A few containers from 2012...

I loved these containers in particular. A couple came together through the season in a bountiful way that even surprised me.


I like shade containers.  You can really go nuts with gorgeous leaves, and they tend to just get more and more lush as the season progresses, rather than getting leggy or fried, like sun containers sometimes can.

                                                 This one really surpassed all expectations.

                               
                                                  This was a late summer/early fall replant.
                               
         This pot lasted weeks, from September well into November, with only a couple minor tweaks.
                               
So did this one.  Celosia is amazing!  It bloomed more than 6 weeks, and the dried blooms looked beautiful several weeks more.

Fall container planting starts.  I was sorry to pull out that lush fern planting, but this came out nicely.  I included the baby mugo pines as my "base."  You'll see below that they and the birch branches are left in place for the winter pots.



                     I love these African Knobs.  No one seems to know what their Latin name is.

I always use live plants for my winter containers.  For one thing, those Christmas containers with evergreen boughs just look very cliche to me.  When did holiday pots get stuck in a Currier and Ives postcard?  It's the 21st century.  And those boughs look like the rest of us do by the first of the year; dehydrated, hungover, frozen, tired.  Live plants, on the other hand,  look fantastic until April.  I often just take out the accent twigs and put in a small something blooming in April, like pansies, to tide the client over until there's more plant material available.  Above is a little blue juniper.

                        This container has evergreen bearberry (not barberry, which is not evergreen).

                                 
And I had to include my Halloween pumpkin.  Looks like a punk bookie, no?  I used miscanthus for hair.  The next day it was all dried out, so it had "curls."