green, tropical-looking leaves that grow 3 to 5 feet tall. Its orange and purple flowers appear in fall and winter. Bird of paradise is hardy in USDA zones 9 through 11. In areas with cold winters, the plant should be taken indoors before frost arrives. Another plant with ornamental foliage is the colorful, summer-growing "Tropicanna" canna (Canna indica "Phasion"), which has vividly striped leaves in tones of yellow, pink, red and green as well as bright-orange flowers. The 5-foot-tall plant is hardy in USDA zones 7 through 11.

Add more than visual rewards to decks and patios by including fragrant plants that are meant to be enjoyed close up. "Chuck Hayes" gardenia (Gardenia jasminoides "Chuck Hayes"), for example, contributes double-petaled, heavily scented flowers in summer and glossy, evergreen foliage. It grows 4 feet wide and tall, and is hardy in USDA zones 7 through 11. If you want your outdoor living spaces to be perfumed during evening hours, then plant containers of flowering tobacco (Nicotiana alata). Stick to the old-fashioned, white-flowered forms for the best fragrance rather than hybrids that have bright flower colors. Although flowering tobacco is perennial in USDA zones 6 through 9, it's usually grown as an annual. All portions of flowering tobacco are poisonous when eaten by humans and animals.