Our readers' best container garden ideas
Containers are a gardener’s best friend. They can bring a pop of color to the deck, add some foliage texture and height along a shady path or brighten the front entry. There are loads of possibilities! But all that potential can be a bit overwhelming sometimes. Whether you’re tired of the same old plant combinations or just not sure what to grow, these impressive reader-submitted containers will inspire you. Thanks to everyone who entered, and congratulations to the winners!
Enter your designs in the Garden Gate Container Challenge!
Send us photos of your best container gardens and we'll choose our favorites to feature in an issue of Garden Gate Magazine in 2025. The containers can be any size, season or style! Enter your best containers by January 31, 2025. Open to U.S. and Canadian residents. See full entry rules here.
2024 Garden Gate Container Challenge Grand Prize Winner
Grand Prize Package
- $100 Monrovia gift card | Monrovia
- Woodland Tools planting and pruning set | Woodland Tools
- Ups-A-Daisy planter inserts | Ups-A-Daisy
- Containers Made Easy! book | Garden Gate Store
Susan Nock, MA | Grand Prize Winner!
Follow Susan on Instagram: @thistlecontainers
A winning spring container
Start your garden season off with this Grand Prize-winning spring container. Ordinary easy-care plants from the garden center take on extraordinary appeal in this lush, harmonious grouping. Pussy willow stems stuck into the potting mix provide extra height — give the fuzzy catkins a quick rub as you walk by to enjoy their soft texture.
Made of fiberglass, the 16-inch-tall-and-wide container is easy to move into place near the side door, where the rich clovelike scent of the stock can’t be missed.
The pansy, stock and sweet alyssum in this flowery combo are at their best in spring. By summer, plants get leggy and slow their blooming, so Susan swaps them out for more heat-tolerant varieties.
Fertilize containers for more flowers
To keep the container blooming, Susan uses a slow-release fertilizer mixed into the potting mix when she plants, then uses a water-soluble all-purpose plant food every 3 to 4 weeks through the growing season.
Container plan and plant list
A) Stock Matthiola incana Harmony™ Violet
B) Coral bells Heuchera ‘Flower Tower’
C) Pansy Viola Sorbet® XP Raspberry
D) Sweet alyssum Lobularia Deep Lavender Stream™
2024 Garden Gate Container Challenge Runners Up
Runners up Prize Package
- Woodland Tools planting and pruning set | Woodland Tools
- Ups-A-Daisy planter inserts | Ups-A-Daisy
- Containers Made Easy! book | Garden Gate Store
Leanne James, IL | Runner Up
Follow Leanne on Instagram: @urbanoasiscontainers
Facebook: Urbanoasiscontainers
Eye-Catching Urn
With bright colors and an elephant ear reaching for the sky, this plant-packed urn creates a vibrant combo sure to attract attention. What an awesome way to point visitors to the front door during the growing season! And because this urn is made of a composite material, Leanne leaves the potting mix in place at the end of the season and fills the urn with evergreens for head-turning containers in winter.
The urn is made of a fiber composite material that looks like concrete but is lightweight and easy to move. And it can withstand the freeze-thaw cycle in Leanne’s zone 5 winters.
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Container care tips
This spot is bright and sunny until early afternoon, which helps the annuals look their flowery best and keeps the coleus and ti plant foliage color intense. But the potting mix in this 38-inch tall-by-23-inch-wide container can dry out quickly. So to avoid frequent trips with the hose, Leanne sets up drip irrigation on a timer for a steady supply of moisture.
A slow-release fertilizer at planting time and a dose of water-soluble plant food every 10 days starting in midsummer keeps the flowers coming. Deadheading isn’t much of an issue since most of these flowers are self-cleaning, but you may need to snip off a spent angelonia bloom or pluck a fading petunia occasionally.
Container plan and plant list
A) Elephant ear Alocasia ‘Portodora’
B) Ti plant Cordyline fruticosa ‘Red Sister’
C) Angelonia Angelonia angustifolia Alonia™ Pink
D) Begonia Begonia BabyWing® White
E) Impatiens Impatiens SunPatiens® Compact Purple
F) Petunia Petunia Wave® Purple
G) Coleus Plectranthus scutellarioides Burgundy Wedding Train
Karin Hudson, VA | Runner Up
Follow Karin on Instagram @stoneleighhomeandgardens
Windowbox curb appeal
Sitting on the front of the house, this 36-inch-long, 11-inch-wide and 10-inch-deep resin windowbox needs eye-catching curb appeal all year, so it gets an update every season. It’s filled with colorful cool-weather-loving annuals and perennials in its spring look here. She really likes perennial Totally Tangerine geum — all those orange blooms provide a striking contrast with the black trim and white siding of the house for 8 to 9 weeks. If the sweet alyssum and lysimachia get too long for the windowbox, go ahead and cut them back by a third to tidy up the look.
Seasonal container update
The geum, pansies and sweet alyssum tend to slow their blooming by early June, so Karin pulls these plants out and replaces them by summer, and later updates the look for fall too.
Container plan and plant list
A) Geum Geum Totally Tangerine
B) Daffodil Narcissus ‘Tete a Tete’
C) Pansy Viola hybrid
D) English ivy Hedera helix ‘Glacier’
E) Sweet alyssum Lobularia Snow Princess®
F) Pansy Viola cornuta ‘Frizzle Sizzle Mini Tapestry’
G) Lysimachia Lysimachia congestiflora Waikiki Sunset™
2024 Garden Gate Container Challenge Honorable Mentions
Honorable Mention Prize Package
- Ups-A-Daisy planter inserts | Ups-A-Daisy
- Containers Made Easy! book | Garden Gate Store
Nichelle Waller, NC | Honorable Mention
Follow Nichelle on Instagram: @nichellesgarden
Shade container with foliage texture
Liven up a shady deck or porch with this lovely container. The 15-inch-tall and 17-inch-wide ceramic pot’s earthy color puts all the emphasis on this foliage-focused design. From the frilly green ferns to the draping yellow-green sedge and the broad purple coral bells, the mix of leaf shapes and colors provides plenty of texture and interest as you walk up the steps.
Container care tips
Because this large container is on a shady porch, Nichelle says it doesn’t need much watering, and she fertilizes just once in late spring with an organic plant food. With mostly foliage plants, the only deadheading needed is to snip the spent coral bells blooms back below the leaves.
Container plan and plant list
A) Coral bells Heuchera Grande™ Amethyst
B) Autumn fern Dryopteris erythrosora ‘Brilliance’
C) Indian holly fern Arachniodes simplicior ‘Variegata’
D) Spotted deadnettle Lamium maculatum
E) Sedge Carex ‘Eversheen’
Rhonda Kaiser, TX | Honorable Mention
Follow Rhonda on Instagram: @southernhomeandfarm
Just Add Succulents
An assortment of succulents brings new life to the vintage wash tub that Rhonda places near a walkway in her Texas garden. She plants the 24-inch-diameter, 30-inch-deep tub using the Hügelkulture method, starting with a layer of firewood-sized logs at the bottom. Next she adds layers of small branches, plant debris, such as fallen leaves, and compost, to fill two-thirds of the tub. She tops it with cactus, palm and citrus potting mix for planting. Rhonda likes this technique because it provides organic nutrients and holds moisture well.
Container plan and plant list
A) Graptosedum Graptosedum ‘Darley Sunshine’
B) Squid agave Agave bracteosa
C) String of dolphins Senecio peregrinus
D) Blue chalksticks Senecio vitalis
E) Velvet leaf kalanchoe Kalanchoe beharensis
F) Echeveria Echeveria ‘Perle von Nurnberg'
G) Finger jade Crassula ovata
H) Echeveria Echeveria ‘Black Prince’
I) Ground cover sedum Sedum lineare
Courtney Lewis, OR | Honorable Mention
Follow Courtney on Instagram: @smartyplantsinlo
Romantic container with lavender & roses
Courtney’s front border gets some height and lots of color from this 23-inch-tall and 28-inch-wide blue glazed ceramic pot. This area is in full sun —perfect for the lavender, rose and annuals that thrive there in summer.
Container care tips
Courtney keeps this grouping flowery with a monthly dose of plant food from May to October. Then when temperatures get chilly in fall, she pulls out the bacopa, zinnia and geranium and replaces them with cool-weather-loving pansies (Viola hybrid), ornamental kale (Brassica oleracea) and ‘Silver Swan’ euphorbia (Euphorbia characias), a favorite perennial with variegated blue-green leaves edged in white.
Container plant list
A) English lavender Lavandula angustifolia
B) Shrub rose Rosa Flower Carpet® White
C) Geranium Pelargonium Americana® Pink
D) Zinnia Zinnia Profusion™ Yellow
E) Bacopa Sutera cordata
Shannyn Hyland, MI | Honorable Mention
Follow Shannyn on Instagram: @pollenandpeony
Welcoming hayrack
This 23-inch-long hayrack mounted on the garage serves as a colorful welcome to Shannyn’s backyard. Morning sun and afternoon shade provide enough light to keep this group of plants growing strong, but not so much that it burns the glossy purple foliage of the Persian shield.
Hayrack care tips
At just 9 inches wide and deep, this hayrack does need regular watering. Shannyn occasionally feeds with liquid fertilizer and stakes the elephant ear to help new stems stay upright. She augmented the existing supports behind the hayrack with a 1x2-inch scrap of wood centered beneath it. It helps offset some of the weight and makes the hayrack more secure.
Container plant list
A) Persian shield Strobilanthes dyeriana
B) Euphorbia Euphorbia hypericifolia Diamond Frost®
C) Caladium Caladium ‘White Christmas’
D) Elephant ear Colocasia esculenta ‘Black Magic’
E) Dichondra Dichondra argentea ‘Silver Falls’
Bethany Bey, IL | Honorable Mention
Follow Bethany on Instagram: @chicagogardener
Youtube: Chicago Gardener
Rooftop garden in the city
In order to get room for a garden, Bethany took over the roof of her zone 5 Illinois home. She added a comfy seating area to the 18-foot-long-by-19-foot-wide deck along with seven 3-foot-tall wooden raised beds around the perimeter and 50 containers and grow bags of assorted sizes. Now Bethany has plenty of room for growing plants! Learn her smart tips to create a beautiful rooftop container garden here.
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