One of the great things about growing plants in pots is that you can use them just about anywhere no matter how big or small your garden. Planted with flowers, vegetables or herbs, they add color to a deck or patio. A pair of pots flanking the front door is a warm welcome for visitors. And, for apartment and condo-dwellers with a balcony, a few pots or window boxes set on the floor help soften iron railings and brick walls and create that garden feeling.

Think of containers as accessories for your garden and outdoor living space. In small areas, they can be grouped together and staged for a sensational display. Because very few perennials bloom for more than a few weeks, I like to place large pots filled with annuals, such as red fountain grass, petunias, calibrachoa, nasturtiums, lantana and sweet potato vines in my long perennial border. There, they attract butterflies and hummingbirds and add interest until the first fall frost.

Add pots to your shade garden for color

In my shade garden, most of the plants are green—epimediums, hostas and hellebores, for example. They all tend to carpet the ground at the same height, which can be monotonous. To draw the eyes upward, I set a few large resin urns filled with red flowering annuals like Dragon Wing begonias that serve as focal points. Red is a complementary color to green and when they are paired together, the combination is striking, especially in shade. On our patio, two shrubby panicle hydrangeas (Hydrangea paniculata ‘Limelight’) thrive in very large, lightweight “foam” pots. They can be left out all year, even though we are in zone 5 where winter temperatures can dip below zero. The hydrangeas have thrived for more than three years in the pots. Soon I’ll move them into one of my borders and replace them with something new.

Essentials of garden pot design

It’s easy to design and plant a pot with stunning results if you follow a few essentials. First, choose pots that have holes in the bottom for drainage. That is critical. The containers need to shed excess water from the soil, otherwise the waterlogged roots will rot and the plants will die.

Let’s say you are on a garden walk and searching for inspiration, I look for containers that complement the style of the house. For example, a classic iron urn looks great with a Victorian home. Alternatively, a tall, contemporary glazed pot can enhance sleek architectural lines. For me, this is a simple design principle that pulls the house and garden together. Another trick is using containers that are all made of the same material or the same style or the same color. It creates unity and consistency throughout the garden.

Types of garden pots

Many garden centers and big-box stores carry new lightweight, weather-resistant resin pots in a range of Crayola-like colors—red, blue, chartreuse, or purple, for example—and in many sizes. Pick a pot in a color that enhances your garden, patio furniture or the color of your house. Repeat it and it becomes a theme through the garden.

The size and material of the pot are important, too. Pots smaller than 14 inches wide will need frequent watering, so the bigger the pot, the better. In hot weather, potting mix dries out very quickly in a container that’s less than two feet wide and two feet tall. This will also stress plant roots and a stressed plant is more susceptible to pests and disease.

Terra cotta pots (made from clay) tend to dry out the fastest in our garden while glazed ceramic pots keep the soil moist much longer. However, ceramic pots weigh more and may need storing in winter. When buying pots, consider the weather. If you choose a ceramic pot but live in an area where the temperature dips below freezing, you’ll want to empty the container and store it off the ground in a garage or shed so it doesn’t crack.

Use potting soil … not garden soil

I look for a good, all-purpose soil-less potting mix—one that contains slow-release fertilizer granules. To keep my pots of annuals blooming as long as possible, I also use a water-soluble fertilizer at one quarter the recommended strength every other week when I water. Picking off the spent flowers will also encourage prolonged blooming. If you have to move your pots, using soil-less potting mix makes the job much easier than if you use garden soil in them. Garden soil is typically too heavy for pots, doesn’t allow for good drainage and may contain pests or disease. You can find bags of potting mix at local garden centers and big-box stores.

Monopots vs. Combopots

Next comes the fun part—choosing the plants. Ray Rogers, author of “The Encyclopedia of Container Plants: More than 500 Outstanding Choices for Gardeners.” (Timber Press, 344 pages, $34.95), suggests ‘monopot’ and ‘combopot’ plantings. A monopot contains one type of plant while a combopot includes two or more different plants.

A monopot container filled with one type of coleus or an ornamental grass, such as Pennisetum ‘Prince’ (purple fountain grass), can create a very dramatic and contemporary look. Combopot plantings tend to have a thriller, filler and spiller. The thriller plant is typically upright and vertical, like grass. The filler could be a rounded plant, such as compact zinnias. The spiller, which trails over the edge of the pot, could be a vine.

Although petunias, coleus, sweet potato vines and grasses have been the mainstays of many container gardens, another popular trend is the use of succulents—plants with thick, fleshy stems that enjoy very well-drained soil and warm weather. It’s their leaves that create the visual interest with their rounded shapes and soft blues, greys and greens.

Herbs like basil, cilantro, parsley and oregano also do well in sunny locations and easily grow in pots. I group mine together so I can water them all at once without dragging the hose around.

In recent years, plant breeders have introduced new varieties of blue fescue, sedges, tufted hair grass (Deschampsia), lovegrass (Eragrostis) and other upright and clump-forming annual and perennial grasses that provide texture and color in pots placed in full sun. Shade-loving grasses, like Japanese forest grass or Hakone grass (Hakonechloa macra ‘All Gold’) shine on their own. They provide a cascade of chartreuse leaves over the rim of a pot. Don’t overlook the chance to grow miniature hostas, like ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ and ‘Teaspoon’ in pots for shady sites. At the end of the growing season, I take them out of the pots and plant them in a permanent location.

When combining several plants in one pot, I pair those that prefer the same type of culture. These include light shade or full sun, good drainage or frequent watering. The possibilities are endless. On your next visit to the garden center, pick up a pot, some plants and start designing in your cart. Becoming a garden artist was never easier.