Tropical Pots

I love planting these containers. I started doing these a number of years ago when a friend introduced me to Coleus, which I wasn’t familiar with. I had always done beds and and planters with very conventional plants like geraniums and impatiens. But I got kind of hooked on this darker,”urban” look.

These look great grouped in the planters we found at Costco this spring. They’re huge, heavyweight, and at about $40 apiece, a bargain. We sort of spread them across the upper deck at the lake house and then just let them do their thing. Little tip we got from a local gardening guru: fill the bases of huge pots with packing peanuts! They’re light and do a great job of taking up space in that base that really doesn’t need to be filled with heavy – and expensive – potting soil.

I always start with a big anchor plant in the center. In this case, it’s a spiky tropical; Elephant Ears make great anchors too. Then I plant fillers at the base – sweet potato vine, regular ivy, Coleus of course, asparagus fern and spikes if there’s room. The goal is a mix of dark, light and contrasting foliage.

We sometimes move these planters inside and try to keep them going through the winter, but I don’t know if that’s possible at the lake house because there really isn’t enough room for these babies. In the meantime, we’re going to keep them outside to remind us of warm, beautiful days for as long as we can.