Hello everyone! Ok, so this list of three types is copied from my blog. But please feel free to tell everyone what type of container gardener you are, and maybe even share a few photos. Happy gardening everyone!
The list:
#1: The Classicist: Formal Style:
Formal gardens appeal to homeowners for a variety of reasons: they reflect the style of a period or older home, they work well in small places, and they impart a sense of order in a landscape. Formal elements appeal to gardeners who appreciate simplicity and repetition. Additionally, a traditional garden plan is easy to lay out and plant.
Formal container gardens, like formal in-ground gardens, get their stylistic good looks from characteristics that define their style. In general, traditional gardens are symmetrical and balanced. Their design relies on heavily on structure, order, and geometry. To achieve these design objectives, think in multiples; repetition is your best friend. If you plant one gorgeous container, plant another one just like it (in an identical pot) to achieve a mirroring, thus traditional, look.
Since structure is a strong element of traditional style, a traditional container garden is all about pot placement. For example, in-ground formal gardens always have a central axis, such as a path. They also depend on a focal point, such as an accent plant, a sculpture, or a bench, to draw the eye inward. You can achieve a similar formal spatial layout by placing containers in a line, square, or circle. A container can be an element of a formal in-ground garden. For example, many formal gardens use containers as a focal point in the center of the garden. If you don't have space for an in-ground garden, you can create a formal garden using containers alone. Combine traditional plants with classic containers for a formal garden look in an entryway or backyard or on a condo or apartment terrace.
#2: The Romantic: Cottage Style:
Are you a gardener who thrills to the sight of lots of color, mounds of flowers, and cascades of foliage—all barely contained in the pot they are planted in? Then you are probably a cottage gardener at heart. Whether you adorn your front porch with big, blowsy pots of flowers, hang flower-laden window boxes at every window, or add colorful containers to your garden beds and borders, flower-filled pots can add romantic exuberance to your yard.
You can achieve a cottage-garden feel—in a container—by planting tightly, excessively, and with color and foliage show in mind. Combining plants of all heights, flower sizes, and textures will produce the most magnificent planters. Good container-planting advice is this: plant a thriller, a filler, and a spiller. Besides looking lovely to a passerby, romantic cottage-garden containers also appeal to wildlife on the wing.
For example, hanging baskets packed with red-and-pink fuchsia flowers will bring in hummingbirds; these flying wonders are attracted to the color red. Window boxes planted with zinnias, Pentax, and tithonia will lure in nectar-seeking butterflies too.
Consider fragrance when you plant. Many cottage-garden favorites are also sweetly scented, which adds to their romantic allure. Fragrant flowers and foliage include jasmine-vine, small rose varieties, and spice-scented dianthus.
Position scent-imbued containers near doorways and windows so you can catch sweet whiffs.
#3: The Individualist: Personal Style:
Let your personal passions and interest drive the design of your containers to express your own individual style.
Surround yourself with the containers, flowers, and colors that you enjoy. Personal style is sometimes referred to as "eclectic style", which means that you are free of any style constraints. You can mix modern with cottage elements, classic urns with country-style galvanized aluminum. You can't break any rules because personal style has none.
Personal container gardens showcase the gardener's passion. Do you love bright colors? Then pick containers in the hues that make you smile, and pack them full with equally bright-blooming flowers. Or are you fixated on just one color? Solitary color themes are easy to create—just choose containers and flowers of one hue. For example, do you like the formality of an all-white garden? Choose white containers (in any style) and fill them with white-flowering and white-foliage plants such as bacopa, dusty miller, and petunias. Is blue your favorite color? Then select blue containers and pack them with the vivid blue blooms of lobelia, fanflower, and blue salvia.
But, of course, you don't have to be either of the "personal style container gardener" examples that I have shown you above, because as I already stated, there are no rules with personal gardening themes and you are free to just plant and organize the way you like!
