If the nearest you have to a garden is small courtyard, balcony or terrace, you can still go potty this summer and create your own green space. Garden coach Elaine Jarvis explains why growing plants in pots makes sense, even if you have a garden.

Container gardening is easy to do and there are many reasons why it is also a sensible gardening option.
 
Seven reasons for growing plants in pots

Scope
Plants that require a longer growing season than you have to offer can be started indoors to bloom outside in summer and autumn. Frost-sensitive plants such as bay laurel and lemon verbena make wonderful houseplants in winter and spend the summer in the garden. Just make sure that in spring they are allowed a transition period from limited sunlight indoors to brighter light outdoors. The ‘orangery’ technique is the basis of this concept, which includes growing citrus fruits in pots so they can move indoors to over-winter.

Ambience
Pots set the stage in ‘outdoor rooms’.  Make a group of sun-loving plants around a large houseplant that will be spending the summer outdoors. A jumble of various pots stacked on stands and clustered loosely lends a pleasantly casual look. Containers aligned with precision and planted with trim specimens, such as rosemary standards or ivy topiaries, create instant formality. A trio of large pots makes a garden appear more settled; they suggest the accumulation of years' growth.

Focus
Potted plants and pots create interest. Grouped in strategic places, they break the monotony of a balcony, terrace or patio and create an ambient scene. Build a simple theme garden around a colour or an idea. A collection of yellow and blue bloomers, such as pansies, Calendula, and heliotrope, makes a cheerful display. Pots of sedum and Sempervivum look simple but elegant.

Zing
Nestle containers of bright annuals among duller plants in the garden for added colour. To keep plants looking good: Water when soil dries; pinch off spent blooms, and fertilize weekly.

Flexibility
Rearrange plantings to suit the season or your mood. Enjoy pots of violets and narcissus in spring; petunias and dusty-miller in summer; and Coleus in autumn.

Limitation
Contain ‘thugs’ which are too invasive to let loose in a garden, such as ribbon grass (Phalaris), blue lyme grass (Elymus glaucus), and mints of all kinds (Mentha sp.). Plant these or other gregarious growers in terracotta pots, and then plant the pot in the ground, with the lip of the pot even with the soil surface


Mobility
What gardener hasn't wished that a plant grew somewhere else? Plants in pots are easy to move around. Light up a dark corner with pots of white, pink, or yellow flowering shade lovers such as impatiens and Helichrysum. Some plants with a short blooming period, such as lilies or foxglove, look magnificent in containers and grow well in those temporary quarters. If possible, transplant them to the garden when they are finished blooming. And of course, if you are about to move your household, containers allow you to take the garden with you.

Elaine Jarvis works in France as a garden coach and garden design consultant. She can be reached at elaine@jardinjarvis.com

Elaine will shortly be added to our ask-the-expert listing to answer your questions on gardening.

[Copyright Expatica + Elaine Jarvis]