How to made bare patio containers look pleasant

[WendyS]

Help!. Can't face planting all my patio containers with bedding plants this year now I can't use my hose, as all my watering-can lugging about will have to give my vegetable patch priority. How can I stop my patio containers from looking bare and unsightly? No plastic flower suggestions please !

[Plocket]

How many containers do you have and what are they made of? You could plant them with plants that don't require much water - perhaps make little alpine gardens.

[sddsddean]

If they are 'bucket sized', you could bung in a couple of seed potatoes. Not exactly pretty, but save you a walk to the bottom of the garden!

[hammerman]

Choose drought tolerant bedding.......geraniums, begonias, gazanias, mesembryanthemums, plus any of the mediterranean herbs. Try growing some lavender and rosemary in tubs.....even if you use them just for the one season.

As mentioned....some of the alpines such as sempervirens, echeverias and saxifage's will do fine.

But whatever you decide, almost all plants will require an initial period of watering in until they're established.

Hope this helps a bit

[jake-the-peg]

As hinted at above go to google type in drought tolerant plants and you'll get pages and pages of suggestions.

You may also find adding water retaining gel to the soil helps

[tinkertontom]

how about buying some differant coloured gravel of different sizes, lay on top of the earth in the pot some of the sheeting that stops weeds coming through then when you want to plant again just lift it off